Commuting - 130 mile commute week...man am I sore!

Greetings All,

Hope this finds you well and rolling through life.

Wrecked our one serviceable car last week. It's driveable, but needs help. Off to the junkyard soon in search of parts, so wish me luck.

Result is that I set a new high mileage mark for bike commute ~130 weeks, and man am I a sore puppy today.

Here's a snapshot of how things have been around here lately.

Day after the crash, dropped wife at work, to the bodyshop for advice and counsel. Drive to my LBS for spare tube, buy tube, return the car to wife's work, repair flat tire on bike. Ride to the nearby BART Station (Bay Area Rapid Transit), buying ticket, BLAM! tube explodes like a shot.

Re-route Bart trip, stop at LBS. Mechanic pronounces that the tire bead is stretched, buy new Armadillo for front tire, more spare tube. By now it's after noon, still no breakfast. Detour to home, call work to let them know what's up. Lunch, gather my thoughts. Ride 19 miles to work. Work 4 hours, ride 9 miles, meet wife for the trip rest of the way home.

smile,
Jeff, still a fat biker

You'll get used to it. I do 100 miles every week, and don't feel it anymore. Sure was sore the first few weeks though.

That is awesome! Good for you. I agree with ItsJustMe, it will get easier and rewarding if/when you continue. And you won't be a fat biker all that long either! ;)

In the spring/summer/autumn, I ride a 38 mile round trip commute. You can too!

Jeff, like the "smile" part at the end :). Good stuff. 130 miles is more than I do in a week, that's fer sure.

Nice job.
Try those cheesy Mr Tuffy tire liners- I use them and never get flats, even though I can see punctures where I have run over things.

Gratz !

First time i did all 5 days I was sore too, walked like a cowboy.
Now i do my 180 miles a week without blinking an eye, and still look forward to weekend rides with friends :p

Oh and if you do your full 19 miles each way, 5 days a week, every week, your going to have to change your forum handle :D

Good work! When I commute round trip every day, I'm at 140 miles. I plan on making that a regular thing once the daylight is long enough. Now I only do 3 days a week, and it's only one way

Way to go!! I think all of us have tales to tell of how sore and limping we were in the first weeks of our commute. I cut my first week short to four days because I was so sore. Fortunately, it does get easier as you do it more often. But don't be surprised if you go through a period where it suddenly seems more difficult. That is just reality catching up with your body. Just keep riding and your body will overcome reality and things will start to get easier again. Remember not to overdo things as you are starting out, bike commuting is a long haul sort of activity -- not a quick sprint. Now hoping on the bike is just second nature to me. Although I will admit that there are days when I just can't really get up to speed on the trip home. Keep on riding and let us know how it goes.

Excellent job.

I do 5 days in high 30s each day. I won't know an exact number until I purchase a computer. Google pedometer seems to give me different results each time I use it
.
I am past the intial sore stage. However, I ride slower and slower after Wed. Anyways... try and keep it up but do not push yourself to burnout. When I start feeling burned out, I either steal the car or ride the bus all the way in. It works wonders.

I bike just over 5 miles each way 95%+ of the year. And while 5 miles is nothing, it's mostly uphill where it counts. As in, the Brooklyn Bridge. A downgrade through city streets with lights and traffic just ain't the same as a nice country road.

Over the past couple of years doing this I've decided that there is no better way. I find the subways are a crowded, ugly, stinking hell that Sartre was only too polite to describe. I get to work fired up and ready to... ... roll.


But why does NYC make the biker the criminal?

Oh, and I'm a fat biker too.

Thanks all for the encouragement.

The tire problems are solved with the new front tire, thankfully.

The biggest impediment to a 38 mile daily round trip is the time it takes ~90 minutes eacy way. There are just not enough hours in the day to ride, work, ride, house stuff, sleep...

Thanks all again,
Jeff, shaped different than last week, still fat

The biggest impediment to a 38 mile daily round trip is the time it takes ~90 minutes eacy way. There are just not enough hours in the day to ride, work, ride, house stuff, sleep...


I have similar situation, but i look at it a bit diferent. If i didnt commute, i definatly would not find the time to put in 2 hours biking a day. My commute is about an hour. My commute by car in traffic is 45 min. So I'm getting in 2 hours biking a day, and its only costing me an extra 30 min in time.

Commuting i do go to sleep earlier, in order to wake up earlier, in order to cover the extra time it takes to bike, and to give myself ample time in case i get a flat. But i only go to sleep 1/2 hour earlier, and i get home from work 15 min later. Without commuting, i would have to give up 2 hours, every night, of what little 'non work' time have. Wouldnt happen :)

So commuting 180 miles a week is the only way I can find to get enough exercise in to keep me enjoying my ice cream diet :)

It takes me .75 hrs to 1.5 hrs to commute each way by car.
By bike and bus it takes me 1.75 hrs in the am and 1.25 hrs in the afternoon. I take 2 different bus routes. I really should take the afternoon route in the morning.

I have similar situation, but i look at it a bit diferent. If i didnt commute, i definatly would not find the time to put in 2 hours biking a day. My commute is about an hour. My commute by car in traffic is 45 min. So I'm getting in 2 hours biking a day, and its only costing me an extra 30 min in time.

Commuting i do go to sleep earlier, in order to wake up earlier, in order to cover the extra time it takes to bike, and to give myself ample time in case i get a flat. But i only go to sleep 1/2 hour earlier, and i get home from work 15 min later. Without commuting, i would have to give up 2 hours, every night, of what little 'non work' time have. Wouldnt happen :)

So commuting 180 miles a week is the only way I can find to get enough exercise in to keep me enjoying my ice cream diet :)

That's me exactly. If it weren't for commuting, I'd probably cycle about 30 miles a year, instead of 3000. It's the only cycling I do, apart from short 3 mile trips a few times a summer with my 8-year-old boy. I go to bed early so I can get on the road at 5:30, so if everything goes right I can leave work at 2:30 and be home hours before I would if I were driving and keeping normal hours, so there's not much for the spouse to complain about (apart from the bathroom having dried mud and smelling like a locker room sometimes...)

And I'm with you; burning an extra thousand calories a day lets me EAT another 1000 a day, and I eat it almost entirely in ice cream and chocolate :D

Bravo! I am always amazed at the longer commutes.

I do 13 round trip miles 5 times per week.

To condition myself I try to run 20 miles each on Saturday and Sunday. In reality though, with it being winter, this is the first weekend since mid-December that I logged both weekend rides.

Greetings All,

Mechanic pronounces that the tire bead is stretched

I've never heard of this. Beads are either kevlar or steel, I can't imagine the forces needed to stretch them. It seems more likely the tyre was reinstalled with a bit of tube herniated. If the tube had a giganda slash in it then that was probably what happened.

130 miles/week is a tough row to hoe but you do get used to it.

that's real cool. Not your car, i mean that's annoying. but you know, like every cloud has a silver linning. maybe you will go full week bike commuter one day. 130 miles is a good number, that's roughly what i did when i started commuting, around 4 commutes a week at 50k each. keep track of your mileage though and dont increase more than 5-10% a week, otherwise you may overtrain.

keep track of your mileage though and dont increase more than 5-10% a week, otherwise you may overtrain.

When starting commuting, how does one increase by 5 % a week ?
I went by # of days a week, so 20% increases

I know the feeling I was doing 28 miles a day every day rain or shine for several months and I weigh in at 245 lbs. You really have to pay attention to your diet and make sure you get adequate rest when you are putting such heavy demands on your body. That said my body seemed to adapt to the rigors of all those miles though it never quite gets easy.

Stick with it -- this will pay off. You'll find that the pain will subside and your commute times will decrease as you do it more often. Do it long enough and you won't even be interested in short rides anymore. If you need distraction from the pain, think about the chumps who do their long commutes in someplace where the weather's not as nice as So Cal. It's been very soggy in my neck of the woods. Here's a shot from my commuter. That junk on my bike did not splash up. Rather, it's what I pedaled/waded through on my way to work http://alptown.com/temp/bb.jpg

tharold


It's possible to bend a wire bead on a tire so it won't fit on the rim anymore. I've done it with a plastic tire lever before. It's part of the cycling learning curve for some of us less-than-smart folks.


fat biker,

Ride on! It just gets easier.