Commuting - Do you change your route at all?

Heading into winter now, I'm growing dissatisfied with my morning route (the first 10-15 minutes are pretty much coasting until I hit my first proper hill - after that all is fine, but for that first period the hardest working muscle in my body is my shivering ass) and I'm trying to figure out a route that gets me climbing hills sooner. Which got me wondering if anyone changes routes regularly? I have small deviations in various sections of the route I usually follow, a block here and there, but this'll be the first "major" reroute since I started riding. If you do change your routes around, what's the motivation behind it?

My morning commute to work is a pretty fixed 9 mile route; I just want to get in by the safest, most direct route. I have two main routes home. The primary route is just over 13 miles and includes a couple of miles past our big City Park and a few miles along Lake Pontchartrain. Why would I change it? :D Actually, I do have a shorter 11 mile route when I need to get home a little faster. And I do sometimes alter the primary route - an out and back to add another 7-8 miles along the lake. When I do that I often take indirect routes, noodling through new parts of the neighborhoods.

My problem is, I enter downtown area via a bridge. A motorway leads to that bridge with a separated bike / ped path running along both sides. So I can pretty much choose which side I prefer to ride, but that's about it. Choosing a totally different route (instead of the bridge and the motorway) would mean approximately 30% longer commute, and I usually don't have time for that in the morning. The alternative route is also less scenic, IMO.

On my commute back home and especially when riding around during the weekends I do my best to avoid my regular commute, just to keep things interesting.

--J

My morning ride is always the same 10 mile route, right through the city. I leave early and traffic is not an issue. On the way home I add a few miles usually because I travel a road with less traffic. In the cooler weather I have a route that has the climb a little sooner and more abrupt so it warms me up sooner!

I have a rural commute. Two stop signs and one light till I'm out of town. At that point I have three direct routes.

-The god-awful backroad, which I traverse on the MTB, is the shortest at 10 miles. No traffic what so ever. Just takes some situational awareness to hold a line that avoids the worst chuck holes. And road kill.

-Two alternatives, which are about 3-4 miles longer, but much better pavement wise. I'll use these when I take the singlespeed/roadie/fixer. One has a killer hill, so no fixed gear riding there (47x15)....yet.

-Occasionally on the ride home I'll go a fourth route, which essentially doubles the mileage. That's a sunny day, no rush to get home kinda ride.

My route is usually about 15 miles each way, but I've got plenty of little side streets I can take to keep it interesting. On Fridays when I leave work at noon, I'll intentionally seek out a longer route.

My commute too work is pretty much all uphill, so I find that 12 miles to be almost perfect in the morning. On the way home I'm mostly downhill so I often alter the ride with a loop through the state park near home, which brings me up from 12 miles to 25-30, and throws in a few good hills to boot!

I can get home on the 12 mile route in about 35-40 minutes when I need to be home quickly, but on good weather days (which is most days in Colorado!) it's nice to extend the trip.

My commute is any where from 18-33 miles round trip. I like to get to work early so that leaves me with some flex to extend my route in the morning on the way in if I want. I also go out at lunch time and I've got a number of directions that I go for lunch. I also have a number of routes to choose on the way home. I never go the same way two days in a row, it keeps it interesting.

I tend to add miles to the commute in the summer months, and shorten it in the winter months. Of course the route also depends on the bike I am riding. If I'm on a fixed gear the route is pretty much a stable 25 miles or less, but get the geared road bike under me and I'll do strange things like 40-50 mile circuts on the way to work. My ride home is in the middle of the night, I'm light challenged, so at the most I can stretch a route to 3 hours, but doing the day routes at night is difficult, so I generally stay to the 25 mile route, or get a ride into Minneapolis that cuts the commute home to 9-10 miles.

I live outside of town. I have 2 paved roads that lead back into town. I take the longer route with less steep climbs. Lower River Road runs right next to the Missouri River some 5.5 miles until I turn off into the city. The shorter route of 13th Street has aggressive climbs and even more narrow roadway. Like many others, I'll extend the ride home to squeeze 20+ miles out of it. It would be nice to have more options, but we are pavement challenged out here. :)

I commute 40km-50km to work and get a lift home, this allows me to have 20+ variations for getting to work. Usually the start and finish are the same but the middle 30km is a fantastic network of quite hills roads.

CHEERS.

Mark

My main commute route takes me South approx 1 mile down a 2 lane country road with marked bike lanes & occasional street lights; then East 3 miles on a 4 lane arterial with marked bike lanes for an exact 4 mile commute distance each way. I have the option of going farther South onto a surfaced bike/jogging/walking trail which wends its way Eastwards & with a couple breaks down local streets emerges near my workplace. This commute is about 5 miles each way. As I posted a while ago, I don't take that trail much in the Fall & Winter due to intermittent cougar sightings where the trail winds through the woods surrounding St. Martins College. During Spring & Summer months there is a lot of foot & bike traffic on the trail & I ride it frequently for my lunchtime commute. Don

I have a couple of options on my commute -- being the Gold Coast I usually look for the traffic (more witnesses if anything happens). In anycase, neither commute option is particularly hilly or exciting. I seek my hills before or after work and on weekends. Plenty to choose from when I have more time - and more interesting scenery. It's just my commute that sucks.

Being that I never give myself that much extra time, I usually must choose the fastest.. If given the option, I would surely vary it as to take me to work through the wine country of Temecula...
Wine country mixed with orange groves.. Great terrain. THis time of year that would would pass some of the California Poppy country blooming with the arrival of Spring. But coming out of this wine route, you get to some hills with obstructed vision. Not sure that is safe with drivers going 75 mph on blind hills.

Okay, I lied. I changed my route tonight, with the almost full moon, and the temps in the low 70s upper 60s, a humid south breeze, it was all too enticing and I added 7 extra miles to my ride, a couple with some hard climbs. My leags are feeling it. Yeah, I change my route all the time, and with soooo many options out there on my route, well it is always up for grabs what I will do on the commute the nest time I ride.

Seems like the only thing that affects my route is construction. Although there are probably five or six different routes I could take, I'm presently narrowed to two, by the re-construct of our city's major artery street. Over the last couple of years construction of parallel and cross streets has had the same effect. Seems like by the time they get done reconstructing all the area's streets, it's time (in their minds, anyway) to start over again on the street they started with. So yeah, my route varies, but not by my choice.

Red light? Turn. Green light? Go straight. Eventually, I wind up at the bike path where route alterations cease.

I change my route all the time. I only live 4 miles from the office and it would be a massive bore to ride the direct route everyday.

I have about 3 major routes that I use varying from 18 to 21 miles one way. Many tangent rides hook onto my routes though so I have been known to extend things to 30 or 40 miles in the morning. I just started going both ways and am amazed at the speed the mileage piles up. One of my routes home has two Bike Rest Stops on it with drinking fountains so that is probably my route home on days that are over 105 which will be a regular thing in another couple of weeks. I like to switch routes regularly as it spices things up a bit.

Okay, I lied. I changed my route tonight, with the almost full moon, and the temps in the low 70s upper 60s, a humid south breeze, it was all too enticing and I added 7 extra miles to my ride, a couple with some hard climbs. My leags are feeling it. Yeah, I change my route all the time, and with soooo many options out there on my route, well it is always up for grabs what I will do on the commute the nest time I ride.
You know, we really have it nice here in the Twin Cities, there are so many options. Makes me a happy camper.

Freeways are so over emphasized here in California..Often there are no other routes..Cities are connected by Freeways, because before the freeway,there was no city.
So surface streets often are minimal between cities...Looking at the map, there are really not many other options other than the chosen two main routes.
If another 200,000 people jam into a valley that originally had only 40,000 people, maybe more surface roads will evolve. In the last five years easily 60,000 people have moved into the Temecula- Hemet valley.

I extended my home-going route. I got sick of riding around and through all the potholes and decided I could afford the extra time to take the back roads which are in better condition with less traffic.

My inbound route is fast and direct, and hasn't changed much in years.

But I've tried almost every possible route home. I like the change of scenery sometimes.

I think I've become a living road map (though I don't always remember the names of the streets ;) )