Different routes or always the same?
 

... on your daily commute. I am completely diagonal from my destination and can zig zag along different bike lanes to get to work. Of course by now I know the route with the least net uphill to work, and the one back, also dependent upon need for specific stops (LBS, food).

This past semester on my 6 mile route it's been the same. Bike trail leading to overpasses and then out onto the street bike lane.

Next semester I plan on changing it up, taking a scenic route which should extend it out to 10 total each way.

9 out of 10 times I take the same route, both to and from work. I see consistency as being part of safety gear.

Same here. Being a motorist as well as a cyclist makes it easy to understand how drivers interact much more smoothly with me because they've gotten used to my "habits" and they've come to trust that I know what I am doing on the bike. Of course, this probably only works because I live in a suburban area where I am the only cyclist on the road and I usually see the same dozen cars going to and from work.

Same route to work, occasionally I'll take a small shortcut coming home if it's raining or I'm tired but I basically do the same thing 180 times per year and don't seem to get bored. Not sure what that says about me...

I would have to agree with the statement about safety. But I have strangely found that I can take the bike path straight to work or an odd long roundabout way that takes me over a huge climb and it only takes five minutes longer seems very strange and makes no sense at all to me.

I used to use the most direct route and saved cycling for enjoyment for the weekend. Sadly, there is more week, than there is weekend, so I've turned it around.

I have a half-dozen or so major commuting routes, each with variations. And even then, they all go out the window when I combine errands with the commute. So my nine-mile round trip could be over 30 miles.

Of course, what facilitates this is that my commutes are at off hours. I go to work at around lunchtime, and come home after dinner time. So I don’t have the same traffic considerations that many do.

Which leaves me in a quandary for this week Thursday. We close early at 5pm. The route that avoids most bars, restaurants, and drug houses is the longest. But would it be safer at 5pm on New Years Eve to scoot home on the shortest route? Undecided at this moment.

My commute is only 3.5 miles and all on city streets, so there is only so much variation possible.

I have selected my route to avoid traffic and uphills as much as possible and for the most part stick to that...

I have 4-5 different routes to/from work all roughly the same length. There's a small lake between home and work, so it's about which way around it, plus whether I have places I want to go on the way home.

Of those choices, I'll use the same one going to work about 90% of the time, using an alternate once in a while to break up monotony. But I'll vary the ride home greatly, using any of the routes depending on errands that i want to do, or simply based on whim. By the same token, if it's nice out, I'll turn my 6 mile ride home into a longer loop between 15 and 40 miles.

So going to work it's all business, but going home is about the ride about half the time.

I have a variety of routes to ride. What route I ride depends on different factors different days.

I have two routes (with a couple of variations each), and then there's that weird hybrid that starts on one and then crosses to the other...

For quite a while I took the most direct route almost all the time. After a while, though, I noticed I was bored while riding a bike. Unthinkable! So I started mixing them up a bit.

Bad weather is the exception, though: most direct and quickest route wins.

I used to take different routes, and also do extra miles past my destination and then doubling back. But now that the weather isn't all that great I find that I just want to get there as fast as I can, and so it's the same route. I'm not interested in doing extra miles anymore. I'll wait until the spring.

Mostly the same route for me, with some variation here and there for variety or logistics.

I have 599 different routes from home to work and back work that vary from 18 miles (the shortest) to just about any mileage I want. Most of the time, I ride the same route but not always. I've never found that riding the same route all the time has anything to do with "safety".

I only have two viable routes to work due to geography. One's slightly hilly and the other is flat. I used to ride both, but for the past year have ridden the flat route almost exclusively.

There are other ways home, but they turn into long recreational rides as they're at least 5x as long.

I live 4km from the loading dock (location of indoor bike cage) at my work place which is really too short a ride for any form of health benefit. My wife leaves for work either at 7:15 or 5:45 (for her 7:30 or 6am shifts) so I'm up early with her. (Oh yeah, the dog wants out to pee at about 6 and the cats start whining for food at the same time.) I'm the type of person who gets ancy when I'm ready to go but have to wait so I might as well use the time to bike. In the winter, I'll take a shortish route, just shy of 7km, to avoid hills (they're all short distance, steepish hills but I don't want to either stuggle/slip and slide going up or get too much uncontrolled speed going down in snowy/icy conditions). In the summer, I use commuting for fitness, enjoyment on the bike and training for either touring or organized bike rides so I'll flip between routes, depending on my level of fitness and needs, that are 20, 22, 33, 42, 55 and 66km (I've only done the 55km one once because I need to be on the bike at or before 6am in order to make it to work in time for a short shower, no time for a shave and the 60km one was done on an extended ride home). This fall, I got a bit lazy and was riding either the 9 or 10km route, they have the advantage of allowing me to leave later than I need to for my regular 20km ride and therefore, less of the ride in darkness. I have found another route (actually an extension I can add to the end of any route) of about 8.2km which adds 81m/265ft of additional climbing (which includes "suicide hill", 12% grade according to RideWithGPS.com).

When I started commuting I tried different routes.

I admit I stick to a favorite route going home - other routes I tried I didn't like for various reasons. Going to work I might change it up between two routes that I like - one better suited to what's become my utility bike and the other suited to my road bike.

I can ride single track parallel to my main route for much of the way.

In winter I sometimes take a route with more traffic, in order to avoid a stretch of my normal route. That stretch is my fastest downhill, from a bridge footing by a dam, and is often being walked by dark-clothed salmon fishermen in the dark who I don't see because the changing grade of the road eats my headlight beam too soon.

I usually have a few preferred routes for my normal routines. But, each time I go out, I usually vary the route a bit.

Thinking of different bike commutes over the years, some might have one primary route. Others I might have 2 primary routes.

I would never shy away from hills, and actually would enjoy adding a good hill in the middle of the commute (perhaps saving a mile or so overall distance, but really doing some climbing). I'd guess that I'd do 2/3 or 3/4 of the time over the hill, and the rest around the hill.

During my first year of commuting I used exactly the same path to and from work every single time. It was 12 miles round trip, and I knew every water meter cover and crack in the pavement along that path perfectly. It was a terrific learning experience. After that first year I began exploring other routes. Now, in my third year, I have about five routes I regularly use. They vary based on weather, traffic, trains, and my mood.

I changed jobs in August but was lucky enough to continue to commute to and from work relatively easily, actually adding some mileage to the commute. My ride to work varies little day to day, but returning from work I have roughly 8 to 10 basic different routes that I can choose from. Almost all of them involve a combination of bike path and street travel, so I don't see much of the "safety" feature in sticking to a consistent route either.

I've only got three viable ways to get across my town, so it's the same route whenever I can ride. Since I had had a spill on some 45 degree railroad tracks, I avoid that stretch of heavily-trafficked road and take the the same side streets, and just mix it up on the return trip to minimize climbing.

For a couple years I would do the shortest distance of 12.5 miles one way riding my DF bike, then, E-bike, then trike, then Veolmobile. I was using the Velomobile for all my commutes except when the weather was to bad to take it and I would take the E-bike with studded tires. Since I am using the Velomobile all the time now I go a different route which is 18 miles one way but only takes me about 5 minutes longer than the 12.5 mile one way route, so I choose that way. If the weather gets to bad I will go back to the 12.5 mile route and use the E-bike.

Unfortunately the few options that don't include undesirable increases in mileage, are poor routes for cycling, so its there's little variation in my commute.

On the Maryland/DC side of the Potomac River, I have several options, but once I cross into Virginia, the MUP is sandwiched between the river and the parkway, so no other options. Have to cross one of three bridges, and since I usually commute by both car and bike, my start/end point varies. My commute ranges from 11 to 26 miles each way, depending on the start point, with the 26 mile route from home.