I ride a Raleigh Mojave 8.0 mountain bike with road slicks and a rear rack for commuting. My job was 5.5 - 6 miles on the way in and 7 miles home. It was an easy ride, generally taking between 20 and 30 minutes depending on various conditions. I've recently relocated to another city and I have found myself positioned 12 miles from work. I have not yet ridden to work here because of the time commitment. I have four small children at home (ages 6, 4, 1, 1) and I feel bad taking the extra time during day hours and leaving them to my wife alone. I have considered getting an electric motor add-on to speed me up a bit, but I don't know if I want to go that way or not. I hope to at least be able to once a week if not twice a week bike commuting in.

So I guess I’m mostly looking for a "go get 'em tiger! we do it all the time!". How many miles do you consider too long to commute regularly?

On a kind of related note, I’ve been trying to save up for a road bike (kids sure cost a lot of money!) to get into triathlons. I'm sure a good road bike would make the commute faster, but a race bike makes it harder to put a rear rack on. Getting the bag off my back did a whole lot for my sweaty appearance at work. I'm wondering if I just want to look for a great commuter road bike and push off tri's anyway because It can be even more of a time commitment than the daily commute. Then I would enjoy more frequent riding until I can step into racing in a few years when I have more time (I currently am an avid runner and I run a few half’s and maybe a full marathon every year)

Thoughts?