noglider 

On and off for 37 years. Mostly off, as I lived and worked in the suburbs for most of those years. Sometimes I was able to ride to work in the suburbs, but usually, the distances were too great. I started this job in December 2014, and I ride to work about two days a week. I enjoy the ride, and it keeps me in good condition. The other three days a week, I just kinda don't feel like it, and I take the subway. I'm pushing myself gently to ride more. It's a long ride, 13 miles each way, so even if I don't end up forming a habit of doing it five days a week, it's a good number of miles overall. I'm lucky that I can bring the bike in the office, so it never sits outside, and I don't carry a lock.

JoeyBike

40ish years for me too, starting as a junior in high school. Went totally motor free in 1989 for good. Not to say I don't have to catch a bus or taxi once or twice a year, but otherwise 100% bicycle, inline skates, and longboard. Don't laugh...I can do 50 miles on the skates or longboard for recreation. 6 miles to work each way is not a big stretch.

heywood

my first bicycle ride without training wheels seemed like yesterday 1967..at the same time i had a scooter propelled via a peddle my rear foot pumped up & down. Always loved wheeled things.. So commute to school around when i was seven years old, all the time.. on and off over the years but when my first daughter was born pretty much stuck to it regularly.. 48 years in total..

heywood

hmmm..beat me by 7 years.. 1968 here.. lol

snow_echo_NY

i "commuted" around town when i was on vacation in Amsterdam which was probably my first time back on a bike in a long time. this was 2009 i believe (could be 2008). i also took some other vacations with friends in which we were bicycling on meandering new england roads.

i started riding to work after having a baby. my first time commuting. basically after NYC got its bike lanes in the outer boroughs in 2011. i would also ride when vacationing in cape cod with the little one, as well as around Brooklyn. i was a fair-weather commuter until last fall 2014 when i was hurt in a collision.

when i recovered in November 2014, i then proceeded to be an all-weather commuter which very easily increased my rides to daily Mon to Fri. i asked other all-weather commuters (friends) about their ride and how to ride in inclement weather (snow, sleet, slush on the ground, sometimes ice).

i like cruising around town with our little one in a bike trailer. or now that she rides, following her on bike as well.

mozad655

In parts of europe, it is very common to start commuting by bike from the age of 8-10 so that's when I started. That would make it around 10-13 years.

Phamilton

5 weeks, I guess, weather permitting. Need to get some rain gear.

spare_wheel

A commute is specifically defined as trip between home and work. I started riding to school on a daily basis when I was 7 in the USA, BTW.

noglider 

A commute is a trip between two places you make frequently. School qualifies.

spare_wheel

Nope.

commute: definition of commute in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)


And US cycling mode share statistics only measure people traveling to work. Trips to school or university are not counted.

no motor?

7 or 8 years of part time commuting for me.

noglider 

@spare_wheel, you're not wrong, and neither am I. It's possible for a word to have several definitions. English is a language whose rules go by common usage and understanding; they don't come from an authority.

Merriam Webster says

icyj

I agree. Even if you use the definition of commuting as traveling between work and home, technically school could be defined as work in that work is, by definition, exertion directed to producing or obtaining something (good grades, diploma).

Either way, I have been bike commuting for ten years, I started riding to the university, in which I attended and worked a paid position at

no motor?

I never did decide if riding to the GFs house is commuting or not. The route is the same for the first 75% or so as my route to our old office, and some days I would commute to work and then stop by her place on my way home. Questions I had that popped up during the parts that weren't strictly between work and home would have been the same as if they were, and I just figured these trips were all part of the same grand adventure.

conquest46

I've commuting for 8 years now.

Phil_gretz

Hopefully not in the English Department.

icyj

Engineering

Phil_gretz

Cool. Me, too.

I-Like-To-Bike

Yep.

commuter

commuter (ke-my¡´ter) noun
One that travels regularly from one place to another, as from suburb to city and back.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

The word "commuter" is not defined exclusively by one government agency measuring various cycling modes, even if that one definition fits your preferred agenda.

I became a regular bike commuter in 1971 using my bike to get to work .
I am still a bike commuter, though retired from work; riding my bike daily for the last three years to and from the local heated indoor swimming pool, an 11 mile R/T.

wphamilton

After 7 years I feel like an expert on my commute. One thing I've learned though is that there are few absolute rules on the "right" way, best, or safest, to do any of it.

Todzilla

Since 1980, with a decade off in the 1990s.

spare_wheel

Was I a bike commuter in 2nd grade?

I-Like-To-Bike

If you don't know why would I?

I dunno, were you?

spare_wheel

I certainly road "regularly from one place to another". I guess I'll let my 3rd and 5th grade neighbors know that they are commuters too!

I-Like-To-Bike

I doubt if they will care as much as you seem to about whom you consider a Real Deal Commuter.