My year was not great, not bad. The job I worked was 13 miles from home, a distance I'm not willing to pedal every day. I did it a few times, and I'm glad about that. I commuted by subway most of the time.

The school did not offer me a safe place to lock my bike, so I took my chances locking it to a public rack in front of the public library. I had zero problems. It's a working class neighborhood with a good share of very poor people, and yet I don't see any signs of any kind of vandalism there. I bet there's an explanation, but I can only guess. And I'm certainly glad not to have had problems there.

The school where I worked did not have a dress code for adults though most people choose to wear at least nice clothes in good condition. I chose to wear dress trousers, a dress shirt, and a tie. I wanted to show that I took the job seriously even though I was a lowly tutor. Commuting by bike wearing a tie made me a bit of a rare spectacle. I don't mind that at all. I think it stained my collars, though. Maybe I'll rethink this tie thing in my next job.

I'm in grad school, and I commute there by bike or subway. We have had a lot less precipitation than normal in the last several months, and I've taken advantage of it by riding more. It's not that I have a rule against riding in the rain, but sometimes rain combined with other things make it a bad choice, like high wind or snarly traffic and poor visibility. I've done the trip to grad school virtually every time since the spring. It's five miles each way, so any unpleasantness that the weather brings is tolerable, especially if I ride on the Hudson River path that has no motor traffic.