Hello All! I figured I would go ahead and post a little more now that I have been spending my evenings looking at bike P0rn while it is still cold waiting for spring to happen!
First point I'd like to make which I find very encouraging, there seems to be a fair amount of discussion about how to improve the bicycles we already have for commuting purposes rather than heading to the store to purchase a shiny new carbon belt drive, rolhoff, fullly loaded commuter. Impressive! This is what I like to see! So advice one:
Use the bicycle you have (assuming it is decent quality to not fall apart on you on your ride to work).
Second, in my 30 years of life I have realized there are two main types of people across the world...coffee and tea. I'm about coffee and my work friends, nice as they are, have no clue about a decent cuppa....so I gotta portage mine in. Find a decent way to transport your stuff around with you. I hate backpacks/messenger bags so I have storage on my bicycle(s) to carry stuff. A rack is good (essential for me) and if you don't have a bicycle that can accommodate one time to think about a new bicycle (because you probably have a bicycle that can't accommodate decently wide tires either or fenders).
Backroads.....learn to love them. I travel exclusively through neighborhoods/ a mutli-use trail most of the time on my 6 mile one way commute. Some days I take the direct route on my more "roadish" bike but thats because I am used to it...newbies, learn to love bike commuting and the freedom from the car routes it provides you. I get to hit a multi-use trail on my ride in, cross Belle Isle in Richmond Virginia (a historic civil war prison camp/city park) and pass through residential neighborhoods before passing directly by the Federal Reserve Bank (no car is getting past those guards!) and three blocks of actual downtown traffic. Also, in my city, traffic is the worst (and attitudes) between 7-9am and 4-6pm. Any other time of day it's fancy free and remember regardless of what that idiot in the road is yelling at you, you are not the reason they are going slowly. Look around, I doubt you are surrounded by other cyclists. Primarily, the roads are clogged with autos. They are the reasons for the traffic problem, not you...try to be nice but always remember you have a right to be there just as much as the cars do. Obey the rules and take your space when you need it, thats what it is there for otherwise we could build houses, commercial buildings, and the like where the roads are and actually collect revenue to improve the community rather than give away free space to accommodate travel for people who probably don't live in your vicinity for a total of a couple hours a week. Not a very economic use of resources if you ask me....I digress.
My commuter bike.
My other commuter bike:
