Fifty Plus (50+) - Personal best

Woo-hoo! Rode to work this afternoon - sunny, warm, not much traffic - and averaged 19mph the 9.3 miles to. My personal best.
Did I mention there was a tailwind?
Didn't do quite so well on the fro half of the commute.

Man, you must have been in a hurry to get to work. I'm usually faster on the way home. :D

Congrats to you.

Uphill and generally a Head-Wind on the way in so I usually crawl in,
but it's down hill and often a tail-wind going home. Good thing my brakes
are in order! :eek:

You must love your job:rolleyes:

I don't commute by bike but my van always goes slower on the way to work than on the way home.

I set a new one on the way to work yesterday too. 15.25 miles @ 17.43 MPH. No tailwind. And I wasn't even trying. Interestingly, at the turn about a third of the way in, I was several MPH below typical (let alone record) for that point.

After 8 hours on my feet, I don't have enough left for anything but noodle along on the way home.

Do all you guys who commute to work have jobs wherein you can be stinky all day? Or does your employer supply a shower room? Do you carry a change of clothes? I always felt a little guilty about not riding my bike to work (I'm retired now) because it was only 3/4 a mile. But even at that distance I could work up a bit of sweat in the summer or have to slosh through rain or snow in the winter. I usually wore slacks and a sport shirt at work, but often had to be in a coat and tie.

I'd be interested in hearing a couple of stories about how it works for you.

I see now that I probably should have posted this in the thread with the poll. Oh well.

Do all you guys who commute to work have jobs wherein you can be stinky all day? Or does your employer supply a shower room? Do you carry a change of clothes?

No, can't be stinky, no shower room either. But it works for me like this:


Load trunk bag with work clothes
Prepare bike, lunch, etc.
S, S, & S with shower last
Step out of the shower and into bike clothes
Pedal like hell
Park bike in back room, take work clothes to employee's can
Grab deodorant and towel from locker on the way by
Take a bird bath in the sink, towel off, apply deodorant, change into work clothes
Hang bike clothes to dry.


I try to time things so if everything goes well, I'm a half-hour early. That gives me 15 minutes to fix a flat and I still have time to cool down, clean up, change and start on time.

Lots of other tips in the Commuting forum

Do all you guys who commute to work have jobs wherein you can be stinky all day? Or does your employer supply a shower room? Do you carry a change of clothes? I always felt a little guilty about not riding my bike to work (I'm retired now) because it was only 3/4 a mile. But even at that distance I could work up a bit of sweat in the summer or have to slosh through rain or snow in the winter. I usually wore slacks and a sport shirt at work, but often had to be in a coat and tie.

I'd be interested in hearing a couple of stories about how it works for you.

I see now that I probably should have posted this in the thread with the poll. Oh well.

A bicycle is a labor-saving device to make walking easier and faster. If you had walked the 3/4 mile to work, it would have taken about 15 minutes. Cycling at the same level of effort would have taken maybe 5 minutes. Three times the speed at the same effort! The breeze from your speed would have kept you drier than if you had walked. Of course, driving a car for a mile constitutes abuse of the machine, so that's something to avoid. Rain and snow is all a matter of fenders, studded tires, and Totes. There really is no good alternative, because who would want to rust their car out by driving in salt? I often say that I cycle to work because I'm too lazy to drive.

Paul

Perspiration doesn't stink. Maybe people are too nice to tell me I do.
All my biking clothes come off and clean clothes are put on for work.
In a hospital, there are often other, more noticeable odors in the air.

12.5 hr long shifts in a chemical refinery...my work clothes would
get my bike dirty :eek:. Being a job that requires me to be outdoors in
ALL weather, I always have a change of clothes handy anyway.
I'll ride in shorts and sleevless T's in the warm weather and bundle
up in the cold weather. During the summer I change for my
commuting (can't wear shorts or sleeveless around the chemical equipment),
in the cold weather I stay in the same clothes if they're still dry.

Perspiration doesn't stink.

Perspiration may not stink, but all those pheromones and bacteria that thrive in sweat sure do. Ya think locker rooms smell the way they do because someone is using air freshener that smells that way?

When I rode my bike to work, my commute was 2 miles and my parking spot was 1/3 mile from the office. I could ride to work and be out in the weather for 8 minutes, or I could drive and be in the weather for 10 minutes. I rode because I'm a wimp. Oh, and I'd ride easy going to work, and poof myself with deodorant powder when I got there.

I rode to work for years to an office, all you need is a good strip down wash and a bit of deoderant.