agent pombero

Ah, to be alive and well on the saddle!

BlueShoe

This may sound silly, but one of the things I really like about commuting is carrying stuff in my panniers (Brooks Brick Lane Roll-Ups). They're so capacious, I can pretty much carry everything I need. Once I even stopped by the post office on the way home and pick up a large package that I was able to transport easily.

I also like having my bike nearby all day long (sort of like a good luck charm) . In the late afternoon, whenever I think about the ride home, it lift my spirits.

mtbikerinpa

Well said.

So far the only place I've been asked to leave the bike out was at a local burger king. Pretty much all the stores that have shopping carts haven't said a thing.

Once, when I drove to work(which I do once or twice a week for rest), my boss commented that I must have driven because I looked tired. Ironic since I sleep in on the drive days and its a 10 mi ride. lol go fig. My last job wasn't feasible to ride since it was 25 miles and I found it hard to excede a short lunch time ride with the lifestyle before and after work, so the fitness level was a little laxed to the point I stopped XC racing(that and it was too expensive to justify low performance). Now with the commute it feels empowering and makes the work day go so much better. A lot of the time my job has me drive 3-4 hours a day in a work van so the idea of not driving my own stuff in addition just makes it that much nicer in addition to the limbering up. One coworker who drives and doesn't do cardio but raves about his fitness level goes to a gym for 2+ hrs after work everyday yet complains at times of the cost. It's nice to get the workout without having to go out of the way to do it!

TiBikeGuy

If you travel by car, buses or subway, any breakdown or traffic gridlock could put a damper in your morning commute to work. By riding my bike, I have a lot of choices of routes, ridng between the cars stuck in traffic, taking a short-cut through the park, bunny-hopping up the kerb and taking the sceneic route by the river and if I wanted to jump a few stairs and hope I don't look foolish after having crashing the bike....(ugh!! shouldn't have done that moment)

agent pombero

@BlueShoe: gorgeous panniers! How long have you owned them and how do they hold up to the elements?

Telly

It takes too long for milk and corn flakes to arrive from ebay and I get cranky without breakfast!

Seriously, I too order almost EVERYTHING online, even 80-90% of my grocery shopping, and the vast majority of cycling goods too! You can tell because my ebay account is in the first 6 months of the company opening! lol

Unfortunately almost without exception, businesses here in Athens do not allow you to bring the bike in, and since cyclist don't even bother asking about this, when I do, I get very peculiar stares from the employees or management (and of course a negative answer).

BlueShoe

I had to have a rear rack custom-made for the DL-1 so although I've had the panniers for a while, I only started commuting with them in the last six weeks. My bike stays indoors so the panniers haven't been tested too much yet in the elements. The material is a water-resistant cotton canvas with leather trim. I hope they will last a long time.

chefisaac

The love the peace and quiet of the commute especially when working in corporate he11

bluegoatwoods

A whole string of good answers here. I can hardly add anything.

And like Spivonius (I think..) I'm a bit narcissistic about it. I like the fact that I'm (we're) right and all of those others are wrong, wrong, wrong.

caloso

Bike commuters have taken the Red Pill.

scoatw

One of many is being able to overcome the elements. I like snowbiking and I don't mind riding in the rain.

PaulH

In much of the metro DC area, it's easier and less hassle than driving.

CommuteCommando

This is a definite downside the “multi-modal” thing. Sadly, my only other alternatives are to drive, or bike 65 miles each way. On the up side, in over five years of train/biking I have had only five seriously hampered rides. Three suicide by train (one of which was a guy threatening to jump off an overpass onto the tracks who was eventually talked down-at 4:00 AM the next day), one car on the tracks-occupants escaped-no derailment, and a Raiders game when a few years ago when my commute was to San Diego.

Accidents on the freeway, or just plain congestive gridlock, are for more common.

lhbernhardt

I gotta admit, for me this is a big part of it. If you travel in Third World Countries, you're constantly besieged by poor people holding out their hands for money. Here in North America, you are constantly besieged by corporations holding out their hands for whatever they can get away with charging. I see they're just now starting to charge for secure bike parking & showers, and I can see it getting worse as numbers reach a "critical mass." But for now, I can still "screw the system," defeat the corporate transportation infrastructure. Like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, I can use the existing infrastructure for free, avoiding the frustrating gridlock of being one bit in a serial synchronous half-duplex communications model (and once downtown, the stream gets packetized by the stoplights). Allegorically, bikes operate at a measly 300 baud, but it's all full duplex and parallel!

So bike commuters come out far ahead in terms of minimizing cost and aggravation. I remember seeing a survey of bike commuters, done back in the 70's (I recall John Forester mentioned it), and most bike commuters of the time were engineers and technical people, folks who think about how to make things better. I don't think you see too many stupid people riding bikes; those people are still stuck in their cars because that's the way it's always been done, and they can't think beyond that.

And beyond that, I just love being on the bike, regardless of weather or time of day.

Luis

I-Like-To-Bike

Really? Where are "they" charging cyclists for secure bike parking & showers or using the "corporate transportation infrastructure?"

I think you are thinking too hard about this; relax, you are riding a dang bike and it is NOT rocket science.

I suggest you think more about what you are writing on this subject and try not so hard to emulate an elitist, club cycling thought process based on bogus "studies."

Good thinking!

sternzeit

I like the free bungee cords I find on the side of the road.

lhbernhardt

"They" are the BC Institute of Technology in downtown Vancouver BC, which charges about $35/month to use a bike parking facility downtown. As numbers of cyclists increase, I can see more of this cropping up. Currently, my employer gives me access to a fairly secure bike room plus a shower facility for free, for which I am thankful. It's really expensive to park a car in downtown Vancouver, but it's nothing like Toronto!

"Transportation infrastructure:" you pay to drive and park the car. You pay to take the bus or rapid transit. You pay for streets and maintenance.

"Thinking too hard about this." No, just thinking about it for a long time. Thought I'd inject some novel ideas; you hear so many of the cliches anytime it comes to cycling. And you are right, it's not rocket science; anybody with a degree in computer science (or communications) can easily comprehend what I'm saying, or even better, refute it!

"emulating an elitist, club cycling thought process" - Who's emulating? I AM an elitist club cyclist. And just what's wrong with elitism, if you've worked all your life at getting better at something? I've been riding, racing, commuting for over 40 years, so I can't help but be smug!

Since I'm not sure about the tone of your response, I will forego any ill-intentioned rejoinder. But I can see that I'm not likely to encounter intelligent, respectful, and scintillating exchanges in this subforum! Good day!

Luis

I-Like-To-Bike

Your pride in your smugness will not bring forth any respectful or scintillating exchanges from me.
BTW riding, but not racing for 60 dang years.

wphamilton

I was thinking about this today because I overslept and had to drive in. Traffic was so annoying coming home, dealing with stop and go and juvenile maneuvers and sitting still on the interstate burning gas, that all I could think about was all these people doing this every day and not realizing what a waste it is. And most of them, if conversations with acquaintances and random strangers can be generalized, believe that I'm the crazy or eccentric one. Heck I was one of them for years, decades. It just boggles the mind that cycling is a vastly more attractive alternative, that is even cheaper and easier, yet so few people even attempt it.

I guess it's not a matter of smugness for doing something better, but more like the satisfaction of evading the trap that ensnares so many.

essiemyra

I like that I get to do what I love twice a day and it takes nothing away from my life but adds so much.

Bikepacker67

It's weird in that it's the one thing I never get sick of doing.
At least once I'm 10 minutes into it...

cycleobsidian

Are you smug about not being smug?

droy45

Ditto, precisely

I-Like-To-Bike

I am glad that I enjoy riding my bike for getting around town. Now that I am retired I no longer do the 24 mile R/T commute year round.

I am glad that a lot of other people have all sorts of positive thoughts about their bicycling.

I am also glad that I can enjoy cycling (and enjoyed bike commuting) without becoming a pompous elitist thinking that I must be superior and smarter than all the alleged üntermenchen who do not ride bicycles to every destination.

Bicycle Addict

We lead busy lives with a daily increase in the amount of cars on the road. I still to this day as I am riding out the gate feel like a kid leaving the house after my morning chores, off to explore, with a smile from ear to ear. I do not know of anything else that gives me this feeling.

Bicycles are my addiction, a way of holding onto my sense of self.

I am 37 and I think within my life time we will see a major increase again in the price of fuel again and again and I think it will keep going until it becomes near impossible for normal people on normal wages to afford to run their vehicles on a daily basis.

Then and only then will we see massive improvement in the cycle path type infrastructures.

Behold the humble bicycle . . . . the oldest form of mechanical transport for the individual person . . . and they will be the last.



Just my 2 cents