donhaller 

I'm considering commuting at least a couple days per week. It's a 25 mile commute each way - is this too far for the average commute? Its fairly flat with a couple good hills. It is a heavily traveled main artery into Washington DC, but has fairly wide burms. Some parts will be risky but overall I think it is doable as far as safety is concerend. My biggest fear is how far is really practical for the averag rider.

10 Wheels

I would think that the time is takes would be a greater factor.
How much time would you spend getting there?

I commute to a bike ride 7.5 miles one way.
No traffic 30 minutes. Heavy traffic 45 minutes.

apricissimus 

That's pretty damn long. I have a very short commute compared to most here, but for me personally, I think I would not ride my bike the whole way if it took much longer than an hour each way. And 25 miles would probably take me on the order of 90 minutes or longer. It's not so much the riding I would want to avoid. I just don't have that much time in my day.

Well... I guess the riding would be tough on me too until I got used to it. I'm not used to riding 50 miles every day!

chipcom 

If a fat farker like me can do 25 rolling miles each way, you can too. It's not a question of if you can do it physically, it's more a question of do you want to spend a minimum of 3 hours a day on your bike.

SouthFLpix

Even if you don't ride the entire way everyday, I think you can drive a portion, park in a supermarket or mall, and ride the rest of the way.

nahh

As people said, 25 Miles is fine physically, i read about some guy that had a 50 one-way commute. But i wouldn't do it myself. Even though i'd love being on the bike for 3 hours a day, i'd never get to sleep, and i definitely wouldn't have a "life". My commute is short, less than 45 minutes on the bike a day, and that's about all my schedule allows for.

my advice is if you have the time then awesome. but if you don't, drive or take a bus, etc. part of the way, then bike the rest.

kuan

Wow that's a long way! But then it takes you 2 hours to go 10 miles in some cities.

Tabor

You can also do what one of my buddies does. Drive in on day one with your bike. Then ride home. Ride back in the next morning on your bike, then drive home. Rinse-repeat.

10 Wheels

Try it on an Off Day.
Do you have any pics of your 1980 Nishiki Custom Road bike.
I started this year on an 83 Nishiki Sport. Rode it 1500 miles.

hubcap

I usually ride (each way) 9 miles - 1/2 hr train ride - then 5 more miles. Sometimes I skip the train and take a different route that I can just ride the whole way. That is about 33 miles each way. It is very flat here, so I ride a single speed. When I ride the whole way, it takes me 2hrs 15mins to get to work and a little longer to get home due to traffic. I'm beat when I get home, so I only do that once every week or two.

My bike commute used to be 18 miles each way and I would do that 3 or 4 days in a row without a problem. 25 miles each way is doable if you have the time to spend on the saddle.

JayTee705

I may find this out firsthand. My current commute is 15 miles one way, but we're considering moving to where it would bump up to 25 miles.

I'm sure I could go more than 15 miles, but 25 involves significantly more time and reduces the margin for error in terms of timely arrivals.

Fortunately, my route takes me along a train line, which means I could experiment with using the train for part or all of a particular leg. But it sure is simpler just to ride 'til you get there!

GoldIngot

I agree with 10 wheels here. I think it's more of a time issue than a ride issue. I bike once or twice a week and it's 20 miles each way. The ride itself isn't bad but what blows is getting home so late. One thing I do is combine my bike day with a day when I have late meetings so the effect at home isn't that bad. I can leave my desk on time and be home at 6:20 so I ride on a day when I would get home later anyway.

Good luck.

MMACH 5

When I take the long route, it is 25 miles, one way. The shortest route I can take is 22.5 miles.
I do it three days a week. You might want to start out just doing it once a week, see how that works out for you and then add days as you feel like it's feasible.

As for the train or bus, here in Dallas, mass transit adds 30 minutes to my commute, each way (and that's if I ride to the station—walking combined with the switching buses/trains adds and hour).

Ka_Jun

Do intermodal commuting so that the time committment is what you want to make it. If 25 is too much, cut it down.

jeff^d

I commute about 25 miles round trip each day. Personally, 50 miles round trip on a busy street in stop and go traffic would be too much. I'd definitely look into public transportation or driving one way and biking the other, then repeat in reverse, as mentioned by Tabor above.

benda18

80 miles RT. most days is an 8 mi. extremely hilly ride to the park and ride followed by a 32 mi. bus ride. reverse for trip home.

if the weather is nice and i don't have anything to rush home for, i'll ride the whole way home. 15mi. road 25 mi. mup. i'd do it more often except it takes for-flippin-ever.

donhaller 

You guys have given me quite a few options to ponder. All good ones I might add. Brenda got me thinking about riding out to one of the park and rides and grabbing a bus the rest of the way in. I have to find out if the buses will allow bikes on board.

I also liked the idea of driving in one day and riding home in the afternoon, then riding back to work the next morning.

I also considered driving to a closer location about halfway and then riding the rest of the way into work, but that kind of negates trying to eliminate driving a few days a week. I guess the bus is not different.

Thanks for the comments - you all got me thinking in the right direction.

donhaller 

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Soho17.0

My roundtrip commute is 34 miles. It usually takes me right at 55 minutes each way. That is really onl 1/2 hour longer than my usual drive. I agree with most people here where the biggest factor is time. Your commute length will really boil down to your ambition and available time. Some days I will drive 6 miles and bike the rest. IMHO something is really better than nothing.

JoeyBike

My answer would be 8 to 12 miles for most average riders could be fun and comfortable even in a bit of bad weather every day 5 days a week.

I consider myself to be above average. I was forced to commute 17 miles each way for a couple of years (thanks to Hurricane Katrina flooding my home). It pretty much sucked, even though my routes were pretty good. Just too much every day. Fortunately, my job does not require me to be there no matter what, so on really bad weather days i.e., LIGHTNING.....I got a pass from the boss no problem.

25 miles on a limited basis like you said, maybe one or two days a week, should be fine so long as you are willing to spend that kind of time. Try it and see! Just don't sell the car just yet.

Brian T

Brother, Thats just more time in the saddle. Go for it. If nothing else you'll have bragging rights here in the forum

JeffS

I no longer own a car, and if I were faced with a 50-mile RT commute every single day.... I'd be nervous. I could do it, I just don't know that I'd enjoy it anymore.

stevage

>My biggest fear is how far is really practical for the averag rider.

Try it and see. What are you asking us for? For most people here, 50 miles (80k) round trip would be too far for regular commuting. But why don't you just try it and see? Even if you only ever do it once, you'll probably be glad you did it.

Steve

Loren3

Depends on whether you can bike to the bus. If there's a subscription bus that's within a few miles of your home, you could at least avoid taking the car out. I take a similar approach for my commute. On crummy days, I bike to the train, take the train to the airport, then bike from there to work, reversing the whole trip coming home. On nice days, I jump off the train wherever I want and bike one of a dozen or so ways home, depending on whether I want a long cadenced endurance ride, or a short fast cardio ride, or the long ride through the park with lots of hills for "cross-training".

Of course winds were gusting to 30mph and temps were in the high 30s, so it was pretty much straight home today.

unixpro

I ride 19 miles each way. It takes me 2 hours going in and 1.5 hours coming home. Guess which direction has the big hill

Last week I had to drive one day. First time I'd done that in a while. It took me over an hour each way (I think it was something like an hour and a half on the way in and just over an hour on the way home). It's sad but true that I'm able to go almost as fast on my bicycle as people *on the freeway* in their cars. Of course, if I drove I wouldn't have to shower, but I also wouldn't feel as alive and awake, and would probably have feelings of guilt as I ate that fat burrito for lunch

Next week I've got to go from Seattle to Richmond, BC for a day. It's about 150 miles. I wonder what my boss would say if I told him I wanted to ride it I could do it if I rode up on Sunday.