Loving it

jonnyboy77

A frivolous post to let you all know that I am loving my cycle to work.

The last 3ish years I've been riding to work almost every day. Then I changed jobs this summer. It was a change for the better, but I was hesitant to ride to work for a number of reasons. With a little help from a few forumites, and couple of doses of MTFU, I did it once last week, again today and planning on ramping up to close to a full week depending on a few factors.

I have increased my total journey mileage, it started in 2010 with 3 miles each way, and grew over time to 8-15 miles in the morning and 3 home. This new job means close to 15 miles each way minimum - but doable in under the hour (I lose on average 5 mins to stoppages it seems)

Anyway - this morning it made me feel particularly good, hence this post. Its one of those 'shout it from the rooftops' kind of feelings that i wanted to share.

Cheers!

- Jon

veronese68

Excellent. I really like reading posts like that.

bigmat

I'm hating my commute at the moment. Maybe its the time of year - changeable conditions so never know what to wear, losing the sunshine, back to worrying about lights. Traffic is horrific at the moment - I know its back to school time but I can't remember it being this bad. Generally, having to interact with the general public whilst cycling is proving a miserable experience. Losing count of the number of cars pulling out on me, pedestrians stepping out in front of me, just now had a c**t on a scooter give me a load of abuse because a couple of other cyclists had pulled out in front of him. FFS man, I was the one who actually waited....

Bah humbug.

menthel

Give me a choice between a train and my bike and I pick the bike every time. Apart from PT days- my legs won't go round!

iPete

It's because you now ride CS8, this is a game changer, my fitness increased dramatically when I joined the blue strip.. you'll be crit racing soon...

rubertoe

I always love it.

Like Bigmat, I hate the weather at this time of year though.

jonnyboy77

Veronese68 wrote:

Excellent. I really like reading posts like that.

I think I was partly inspired to write a positive post after a slew of less positive ones of late.

iPete wrote:

It's because you now ride CS8, this is a game changer, my fitness increased dramatically when I joined the blue strip.. you'll be crit racing soon...

Yes, I had noticed the 'blue strip peloton'!

menthel

"jonnyboy77 wrote:

Yes, I had noticed the 'blue strip peloton'!

Perhaps we need to meet up 1950's US teenage gang style to race and fight for the honour of our particular blue strip!

slowbike

Brought the best bike in today ... nice!

Some days I do feel like cheating and taking the car - but by that point I'm usually on the bike so take a MTFU pill and head off ...
I've got 500 miles to go to hit my target for the year (4k) so should have that wrapped up by end Oct without much worry.

The Rookie

I got my Mojo back after some whipper snapper at work (10 years younger) claimed to be faster than me on the commute (we had about 4 miles in common), at that time we were about 50:50 on strava segments, it's now about 80:20*, that'll learm ya - PA! In fact I now do an extra 1/2 mile each way to do more segments with him to take even more off him!

*OK off road he's still faster than me as we ride in the same MTB club

notsoblue

My new (and pretty awesome) job is in Fulham. Only a 3 mile commute, not even far enough to justify the nice bike let alone lycra I'm going to have to join a club properly.

I'm learning to love slow riding though. My Genesis is lovely.

backo

cant beat it, regardless of the weather...the only time I dont commute is if the temperatures drop below zero (I have learned from experience with that one!) and this is when I become a proper grumpster

Kieran_Burns

backo wrote:

cant beat it, regardless of the weather...the only time I dont commute is if the temperatures drop below zero (I have learned from experience with that one!) and this is when I become a proper grumpster

Some of my best commutes have been when it's been sub-zero As long as you're wrapped up properly and the roads are dry (if not the studded tyres come out) it can be insanely refreshing. The coldest I commuted in was -8C and it was glorious.

PBo

BigMat wrote:

I'm hating my commute at the moment. Maybe its the time of year - changeable conditions so never know what to wear, losing the sunshine, back to worrying about lights. Traffic is horrific at the moment - I know its back to school time but I can't remember it being this bad. Generally, having to interact with the general public whilst cycling is proving a miserable experience. Losing count of the number of cars pulling out on me, pedestrians stepping out in front of me, just now had a c**t on a scooter give me a load of abuse because a couple of other cyclists had pulled out in front of him. FFS man, I was the one who actually waited....

Bah humbug.

I wouldn't say I hate my commute, but the clothing issue is irritating.

However, I too have noticed an increase in all of the other stuff.....

jonnyboy77

I'm choosing to ignore the negatives as much as possible and focus on the positives. The weather has been favourable this last couple of weeks, and I know it gets tougher when its colder, darker, windier etc. but the feeling of having achieved something at the end of the commute is always good.

This morning, second cycle commute of the week, I found myself singing the "I don't care, I love it" song to myself as I rode towards Parliament Square ... hopefully I internalised the singing, as I was not alone on the road!

Amusingly, and I apologise in advance if they're a forumite, but there was a guy next to me at the lights on the NKR this morning shaking his head at a few folks who rode straight through a red light, I didn't say anything but was in total agreement. The funny bit - watching the same guy blow through a red light on Embankment later in the journey ...

"I don't care, I love it"



- Jon

slowbike

Kieran_Burns wrote:

backo wrote:

cant beat it, regardless of the weather...the only time I dont commute is if the temperatures drop below zero (I have learned from experience with that one!) and this is when I become a proper grumpster

Some of my best commutes have been when it's been sub-zero As long as you're wrapped up properly and the roads are dry (if not the studded tyres come out) it can be insanely refreshing. The coldest I commuted in was -8C and it was glorious.

I agree - cold weather, clear skys and in the dark - glorious! Love that ride home. I quite enjoyed riding in the snow too - especially going up the hill that had all the cars slipping around on it and two buses stuck at the bottom.

I used CX tyres in the snow/ice last winter, they weren't the best - but you just ride more slowly and carefully (and unclipped for some of it!)

Kieran - What studded tyres were you using?

Agent57

I'm looking forward to my new commute starting in a week and a half, too. Back to the 5 miles up to the uni, rather than there mere 2 miles into the centre of town.

slowbike

you could always make the ride longer by not going direct ....

gabriel959

PBo wrote:

BigMat wrote:

I'm hating my commute at the moment. Maybe its the time of year - changeable conditions so never know what to wear, losing the sunshine, back to worrying about lights. Traffic is horrific at the moment - I know its back to school time but I can't remember it being this bad. Generally, having to interact with the general public whilst cycling is proving a miserable experience. Losing count of the number of cars pulling out on me, pedestrians stepping out in front of me, just now had a c**t on a scooter give me a load of abuse because a couple of other cyclists had pulled out in front of him. FFS man, I was the one who actually waited....

Bah humbug.

I wouldn't say I hate my commute, but the clothing issue is irritating.

However, I too have noticed an increase in all of the other stuff.....

We have not seen anything yet regarding the traffic, wait until the clock changes. It is carnage for 2 weeks. Take care guys.

Wrath Rob

Last night I did a club training ride and then rode home. Part of the ride home is across Wimbledon Common (Canazaro Road for those of you that know it). My legs were shot, I'd run out of water and my speed had topped out at around 16mph, yet the roads were empty, the air was warm and I had Wimbledon Common to myself. I too had that "shouting from the rooftops" feeling, tinged with the melancholy realisation of the changing seasons and that this would be one of the last times I could be riding short sleeved at 9pm until next year.

Kieran_Burns

Slowbike wrote:

Kieran - What studded tyres were you using?

The infamous Marathon Winters

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/schw ... -prod60783

They worked superbly if somewhat slowly and noisily

I also have some Vitorria CX pros which were great for the deep snow when there was no real ice but the Marathons gave me loads of confidence whatever the road was like. I'm going to have my Tricross set up as the Ice Bike (TM) for this Winter, so if the roads go icy I can just hop on and go.

Agent57

Slowbike wrote:

you could always make the ride longer by not going direct ....

Yes, yes... But in reality, it seldom happens. Sometimes on the way home, if the weather's nice, but mostly it's the commute, so I go direct.

Agent57

Kieran_Burns wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

Kieran - What studded tyres were you using?

The infamous Marathon Winters

Last time I had a particularly icy and snowy commute, I used the same tyres. They did a fine job, and I didn't come off at all. They were a bit skittish when there wasn't any ice, so I did have to be careful even on dry roads (different parts of the journey were in different states, since the local council don't grit the cycle path, but the main roads clear relatively quickly).

Kieran_Burns

Agent57 wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

you could always make the ride longer by not going direct ....

Yes, yes... But in reality, it seldom happens. Sometimes on the way home, if the weather's nice, but mostly it's the commute, so I go direct.

It's utterly childish but I sometimes take the longer (18 mile) riverpath route home in the Winter just so I can see how great my lights are (it's pitch black down there as there are no lights for miles.)

jonnyboy77

Agent57 wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

you could always make the ride longer by not going direct ....

Yes, yes... But in reality, it seldom happens. Sometimes on the way home, if the weather's nice, but mostly it's the commute, so I go direct.

In my old job I only lived 3 miles from work, after a while I got bored of the quick ride to work and started to extend it until it became the norm! I would allow myself up to an hour's ride in the morning. At first I had to make myself do the longer route, but after a while I found that conversely I had to reign in the desire to ride even further so as to avoid being *really* late for work!

I would almost always take the short route home as my wife was home with the new baby, which became toddler, which became baby & toddler! I felt it was fair to pitch in as much as I could at the end of the day.

Now I have no choice (there are some small diversion I'd consider in a morning, through RP for example) but it's already a 55-60 minute commute each way.

- Jon