bigbenaugust 

Seeing as they're the ones either paying upwards of $600/yr in parking or sleeping on the train every morning, I get a lot of respect. It's where we cross from "he's the guy who rides in all the time" to "he's the guy who doesn't have a car" that they start treating me like a freak.

starla

In my neck of the woods, especially around where I work, it's just not all that common to even run into cyclists, much less anyone who commutes in them. I live in a very traditional, conservative area, so I was a little curious what kind of response I would get from the "born and bred." Some of them actually seem kind of proud. At least I'm assuming "brass ones" is a compliment.

ks1g

Until this week I was my work group's "bike commute guy". There are other bike commuters at work, and mine is not the longest commute, or the nastiest, but I've been riding regularly, usually 2-3x a week and kept it up through the past 2 winters. Sometimes it was quiet amusement, sometimes unabashed awe. Sometimes good-natured kidding. They were cool with it, and I even get questions sometimes about working in rides or viable routes to the office (some of my co-workers have commutes from hell).

A new person has transferred onto our team and we found on on Monday that (a) they bike commute, too (and of course, I hadn't that day), (b) a longer distance than my ride, (c) year round, (d) with a goal of more miles on their bike each year than on their Jeep, (e) and have been doing so for the past 4 years. [I was wondering who's bike that was on the rack. I saw it on days I thought it was madness to ride. Now I know.] My street cred is shot F O R E V E R!

icebike

The young ladies on campus whistle at my sculpted cyclist legs when I'm wearing shorts... that's more than worth it.
In our lab more than half of the people commute by bike, including all senior management. So even if people think it's crazy they just shut it and smile... I'm sure we looks insane riding in -30C snow covered winters to them though.

o-dog

I can go to Staples on the bike, depending on what I'm getting from there.

the bank deposits on the other hand are another issue... the bank is closed after 2 and the only other option is the drive through which they won't let me use on the bike ... they actually told me, a customer, "you're holding up the cars" - that's why seeing them tout their latest "green initiative" on signs in their lobby makes me want to puke at the ****ing hypocrisy. I could go at lunch but it takes more than 5 minutes to go to and from the bank on a bike and thats a waste of time in my employers eyes.

toyota200x

I walk to work here in Minnesota. There were some nasty cold days this last winter and I people had some disbelif. I think some wish they could walk but most are to lazy.

A job I had 2 years ago I had a 12mi round trip. Most of the people thought it was cool that I biked that far.

stevage

I must have non judgmental colleagues. When I started riding to work, I didn't get any comments. When I parked my bike in the office one day, I didn't get any comments. One of them asked about my route today, I showed him on Bikely. Very matter of fact.

Steve

tsl

Except for an elderly part-time librarian (the sort who misses the days of card catalogs and rubber stamps) it's pretty much a non-issue with my coworkers. Although they complain in the winter that since I'm always able to get to work, that they feel they can't call in for a snow day.

The library patrons, on the other hand, run the full gamut from other cyclists who do the same thing, people who think I ride because I'm a tree-hugger, kids who think it's cool a grown-up rides a bike, and last week, absolute shock and horror.

The woman's jaw literally dropped and she stood there, unable to speak, making O shapes with her mouth when she found that both circulation desk clerks facing her (a coworker and I) had been car-free for years and years.

She discovered this while offering to give my coworker a ride when it's raining. Her response, "You know that song that goes, `Like walking in the rain and the snow...', well, I like it."

Wheeling my bike out from the back at closing one cold and snowy night, another patron said, "I'm going to have to revise my opinion of people who ride bikes in the winter."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"You've got a decent job with the city and don't appear to be homeless or mentally challenged."

All I could think was, Well, gee thanks, mister.

steve2k

My co workers are pretty cool about it.

There are quite a few commuters where I am, from the bikes on the rack, there are probably 3 or 4 who do it every day no matter what the weather (me included). When the sun comes out there can be 20 or more bikes on the rack.
Most people live within 5 miles so many more could cycle but don't.

My company are cool about it, they provide racks, showers a drying room with lockers. They also take part in the bike to work week and give out free breakfast, t-shirts, bike checkups etc.

chucko58

Silicon Valley has a great climate (no snow, like ever) and a huge community of road cyclists. So it's not surprising that there are a lot of bike commuters here. Some even ride the train down from San Francisco and bike to work from the station.

Several of my co-workers are also bike commuters, so no one thinks twice about it.

Outside work... that's another story. I bike to evening social events, 12-step meetings, etc. and people think I'm slightly deranged. I'm usually the only one there in bike clothes. But even they've gotten used to it.

wolfanddeer

O-Dog: Tell them you'll do the errands but it'll take a little bit longer on 2 wheels

jdcii

I usually get I can't believe you ride 17 miles one way speech and then they go into how they need to start riding their bikes. I've only seen one other guy do it here. But over all, they are supportive. Of course, I get the usual taunting about my clothes and whether I stink during the hot weather, so I play along. After all, I'm riding for me, not them.

caloso

Funny. I'm rarely the only person to ride to my 12-step meetings. Although I suspect that I'm the only one who rides a bike there voluntarily....

chucko58

Yeah, most of the old-timers think it's funny that I choose to bike when I could drive!

tehdely

I ride to all my 12-step meetings, too. Nobody bats an eyelid.

Nobody really gives a **** if you ride a bike in San Francisco. It actually makes it hard to be smug about the whole ordeal

o-dog

easier said than done. I just found out our bank has a remote deposit system that'll let us do deposits from the office... trying to get that implemented, haven't gotten a response back so far.

referee54

Most of my fellow teachers are facinated by it---also because I have had a bilateral TKR just five months ago---my students think that it is cool that their teacher is in better shape than most of them. I park my bike in the back of my classroom and many ask questions about the bike and the commute.

Tim C.

Sixty Fiver

A self portrait on my commute today... you can see I have switched to my warm weather gear.



Despite the snow it was pretty nice here today... albeit really wet.

Lamplight

That still looks pretty chilly, but not compared to some of your pictures. It was almost 90F here yesterday, which makes me wonder what summer will be like.

thebarerider

Yesterday was in the 80s here but it felt like a sauna. I'm worried about the summer too

ctoddrun

Initially I got lots of "really?" kind of responses. Now it's almost normal, with an occasional dose of admiration. Also get a lot of the "I wish I could do that but..." Sad thing is, for a good number of them, it's actually true. While they live close enough, the infrastructure in some places here in DFW just won't support it. I'm fortunate that I have no lakes between me and the office, and a good route that doesn't require me to ride on any major highways. I would not ride if I had the same commute as most of my coworkers (and even if I was inclined, dw would have nothing to do with that...)

It's actually becoming more common at the office, though. 2 years ago we petitioned the facilities gang to move one of the bike racks out of the parking garage and closer to the building, which they kindly did. For a long time there were no more than 4 bikes there on any given day. Yesterday, it was full - I put in a call to them today to see if they could move the other rack from the garage and put it next to the current one. Looks like that's going to happen... 3000 people in this office, and 10 bikes in the rack. Bet gas prices drive that number up!

Sixty Fiver

We got a foot of snow between Sunday and Tuesday which is going to melt faster than it came down as the temperatures are expected to get back to seasonal norms (+10C) and I will be wearing shorts.

Today will be 0C / 32 F (all the snow moderates the air temp) and things will be really wet as we are getting some serious sunshine.

Ashen

I don't think anyone really notices, or if they did they wouldn't care. This is Seattle after all

GreenPremier

I get asked alot, when the weater sucks, if I rode in. If it's not below zero and windy, it's always, "of course!"
Today is was raining/storming on my way in, fortunately it was not windy. I like warm and rainy weather, it's pleasant. Someone asked if I rode, "hell yes"...

goalieMN

When it was below zero, I was crazy. When it is 70 and beautiful like yesterday, I am not only incredibly good looking, but smart too!!!