A lot of people who know me think I'm something special, when it comes to bike commuting. I've been comfortable on a bicycle since I was small, and i'm in pretty good physical shape and have never been in really bad shape.

People that know me want to be able to ride their bikes near traffic for transportation purposes, but they think they're
1) too out-of-shape and
2) not bike-in-traffic-savvy.

People regularly come to this forum with some combination of those two challenges as well as the challenge of "it's so far!" as reasons not to commute by bike, but they do it anyway. When I prove to people that I can ride 40 miles in a few hours on a hot day, people don't think to themselves, "hey, i bet if he can do that I could go a tenth that far," they just say "wow, he's really good at biking, i'll never be talented like that."

So for those of you who started out with some of these kinds of things going against you, (distance, fitness, and level of riding skill) do you have any words of encouragement for those regular folks who don't have confidence that they can manage?