Originally Posted by akohekohe

I'm also a teacher and have the summer off ... and I spent the first 34 days this year touring the Mississippi river (all of it). Touring is a good alternative to being a roadie IMHO. You can also do brevets - brevet riders aren't roadies either. The Crosscheck can be set up pretty easily as a tourer or a brevet bike. And let us not forget you can also do cycle cross on a cross check (oddly enough) and cycle cross riders are certainty not roadies. So there are lots of bicycle riding alternatives to commuting that do not involve morphing into a roadie.