I'm trying to explore the future feasibility of my namesake... a living situation where I may need to be commuting 41 miles a day for maybe 3-5 days per week during any weather which allows it. (to potentially include riding in the rain, and depending how well roads are cleared even when some snow may be on the ground) Yet I haven't gone biking in almost two decades, so i've completely lost all "feel" of how far you can go, how punishing it is for your body, let alone the fact that a high school kid can go alot further and faster than someone nearing 40. I remember having no trouble going 20mph (between stoplights but on roads/paths that didn't have many) for 13 miles a day in high school but to basically triple that I think would have taken some serious getting used to even then let alone now.
The equation can radically change with varying levels of e-assist of course which is the only reason I don't consider it completely unfeasible. Yet I don't exactly see 40 mile battery packs out there either, which sort of tells me something already.
There's also gas assists and I could let that take me the whole way but i'd like to try and maintain 20mph speeds in town and most gas assists peter out below that, sometimes legally required to I think...
So i'm just seeking some general community feedback. What kind of regular commuting riding do you do? How many miles and how many hours? On what kind of bike? (more towards comfort, or more towards racing efficiency... since i'm not sure I could tolerate a racing tuck for an hour each way anyways. I did my 13mi/day on a mountain bike!) For what type of shape are you in? (i'm not in good shape at all right now still recovering from the injuries that made me stop biking, resuming biking will help some of that but i'm not going to be a slender cyclist anytime soon) Any other notes on conditions? I figure i'd get a general feel for what people would consider light, medium, and heavy to be (perhaps on different types of bikes - i'm sure a fat tired cruiser would have to go notably slower than a triathlon bike, but would the comfort of it let you do as many miles just slower?) which will then give me some benchmarks to compare myself against when I start trying to work biking more into my daily life. (under the 1-2 year preparation process before I have to do it for college which may... never even happen if it's too grueling in reality)