I commute about 6 miles each way between Brooklyn (home) and Manhattan (work). I've been raving about it to everyone I know because it's legitimately changed my life. It feels amazing, saves money, keeps me in much better shape, gives me more energy at work. It's slightly faster than the subway, and significantly faster than driving/cabbing at rush hour.<p>I also love that transit time is very consistent (even relative to the subway, which has lately been wonky). It's great to arrive for our morning standup exactly 7 minutes early, rather than having to pad in 30 minutes of unproductive dead space in case the subway has some problem.<p>NYC bike paths have gotten pretty good over the years, such that I can use protected lanes for ~70% of the trip, and dedicated lanes for >90%. No accidents yet but several close calls, mostly with pedestrians. New York streets are crowded and aggressive, but the speeds are low and drivers are relatively vigilant.
I'm at my 12 year of every day bike commuting. Before I commuted 10 km each direction, now I'm at 6 km. If I have activities after work, I ride to them too. So my total ride length is a fair bit longer than what my commute is.<p>The public transportation network here in Stockholm is good, but wouldn't even consider cramming myself into a packed subway train or bus. Even at this time of the year when it's -5 degrees celcius and snowy I really enjoy my daily rides.<p>It cuts commuting time in half and I shave off another two hours of sitting without moving a day.<p>If possible, I highly recommend bike commuting. Get a good bike (with gears) and rack mounts for bags. Gravel/adventure bikes are fun to ride and work well on all surfaces. Supple 650b tyres are all the rage these days. They will give you plenty of comfort while sacrificing very little when it comes to performance[1].<p>Tomorrow I'll be going to the outskirts of town with work. Then it's 50 km. I already look forward to that workday adventure. :)<p>[1] <a href="https://janheine.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/12-myths-in-cycling-1-wider-tires-are-slower/" rel="nofollow">https://janheine.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/12-myths-in-cyclin...</a>
I've been cycling to work in downtown LA for nearly 8 years, 4 miles each way. I'm faster than a car over that commute. The weather is fantastic, and I am physically in great shape. Mental benefits are huge.<p>I've gone about 15,000 miles in dense urban environments without any accidents of any kind. There are a number of keys to this:<p>- Think like a driver -- it helps to be a good driver first<p>- Think, period. Don't listen to music, pay attention.<p>- Don't ride in the door zone. Don't let drivers make you ride in the door zone. If you need the lane, take the lane. It's your right.<p>- Use flashing lights on front and back, at all times of day. Nobody else except emergency vehicles is allowed to have flashing lights. There's a good reason: they are unmissable and very distracting.<p>- Wear brightly colored shirts and a bright colored helmet.<p>- If you don't wear a helmet, don't worry about it, it doesn't mitigate that much risk. The exercise benefits of biking do way more to increase your life expectancy than skipping a helmet does to reduce it.
I cycle around 3 times the distance he does daily to and from work in London. I've been doing this for 5 years. It's probably fair to say I take more days off than he does though (I leave the bike at home if going for a drink).<p>I suppose the same could be said for any form of regular exercise, but it makes such an improvement to how I feel when I get to work, and my general well-being. The pollution in London has always been a bit of a concern, however I hope the exercise outweighs this for the most part. I save around £8 a day by not taking the train.<p>I wish more people would give it a go. More people riding would result in better and safer infrastructure here. I do however, regularly see people get knocked off bikes and can understand the perceived risk and reluctance from others to try it. I'm envious of cities such as Copenhagen with great safe infrastructure, and where riding is the norm.
I've always used a bike to go to work, but now I'm in Mexico City. Too many cars, too much air pollution. Cycling here is bad for your health.<p>The public bicycle sharing system is really good and cheap. Some parts of the city are bike friendly. But the air quality is just so bad. The trucks that spew black smoke continuously. The buses that have never been controlled in 50 years. The SUVs traveling at 100 km/h on the lanes reserved for buses and bicycles. All the cars idling and honking in traffic after 6PM. It's really depressing. This city would be such a beautiful city without all those cars and trucks.<p>Refs:<p>- air quality: <a href="https://air.plumelabs.com/en/year/mexico" rel="nofollow">https://air.plumelabs.com/en/year/mexico</a><p>- ecoBici: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBici_(Mexico_City)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoBici_(Mexico_City)</a><p>- "Car ban fails to curb air pollution in Mexico City" <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38840076" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38840076</a>
I commuted by bike (6km one way) in Tel Aviv, Israel and it was awesome. Great route, bike lanes/parks and a (tiny, but who cares) shower in the office. Did that for one year straight, just like the person in the article.<p>Now I'm living in Singapore, a city that has a traffic problem and tries to reduce the cars on the streets. You'd think they would welcome bikes, but riding a bike here sucks. Big time. It's basically unbearable.<p>There are no sidewalks to speak of on a lot of roads. Often the sidewalks are divided in two segments of different heights. Tables will be on the sidewalk, garbage bins will block it.<p>Riding on the road - the norm in my home country - is discouraged by every local I've met, both bike fans and car drivers. You can ride the bike in this city, sometimes, in some places. But it's a pain in the rear to use it for commutes and a very, very bad experience around the central part of Singapore. Park connectors/outward regions are fine, but the traffic infested center is no place for a bike, which is quite sad..<p>What I'm trying to say is: I agree that the article describes a great way to live, something I dearly miss. I believe that this isn't possible for a lot of people though, in spite of the benefits it would provide to them and their surroundings.
As a counterbalance to all the positivity, I cycle to work and don't enjoy it or feel much benefit from it. In comparison, driving is so much more comfortable (especially in bad weather) and a bit quicker.
I live about the same distance from work as the writer, and I've been cycling to work since early October. I would have thought that such a short bike ride wouldn't have much of a health benefit, but I feel more energetic and my blood pressure is noticeably lower than it was a year ago.
I bike everyday to work in the South Bay, Silicon Valley area. Everyone I talk to here can't imagine life without a car, but I haven't had any issues; lots of bike paths here, and all groceries and the gym are just minutes away.<p>Sometimes when it rains I carpool, and I see how annoyed and irate most drivers get when commuting. So I don't regret not owning a car.<p>The downside is not being easily able to take day trips, so I still might buy one some day.
Cycling to work is normal here in the Netherlands, especially in the cities.<p>Given a few times when I've been sick, I've ridden almost every day to work and back (8km), regardless of the weather (and the Dutch weather is famous for being rubbish).<p>I'm a cyclist at heart so really enjoy the daily commute along the canals, back streets and cycle paths of the city.<p>To be fair, even the nightclubs have cycle parking - and an attendant present too for security.
I wish we had the bike culture in the US that exists elsewhere. Twice in my life I have regularly commuted to work a reasonable distance by bike and each time the habit was punctuated by being hit by a car. I feel safer walking than I do on a bike here.
conclusion: what a lovely route, choosing to cycle it isn't even a decision, especially as the other options seems to take longer. The author is super lucky and I'm jealous. I cycle to work too, but in a busy city.
I used to have a standard 9-5 gig and then I'd work at a bike shop during the week nights and on the weekends. I started biking in after a co-worker suggested it.<p>I was pretty surprised. The ride was about 20-25 minutes, mainly through your standard US suburbs so not hard at all. I rode to work 3-4 times a week and then on Saturday or Sunday.<p>I didn't change anything in my routine except for biking. I lost about 8 pounds, my blood pressure dropped and my already healthy cholesterol levels dropped another 4 points. I had more energy when I got to the shop and then had more energy when I got home. I was more willing to work on various projects when I got home instead of plunking down in front of the tv after being exhausted from a long day at the shop.
>There are about 250 work days in a year in Baden-Württemberg, excluding weekends and public holidays. Of those I was missing for 34 days for vacations, being sick and doing home office. On 11 days I used public transportation, on 5 days a car. That leaves 200 days on which I cycled to work.<p>Wish we had this here.
Getting hit by a car within a year is an anomaly right? He brushed it off as his "only accident" like it's supposed to be more commonplace.
I have a short commute to work, only 2.2 miles each way, but I have been doing it for the last 2 years every workday, under any conditions. From the very beginning I told myself, no excuses. I also realized that if I wanted to stick to it, I would want to be comfortable and not miserable, so I bought gear for the rainy days and winter weather, and a nice backpack to carry everything I need. I live in a big city, so driving and parking is always a challenge... it's nice not to worry about it where to park and how bad is the traffic.
Let me make some Spanish propaganda. Riding a bike in Valencia is awesome, as there is a cheap bike sharing service (Valenbici) and lots of bike lanes. The city is flat, it never snows and it rains just a couple of weeks a year, making it perhaps the best bike city in Spain.
Great route! Maybe it isn't necessary in temperate climates, but the most important point is that he has showers at work. In tropical countries it is a must. If more workplaces had showers a lot more people would cycle to work.
Getting home at 17:00? I don't even get off work until 17:30, and if I'm lucky I get home before 18:30. Even cycling I'd only shave maybe 15 minutes off my commute, and if I'm really lucky I'd make it home alive.<p>I wish I lived somewhere with more sustainable work hours and bike-friendly traffic. I'm totally drained when I finally get home.
<i>I’ll keep cycling to work in the foreseeable future. I don’t think this post is of much use to anyone, but I had fun reflecting my last year of cycling to work. Thanks for reading.</i><p>Good read. Modest author. Often it is the most personal blog postings, where people share details of their life, that attracts most readers.
I run to work 4 days/week (work from home the other day). It's about 6 miles from my place in Brooklyn to the office in Manhattan. Took me a while to work up to 6 miles as a daily routine but can do it easily now. Combining my commute with my daily exercise has been fantastic, I'd recommend it to anyone who is able for a couple reasons: it's efficient (you have to take time out of your day getting to work anyway), and it makes it easy to stick to the routine (I try to put the option of taking the subway out of my mind).
Interesting to see comments about bike commuting in Stockholm and London since I tried it in both cities. Commuting by bike in Stockholm is a breeze even if you are biking in parts of the city with lots of traffic. Its also a beautiful city which adds to the experience.<p>I have tried to commute by bike in London but its to scary for me. I think it would be fine if you can find a path through residential areas, but for me thats impossible. Biking in the central parts of London I feel that a slight lapse in concentration could end up with a very bad accident.
+ 1 MILLION<p>Cancer hit a friend of mine not that long ago.<p>And as I was biking to work with my two kiddos the other day, I was thinking about him.<p>What would be my ideal day? I wondered. What would I do with my time if I had gotten his diagnosis of a more or less non-treatable form of pancreatic cancer?<p>I thought about it. And I realized that it would start just like that one. Biking with my kids to daycare and then work.<p>It is hard to put into words the myriad reasons. Everyone has their own reasons why they go the way they go to get where they want to go.<p>I know few things in life but I have found my bliss biking to and from work everyday.
I met a nice person once that worked at an IBM location. He was in fantastic shape, he commuted to work 5 miles away—on foot! He ran both ways.<p>I barely qualified to run the Boston Marathon and had a good time running the race through my old college neighborhoods. This guy, who was a runner friend of a runner friend, was in a very different category, very fast. He trained on top of the weekly 50 miles of commuting.
I don't like bike commuting. I have biked 2 miles/3.2km each way to the office for the past 16 years, at least twice a week and usually all five days. I still don't like it. Maybe I'm just a fat, lazy son of a gun? Maybe I don't have an enjoyable bike?<p>The commute is pretty, safe, flat, and quiet. Birds, ponds, and trees, with very few cars and no hills. The weather here is tolerable and I don't sweat enough to require a shower. The only close calls I had were at the beginning when I wasn't being careful. (There is a small section mixed with heavy traffic.)<p>Every time I get to the office I'm glad the ride is over, and every time I must leave to go home I don't look forward to the ride. I don't arrive invigorated, and in fact the opposite. I've lost and gained weight seemingly unrelated to the number of miles ridden.<p>I've had several bikes in that time but none of them really seem to "fit", nor are they very fast. I want a nice silky commuter with fenders and panniers and thin wheels but that's always pretty far out of reach from budget, and I'm not 100% convinced it will make a big difference anyway. So I stick to a Craigslist special with a backpack, with upgrades to the ride as I get money.<p>I remember enjoying biking so much as a kid. I would ride all over the place, and hardly a year has passed since childhood that I don't put on a lot of miles on two wheels. But now as an adult it's just drudgery. Don't know why.<p>And it's not just the commute I don't like. Also tried to do some trails and longer rides for fun, but it turned into the same drudgery quickly.<p>I don't know what else I can do. But I'll continue to soldier on with the ride.
I was once at SAP and the roads around their HQ form a maze. No wonder public transport takes so much time. Bike would be vastly preferable, though it depends on weather. I've heard SAP allows fully remote work, so I am wondering why are you commuting to office anyway? You can save 1h/day for living your life easily.
I've been walking to work (2km, 20 mins) every day for almost a year now, rain or shine. Previously I drove about an hour to get to work. There's a huge difference in alertness and energy when I sit down at my desk... early morning exercise is well worth it.
I am so jealous. I did 7000km in the last 2 1/2 years commuting to and from work, which i love and totally agree with most of the benefits that you mentioned, however i do all of this in Berlin city traffic. Really jealous of your route through nature!
I like to ride my bike to work because it's much faster than taking the bus (20 minutes versus 40+ minutes) . However, when it rains, I take the bus. And it rains quite often where I live (Taipei).<p>Any advice from fellow bikers? Clothes to wear, gear to get, etc.
I think that's amazing that a small-ish town or city in Germany has such great public transport and bike routes. That all seems to be limited to much larger cities in the US.
The bike is great. VSF fahrradmanufaktur. Used to be an organisation, run by a few hundred smallish bike shops who worked together, but was bought up by a company later.<p>Still great bikes. Steel frame, sensible parts that work well together (none standing out as a customer magnet and coupled with lower-quality other parts), sensible prices. And a really beautiful color scheme.<p>I have a very similar one as the author (or maybe the same?). But I really should have gotten the sister model with hub gear and chain case.
Cycling to Work in India, since this new year. No gears.
Basic cycle + 3 locks + Air pump = $90USD. 15Kilometers.<p>Already saved $20USD/ month.<p>Never going back to Automobiles again. My friends are also trying to start biking to commute after I've made it. Many thought I'd go back to MotorBike after 1 week but I persevered and it's a joy riding the bike.<p>Highly recommend to people in Indian Metro, just add 10 minutes to average 7km commute. Happy riding !
I've got a relatively short bike commute that takes around 20 minutes. By car it's a bit more due to traffic. I get some serious benefits from biking everyday. I'm always alert and awake when I get to work, I get the bare minimum exercise in for the week, I don't have to drive my car.<p>I'd highly recommend biking to work if your local infrastructure is accommodating.
I've been biking to work every day for over 6 months now, though mine is considerably shorter - 2 miles in SF.
I got tired of being stuck on cramped muni trains not going anywhere and figured I could use a little exercise every day.
I also have been cycling for 2 years now everyday. 100kms average every week. Never have felt more enthusiastic and energetic at workplace. Helps concentrate on the work, beats bad traffic and gives a very good exercise overall
When I was living in NYC, cycling to work in the summer was the best part of my day. It took me ~30 mins to get from the Upper West Side to the office in Alphabet city. Commuting by subway would take ~50 mins.
Very nice seeing that much nature before and after work, I cycle to work but it's all within the city. It's great, but I would love to see more trees and water.
Where I live, we have a lot of “salmon” I.e. people biking against the traffic (the wrong way). They’ve been my biggest danger. I’ve hit them more than once.