Cycling to work. Advice, hints, resources...

[AJ Dual]

I've been toying with the idea of riding to work 3 times a week or so, mainly for the ability to combine my commute with exercise. Figuring it takes about a half hour in the car to go the 16 miles, 1.25 hours each way on bike would be about the same as 1.5 hours in the gym in terms of time expended.

Bike? I've got a 1987 vintage Sanwa, which I believe is a decent mid-level Japanese bike sold out of Wisconsin. One or two rungs up from what's sold at Walmart etc.  Decent narrow wheeled touring bike. Above average components as compared to Big-box retailers. New tires from last year so I could ride with my girls around the block etc.

Route? Working from Google Maps, I've found a relatively direct route, a little over 1/2 of which is on bike trail. and about 1/2 of the street half is on low volume light industrial or residential streets. So traffic isn't much of a concern for most of the ride.

Work has no real dress code, I could work in shorts and a t-shirt etc. all day, even a cycling outfit wouldn't really bother anyone, if I wouldn't look ridiculous at my present weight and fitness level. Only the lack of a locker-room/shower and stinking up the place etc. concerns me. I can use an empty office, or one of someone who's not at work for a private place to change if need be.

I don't need to carry anything to/from work other than keys, wallet, phone change of clothes etc. Brown bag lunch if I'm being frugal.

I know we have a few avid cyclists on here. Any resources or hints?

[sanglant]

going moped. would cut down on the morning sweats. other than that. LIGHTS even if you plan on getting home by dark, you will end up running late and reflectors aren't worth there weight.

[Jamisjockey]

Baby wipes and deoderant are your friend.  You could even keep a solar shower at work and just use warm tap water to fill it and wash up.  Ride in dedicated comfortable cycling clothes, and change at work. 
Preposition gear at work.  I used to keep shoes and sandals, and I would bring in a duffel with my change of clothes in the day before.  Often times I'd bring my lunch in advance, too. 
Examine the route in advance.  Drive it and look for good wide lanes, shoulders or bike lanes.  Sometimes you can even find inventive shortcuts on the bike through neighborhoods or industrial areas that you normally wouldn't take the car through.
Riding sidewalks sucks. 
(just re-read your post and it sounds like you've got a good route)

Make sure you know how to change a flat, quickly.  I lost time once changing a flat in the dark without any light and ended up waking my pregnant wife up and having her pick me up.  Not fun.

Lighting is always an issue.  Make sure if you'll need lights during the times you'll be riding.  I don't have reflectors on my bikes, but used clip on ones for the commute, just in case.  The reflectors are best on the sides of the bike.

Sometimes I rode that far with a backpack, but found it was most comfortable to use a pannier rack and a 'trunk' bag on the bike.  A simple seatpost rack would work in your case.

[MillCreek]

http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?20-Commuting

Lots of good advice and stickies here.

[Northwoods]

I biked to and from work a fair bit when I lived in Yakima.  It was only 6 miles or so, so I didn't worry about showering when I got it.  I took it easy on the way in too to minimize sweat and then pounded as hard as I could on the way home.

Biggest problems I had were flats and snow.  Left work one evening with a light snow fall but nothing really sticking.  Every turn of the crank the snow started to come down harder and faster.  Got halfway home before abandoning the attempt.  By that time I was going through a good 3" of snow.  On a recumbent, short wheel base road bike  .  Luckilly my pastor was only a couple hundred yards farther so I just walked the bike to his house and his wife was nice enough to drive me the rest of the way.

Once I get settled in our new house (we've put an offer in, still working on getting mutual acceptance) my plan is ride as much as possible.  Shortest route is 15.3mi.  Shortest non-suicidal route appears to be 17.9mi.  It'll take a while to work up to doing that both ways every day.

[zxcvbob]

I'll start riding to work in anothe week or two when the weather gets right for it.  What I do is wear my cleanest dirty shirt or a clean tee shirt to work and I carry a folded clean shirt with me.  Then about 10 or 15 minutes after I get there (so I can cool down a little) I change shirts.  There is a shower down in the manufacturing area, but I haven't had to use it; just changing shirts is good enough.

My ride is about 4.5 miles, uphill almost all the way to work and then of course downhill on the way home.  And the prevailing wind is always against me.  I ride a 21 speed mountain bike with fat knobby tires, but they have a smooth-ish center rib and I air them up really hard -- so I can coast a long ways but it's not a racing bike.

[Vodka7]

JJ's got great advice.  Only thing I'd add is that biking in the gym isn't the same as biking in the real world.  "ride with my girls around the block etc" and "if I wouldn't look ridiculous at my present weight and fitness level" make me wonder if maybe it's been a while since you did over 150 miles a week on a bike :D

Do it on the weekend if you can fit it in.

[Harold Tuttle]

check the crime logs for your path

A buddy used to commute from Silver Spring MD to DownTown WDC

His path on Georgia avenue took him right thru the biggest DC crack market

It was not much of an issue at 8 am on a Tuesday,
but Friday at 6pm?

[Ron]

Baby wipes and deodorant are your friend.

These will work better than baby wipes when the weather gets warmer.

http://www.rei.com/product/750942

I would start doing some long rides on your day(s) off to see how good a cycling shape your in first. I'm riding around 50-60 miles a week combined recreationaly and commuting. I feel great but...you have to eat good and feed the machine properly or you will feel like sheet.

[AJ Dual]

check the crime logs for your path

A buddy used to commute from Silver Spring MD to DownTown WDC

His path on Georgia avenue took him right thru the biggest DC crack market

It was not much of an issue at 8 am on a Tuesday,
but Friday at 6pm?

Thanks for the advice so far. My commute is entirely through suburbia, so from a safety/crime standpoint it's very good,  And the route I have planned is about 4 miles through my suburb on surface streets until I pick up the head of the bike trail. Then 8 miles on the trail. (Made along high tension power lines right-of-way, then about another 4 miles through surface streets.

The second leg of surface streets, about the last three miles of that is on a major divided thoroughfare, but it butts up against a river to the east, a quarry pit to the west for major portions of it, so I have much less merging or cross-traffic to contend with.

I do plan on a test ride, and some conditioning rides as well beforehand. And to reiterate, I plan on doing this twice/three times a week weather permitting, and only from mid-spring to mid-fall. No night/dusk riding, and only weather permitting. I'd only make this an every-day thing if it works out better than I expected, and my fitness level  gets way better et.

If there's a good way to share Google Maps, I can show anyone who's interested in seeing the route.

[sanglant]

If there's a good way to share Google Maps, I can show anyone who's interested in seeing the route.

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=23557.msg453348#msg453348

click on link
then on "Paste link in email or IM"
the highlight and copy/cut the link looks like

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http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=35.726400,+-81.211241&daddr=35.650043,-81.196861+to:35.726296,-81.211284&hl=en&geocode=FUAkIQIdl9Ao-w%3B%3BFdgjIQIdbNAo-w&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=14&via=1&sll=35.657017,-81.203299&sspn=0.063323,0.104628&ie=UTF8&ll=35.669569,-81.204071&spn=0.126627,0.209255&z=13

[Northwoods]

I do plan on a test ride, and some conditioning rides as well beforehand. And to reiterate, I plan on doing this twice/three times a week weather permitting, and only from mid-spring to mid-fall. No night/dusk riding, and only weather permitting. I'd only make this an every-day thing if it works out better than I expected, and my fitness level  gets way better et.

I'll be shocked if you're still doing this come mid-fall.  Sorry, but everyone I know (myself included) who says that fails miserably.  You get started, stick to it for a few weeks and then between weather, logistics, time away from home, etc it starts to slip until finally after another couple/three months go by and you've totally stopped.  I've done that routine a few times myself.

When I start riding again it's going to be all in, at least in the sense of not letting bad weather stop me.  I'll adjust the milage I ride to suit my fitness, but if I don't commit to doing it everyday, rain or shine, I won't stick with it.  Only weather exceptions I'd make would be for snow/ice.  It's just too dangerous to bike on the roads with snow/ice on the ground.  My mom's major prof during her PhD phase shattered his pelvis when he hit a patch of ice on a corner biking into work.  But rain?  Phhht.  A little rain won't hurt you, and here in the PNW I'd never ride if I let rain stop me.  

[AJ Dual]

http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=23557.msg453348#msg453348

click on link
then on "Paste link in email or IM"
the highlight and copy/cut the link looks like

Code: [Select]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=35.726400,+-81.211241&daddr=35.650043,-81.196861+to:35.726296,-81.211284&hl=en&geocode=FUAkIQIdl9Ao-w%3B%3BFdgjIQIdbNAo-w&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=14&via=1&sll=35.657017,-81.203299&sspn=0.063323,0.104628&ie=UTF8&ll=35.669569,-81.204071&spn=0.126627,0.209255&z=13

Ahh. I see it now.

Proposed bike route.

I can join the trail even closer to my home, (ignore the two weird U-turns, I can't seem to edit out the waypoints, or it just makes it worse...) although it crosses railroad tracks at one point. Some of them are defunct, but I'd worry more about a parked train blocking me than a moving one. So I could bypass that spot and pick the path up on the other side of US45/I894.

But you can see how I can make it about 2/3rds of the way on a bike trail, and I only have to pick up surface streets back in Waukesha.

[Harold Tuttle]

it looks like you could trim a couple of miles with a mountain bike and some park riding

[sanglant]

looks like the bike trail has some oneways, if so that's the route.

edit: the mitchell one looks like it's just turning around instead of making a left.

[Harold Tuttle]

heres my olde commute

[Jamisjockey]

Is the bike trail paved or dirt?

[sanglant]

there's street view.

[Jamisjockey]

Ah street view shows it paved.


Here's my old commute.  Interesting part was doing it at 0500 in the morning so I could be showered and ready to work by 0630....

[norinco982lover]

My only concern from what I have read so far is the shape your bike is in.

If this works out you might consider a new bike. I recently picked up my first "real" bike, a 2009 Trek 4300 mountain bike. If I get a job closer to home (I might soon) I will definitely commute on my bicycle regulary.


~Norinco

[MillCreek]

I wish, wish, wish I could figure out a better way to commute to work via bicycle.  I am already riding the scooter to work seven months out of the year to reduce my carbon footprint.  My problem is I have to wear business attire to the office, and we have no shower or locker facilities or any real place to change other than the head.  Riding in business attire is not an option for this 10 mile hilly commute. 

But I get enough recreational bicycle riding for enjoyment and to stay in shape.  I don't need to bicycle commute for that purpose.  Commuting via car uses about a gallon of gas per day, and I can commute for three days on the scooter for a gallon of gas.  The car and scooter are all paid for, so there is little incremental cost for commuting. 

I will continue to think about this.

[Harold Tuttle]

I wish to reduce my carbon footprint.

http://zeromotorcycles.com/

[AJ Dual]

it looks like you could trim a couple of miles with a mountain bike and some park riding

Where exactly?

The trip is already pretty orthogonal. The only way I could see making it shorter is cutting the hypotenuse, but the Interstate is a big barrier, with only a certain number of over/underpasses to cross it when going north-south. Where do you think you see shortcuts?

And a lot of the green space you see is probably not as passable as it seems from the air.

looks like the bike trail has some oneways, if so that's the route.

edit: the mitchell one looks like it's just turning around instead of making a left.

That's not the path itself. Google Maps is having a hard time following the path at those two weird spots in the eastern end of the route, and just follows the GIS coordinates of traffic directions and intersections. I think the cycling .org that provided the bike path overlay into Google Maps wanted to denote that the path abrupts on certain roads, but that screws up the pathing algorithm. It's one long straight shot that follows the train tracks and high-tension lines. But when I try to remove those dead-end loops by dragging the waypoint dots, it either gets even worse, or just refuses to go away.

Is the bike trail paved or dirt?

It's partly paved, or gravel. If you looked at it from street-view, you're probably seeing the paved aprons that go up to the car-gate with pedestrian/bike sized gaps in them. The path has been there since the 70's, so it's not very loose, it's like a compacted gravel driveway. And Wisconsin Electric also uses it as their right-of-way to access the towers, so there are service trucks packing it down every now and again too.

Although I think a "hybrid" would probably be the best kind of bike for this commute in the long-run. Especially so I can exploit any curb-hopping or other shortcuts to make my ride as fast/short as possible. So I'm thinking that would have the best compromise of road efficiency and coasting and off-road characteristics that I'd want.

My only concern from what I have read so far is the shape your bike is in.

If this works out you might consider a new bike. I recently picked up my first "real" bike, a 2009 Trek 4300 mountain bike. If I get a job closer to home (I might soon) I will definitely commute on my bicycle regulary.

~Norinco

My bike is certainly showing it's age. Although when my kids started riding two-wheelers, I took mine to a local bike shop for an inspection and tune-up etc.

However, if I do wind up doing this often enough, I will be in the market for a hybrid for the reasons I mention above.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

My bike is certainly showing it's age. Although when my kids started riding two-wheelers, I took mine to a local bike shop for an inspection and tune-up etc.

However, if I do wind up doing this often enough, I will be in the market for a hybrid for the reasons I mention above.

It might not hurt to have the mechanics at your local bike shop go over the machine.  I don't know what they'd charge, but for $50 or so it could be a real bargain in terms of the hassle and aggravation it might save you.

[MillCreek]

http://zeromotorcycles.com/

These, and the electric scooters, are quite a concept.  The range of only 50 miles or so at best, and the cost of $ 10,000 on up is keeping them back from wide-spread use.  The only people I have heard of actually buying them are celebrities and dot-com millionaires.