Dagamon

I look out the window of my office, and cyclists zip by all the time and every time I see one I die a little inside. To get to my office I have to cross the river, an interstate bridge where there are no cyclists or pedestrians allowed.

Can't move, can't change jobs, I just sit here in my cubicle getting fatter.

making

Is that the only route possible? I have found several alternate routes to work.

NeezyDeezy

Me, but because of a knee issue hopefully just temporarily

at least you can get some nice rec rides in!

ax0n

Show me about where you live and about where you work and I'll probably be able to show you a way to make it happen.

anastrophe

Is there public transport that can take you part way? A commuter lot where you can leave your car?
Another bridge within ten miles or that does allow pedestrians? Or, as a less exciting option, a place in your office you can keep a bike that you use to go on lunch rides?

Dagamon

There are, but they put me way too far out of my way for a reasonable commute.

chipcom 

drive-ride split?

AlmostTrick

I've always wanted to build a bike that converts to a pedal boat. How cool would that be?

DataJunkie

My arm is still recovering from my bike vs car accident. Maybe in a month I can commute.
I can handle being on a bike for an hr but lifting it will be an issue. To shorten my commute I need to put it on the light rail or a bus. No go with a bum arm.
At least my knee seems better. Hopefully, the doctor I will be meeting with on Monday will agree with my assessment.

e0richt

If you have a bike rack for the car you could do a "park and ride" kind of thing...
I am working up the nerve to try that myself as I am not in shape to handle the distance within a reasonable time frame...

I am a bit nervous about it though because of many "little" things... perceptions of my co-workers, not sure how friendly the traffic would be... that sort of thing...

making

screw them people, traffic aint friendly, coworkers suck and... actually most people are really nice about things, it is just the few that arent, and who cares about them anyway? Go forth and ride.

tulip

We only do what we want to do.

gronk40

Absolutely hilarious! Now I clean my coffee off of my computer monitor.

BarracksSi

Well, if I lived out of town, had no worthwhile public transit, and wasn't allowed to bike on any bridge crossing the river, then I'd be pretty screwed out of biking no matter how badly I wanted to do it.

genec

Foot problem, going on 3 weeks now... so I am "offline" for the moment.

notfred

If you really wanted to bike to work, you'd move, or you'd get a different job. You say you can't, but what you really mean is "It's too hard to move or change jobs, it's easier to give up on commuting by bike". Don't lie to yourself.

Edmund Hillary climbed mount Everest for the first time.
Magellan circumnavigated an uncharted planet in a wooden sailboat.

I know people who up and moved across the world. I have a friend who's father escaped communist Vietnam by taking his family in a small boat and sailing to San Francisco, giving up everything else that he had. When he got here, he sold the boat to find his family someplace to live. Now, 25 years later, he owns his own home and works for a computer company.

But no, you can't move across a river, that would be impossible.

noisebeam

What if you only went 'too far out' 2-3 times per week and motored the other 2-3 days. You could still cut the motoring 50% and (lets assume 'too far out' is twice as far) be cycling the same distance per week.

Al

mtnwalker

I can't, temporarily, because of a hip problem caused by my own laziness and stupidity.

Anyways, like some have suggested nothing is stopping you from doing a drive/bike split. Drive to a point where you can ride to work and go from there. Next thing you know you will be finding better routes and cutting your driving to increase the riding part.

If you really want to commute by bike, you'll find a way.

BarracksSi

What if the wife says no, the job is the only one of its kind you can get in that city, selling the house & moving would mean losing 50 grand because the housing market sucks, etc etc?

You can't get on someone's case like that without knowing their circumstances. They might actually be in a position where, if it were you instead, even you wouldn't be able to find a way to commute by bike.

To just call them lazy is pretty callous, IMO.

noisebeam

For example what if both yourself and your partner work. Yesterday you each work 5mi from home and both cycled to work. Your come to work today and learn your workplace has been moved 35mi further away.

If you can afford to move, where to? If you don't move, who gives up their job or looks for one closer?

Al

BarracksSi

+1
Exactly.

notfred

If he said "I'd like to commute, but it's more important to please my wife, or I like my job too much, or I don't want to lose $50,000 and these things are more important to me than commuting by bike, so I choose them over the bike", then fine, no one will fault him for that, but he said that he can't.

If you *really* wanted to do it badly enough, you'd sell the house and lose $50k so that you could do what you love. But maybe you love $50k more than commuting by bike. That's fine, but don't pretend like "costs $50k" means "impossible".

BarracksSi

Now that's just stupidity. There's no way that anyone should put themselves fifty thousand dollars in the hole. That's a LOT of money.

Go ride on the weekends or the occasional day off "so that you could do what you love", but don't screw yourself into not being able to pay a doctor's bill.

tulip

Bridges are a problem, but there's the part drive, part commute option. Even if you did that 2x a week, it would be better than nothing. Commuting routes played a big part in my house purchase.

notfred

I said it's perfectly reasonable NOT to do that, just that it could be done if someone really wanted to.

And plenty of people put themselves 50 grand in the hole for their own enjoyment. See every single person who owns a sports car or a boat, or lives in Manhattan, or likes to travel the world. But they're all just stupid.

I'm not saying that the way he's living his life right now is impractical, or anything less than the best that's possible for him. I'm simply saying that he could bike commute if he really wanted to, it just might not be worth whatever sacrifices he'd have to make.