A lot of my skips are due to juggling kids. Taking kiddo to daycare, rescuing the nanny from the babies

But if you could ride a bike while juggling kids...well, I think people might pay to see that. ;)

+1

simple and succinct.



however, i'm not a hardliner about these matters. if there's a compelling reason for me not to bike commute on a given day, i will drive our car (or wait for the bus if my wife needs the car), but i'd always rather be on the bike; it's my default option because it's far and away the most fun option.

Hey Andy, nice to 'meet' ('meat'?) you! I've seen your words around the forums a lot over the years of course, but it's nice to put a face to the name for those that don't use a pic for their thumbnail.

My secret to force myself to ride instead of drive, is to store my car at work. My work has our own free parking deck inside a gated compound with 24/7 security, so I can park it way up on the 4th floor out of everybody's way.

That way, when it's morning, my car's not even at home and I have no choice but to ride. If the weather is really surprisingly horrendous, then I can wait and beg a ride from my wife when she takes the kids to school, but then I get to work like 2hr later.

Bonus: if something comes up in the middle of the day and my wife can't pick up kid(s) from school, I've got the car and can swing by and grab them. I keep my saris bones rack in the trunk so I can also always toss on my bike, or more likely drive home, drive back in the morning and ride home the next day. (I also trust the parking deck's bike parking area)

Here's an idea that might be similar: assuming you're married, and assuming you get up and leave before your wife gets up; have your wife hide your car keys, so if you want to ride, you have to wake her up. If your wife is like mine, waking her up early is not something you'd risk lightly!

Last Friday the 5th we had a function at work that most people didn't return to the office from. Ordinarily I would have biked to the office and cadged a ride to the thing and found someone anyone who would take me back to the office. This time I didn't, I just drove straight there by myself and then drove home. It's a lot easier to do that these last 4 yrs since we bought a 2nd car after I got hit by a car and couldn't ride for a while.

I really need to get rid of that 2nd car to improve my motivation.

This past Friday I was sick, rode in sick, and just got sicker, so I got a ride home from my wife, left the bike in the office, came back for it this weekend. So, really, no reason not to ride (except I probably shouldn't have come to work at all on Friday).

I was dead tired last night. Wasn't sure if I was going to ride today. Woke up still tired. Sore legs, but rode anyway. Everything was already prepped for riding. Five minutes into the ride I felt fine and was glad I did ride.

Now that would be effective, but it's hard to drive with serious injuries so maybe too effective. :lol:

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond. This has been both interesting and helpful. While pondering your input I've considered my own mental mechanisms and thought about why just loving to ride hasn't been enough for me, and I've come to some realizations that weren't clear to me.


1. Driving -- This is the one where I was most surprised to realize what's going on a lot of the time. I really do enjoy biking to work, and depending on traffic my attitude toward driving ranges from dislike to detest. So why would I ever choose to drive when I don't have to? It's easier. Not more fun. Certainly not less stressful. Just easier. Despite my involvement in cycling, I am a profoundly lazy man -- quite possibly the laziest in Washington County. As many of you have said, I never regret biking to work once I've done it, but there is that time before I've decided to do it when some days I just don't feel like doing anything -- and let's face it sitting in a car driving is pretty darn close to doing nothing. I think here the advice from those who said not to think of it as a choice is the answer. If I don't ask myself whether or not I feel like riding to work the answer won't be 'no.' What's more, I know from experience that the more often I ride the more energy I have so this one should diminish with time if I can get myself re-established.

2. Sleep -- I really enjoy sleeping, or perhaps I should say I enjoy rolling over and going back to sleep after I wake up. This has always been an issue for me. My senior year in high school I got an automatic 'F' one grading period in a class that I was crushing academically because it was the first class of the day and I missed it more than the allowed number of times. When my daughters were in school I had something external to regulate my schedule. Right now I'm on my own and not adjusting well. Luckily my job allows me to be a slacker in this way. Today I just decided to bike in even though I felt like I was "late" and nobody said anything. That doesn't feel like a good solution. Just "deciding" to get up early and get moving doesn't seem likely either.

3. Schedule conflicts -- Thanks to Darth Lefty for mentioning juggling kids. A lot of my "skips" over the past few years have been because of family issues. Sometimes it has been having to take my daughter to a late morning doctor's appointment. Sometimes it's a family event going on early in the evening so I want to get home as early as possible and not be all sweaty when I get there. I'm not sure what I can do about this, but it wasn't an issue in 2009. Maybe getting to work earlier would fix it.

4. Weather -- This hasn't really been brought up much, but it's been a factor for me in the last six months. I always used to think of myself as a rain or shine commuter, but the weather really wore me down this winter. I've lived in the PNW for 22 years, so I know how to accept a lot of rainfall, but this year has been something more than that. It's probably more or less back to normal now, but I'm so shell-shocked that I find myself looking at the weather forecast and thinking "no more." I did mention maybe not riding home last Friday because of such a glance at the forecast. It ended up not raining at all during my ride. Last Thursday it rained for my entire ride in to work and the beginning of the ride home. I can get over this. I just need a bit of summer.

5. Fitness -- I know I initially related this to the size of my gut, but I really do see fitness and weight as two separate things. The main thing I hope to get out of riding more is a better physiological relationship with the bike. I want to restore my base fitness, regain the endurance I used to have (riding all five days last week wore me out!) and maybe pick up a little bit of speed. Weight loss is something else. I do find that when I'm riding regularly that makes losing weight extremely easy, which is nice, but it does still require some adjustment to my diet. I'm doing that right now, but losing weight really isn't my primary goal. My fitness dropped off so much in the last two years and I was having such trouble getting it back that I went in to talk to my doctor about it, thinking there may have been a heart issue behind my seeming inability to regain the form I once had. He told me that at 47 I couldn't expect to do the kinds of things I could do when I was 25. I told him I just want to be able to do the kinds of things I could do when I was 45. A few tests confirmed that I'm just out of shape. I can fix that.

Andy, I fully anticipate dealing with the kids. I've got a good kid seat thing going with the Blackburn copilots, which pop off easily and move between bikes with the same rack. I've taken kiddo to daycare a few times and will continue. The babies are still too small for trailering, though. If a ride gets scrubbed I try to replace it with something else if I can. I've pretty often lately been putting the babies in the jogger and kiddo on his Strider and going to get a donut. That gives Mom a 1+ hour break and is plenty of workout. As they grow, I'm going to try to keep my kids up to date with bikes that fit their needs and ride with them as much as my bum ticker will let me.

Newton's Second Law, Andy. You just have to get up and go. Somehow learn to embrace the temporary inconvenience/discomfort of having to ride the bike, because it will make other challenges in your life a bit easier. No more excuses.

Brilliantly put. So true.

That's a tough one. The unlikeliness of 'Just "deciding"' is huge (I felt the same way in this thread where most people suggestion was 'just check the weather all the time')

You could consider moving your alarm clock across the room, so you have to get out of bed to snooze, at which point maybe you'll be more likely to get moving? (Might not be acceptable for the wife though)


I agree!

Personally my motivation problem is not about whether to ride or not, but whether to ride hard or not. I am also lazy, and my commutes always involve about the same effort as going for a walk. I can't force myself to keep pedaling, get the heart rate up. So neither my weight nor fitness ever change!

Yeah, I know that one all too well. In the winter I take the approach that riding in the rain (seriously, it rains all winter) is challenging enough that I'll give myself a pass on riding hard. Too often summer is almost over before I realize that I never stopped thinking that way.

I think if I got a heart rate monitor, that might help.

(For a week before I get bored and ignore it)

For fast riding it's useful to have an easy gauge of how you're doing. Overall time is a good one, so is average speed which is sort of the same thing but you can watch it during the ride.

This winter has been total crap, and in Seattle we broke the 122-year record for rainfall since October 1.
Seattle just broke a 122-year-old record for rain ? because of course it did | The Seattle Times

It would be awesome if summer arrived before July this year.

Sounds to me like you are suffering from BCB (bike commuter burnout.) Try some other things. Bring your bike to work and ride for an hour after work. Do some shorter or longer bike tours. Get a mountain bike and ride in the woods on weekends. Go on group rides. Join a gym and do spin classes and other workouts. I'm sure you could come up with a dozen more ideas.

For me it's all habit. It's hard to imagine commuting with anything but a bike.

I really don't think this is the case. I gave myself permission years ago to skip a commute just because I didn't feel like riding. What's going on now is that I actually do want to ride more than I am and I'm just trying to overcome the little mental barriers that have crept into my mental processes.

As for mountain biking, that's actually a part of how my fitness slipped to where it did. I generally go through cycles of getting fat in the winter and then slightly less out of shape in the summer, but last April I was out mountain biking and broke a rib, which basically torpedoed my riding for about two months. I've decided to sell the mountain bike for my own safety. My current combination of skills (almost none) and healing ability (almost none) just don't make it a good discipline for me.

I hear you on the lack of MTBing skills. I purchased a used fat bike last fall and have been having a blast on it. No snow this winter, but plenty of warm weather all winter to get in plenty of rides. I don't find it relaxing at all, having to focus on the ground and trees constantly, but is sure is a change of pace. So far no serious injuries, and I plan to keep it that way. The fat tires and front suspension make for a pretty nice and relatively safe ride for someone with almost no skills. I am actually improving and feeling more comfortable in that environment.

I rode in constant rain last Thursday, and on the way home my front brake decided to start dragging (sticky piston). Add that to a tasty headwind and underinflated tires and I felt like I was towing a side of beef. That totally sucked. With just light sprinkles last Friday and yesterday I switched to the Sequoia. It has excellent fender coverage but I don't want to subject it to full-on muck.

Today's forecast was showing 100% chance of rain in the morning, so I took some advice from this thread and prepared last night by fixing the brake problem on my primary rain bike. This morning, sure enough, the rain was dumping when I left the house, but I had the bike ready so I put on my raincoat and shoe covers are took it in stride. Two miles in the rain stopped and though there was a slight headwind the ride was quite enjoyable.

That's the thing I always forget about spring weather. When the winter forecast says 80% chance of rain, it tends to mean there's an 80% chance that it'll be raining the entire day. When the spring forecast says 80% chance of rain, it tends to mean there will be rain some time in the forecast window but probably mostly just overcast.

So now I'm at seven consecutive days and 9 of the past 10 commuting. :thumb:

perhaps moving to a place with absolutely insufferable rush hour traffic could help you stay motivated to get on the bike every morning?

i only live 4.5 miles from my office, but there are 24 traffic lights on the route. that's an average of 5.33 traffic lights per mile. on single lane city surface streets where traffic backs up so bad that you often don't get through a light on the first cycle. it can take me over 30 minutes to get home in the afternoon rush, for only 4.5 miles! i bike that distance faster.

car commuting for me absolutely S-U-C-K-S. it is the most annoying kind of driving that there is. i would never describe it as "easy". it's a BIG reason why i rarely ever drive to work.

I used to have that. I lived in northeast Portland and worked in the western suburbs. I literally came home angry every day because of the traffic. That was before they built the west side MAX. When that opened, I started commuting that way. It took almost 2 hours to get home, but at least I was tolerable to be around when I got there. Eventually I accepted my bourgeois fate and moved to the suburbs where I work. On the plus side, that move is what made bike commuting a practical option.

For exactly the same reason, my wife finds road riding boring, and prefers MTB.

This works for me almost all of the time......

I'm not a particularly athletic rider, but I just enjoy being outdoors, and riding. I actually regret the days when I have to drive. Usually it's because I'm transporting a large musical instrument and have to go directly from work to a performance. Another pleasure is that my kids have gotten into the same habit, and they will be better off for it throughout their lives.

I gradually eliminated the obstacles, one by one: Rain, heat, cold, etc., over the space of more than a year. The last frontier was leaving my house in the rain. Now I just don't let it be a decision any more. I look at the weather, but it's only to plan what gear I need, with enough time to get it all together for my commute.

My preparations have evolved. For a few years, I always carried my rain gear with me, as if it was part of my bike. Now I'm willing to take a risk of getting wet, and I keep some old rain gear at work. I also have a much better sense for what I need to wear when it gets cold.

I'm pulling for you, too, [MENTION=111144]Andy_K[/MENTION]. I love my sleep and I do have some flexibility where I work as well, so I also have a bad habit of getting up too late to ride in. Let's get back on the wagon together! :thumb:

My biggest motivation in biking when I was still working was a simple one: I save x amount not owning a car and x amount for insurance/maint/etc. And don't forget that gas money we Canadians would love to have the USA's 4$ a gallon.

LOL - cracked me up!

$2.15/gal around my parts. But not cheap enough to make me want to drive.

Fun thread to catch up on. We have the one car family deal. My wife stays at home and home schools the kids, so the car is hers. But she can rescue me if weather is too bad for riding (pretty rare).

I ride because I like being outside and seeing things at less than 30mph. There are regulars in some neighborhoods that I wave or say hi to. If I don't ride for some reason I miss it.

Another possible way to motivate is to set some mileage or number of days goals. I like watching my weekly miles and year-to-date total grow. It still requires some internal motivation since nobody cares but yourself, but it can be rewarding. You could even reward yourself when milestones are met. Commute 500 miles and treat yourself to a movie or whatever.

You seem to be on a good streak already, but if that gets tough, then maybe do something like aim for 4 bike days with Wednesday off to have a break in the middle.

Your honesty about yourself is admired and a good step to changing to what you want. Good luck!

This isn't going to help you much...

But I commute everyday for 2 reasons:

1: I don't have a parking pass

and

2: Biking everyday means I can eat massive meals and I like to eat.

3: Biking everyday lets me have an excuse to own multiple commuting bikes.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world:

Those that can count

And those that can't.