Today I wanted to take the bike, and finally I took the car to drive my wife to her desk.
1 hour and 30 minutes into a terrible traffic jam , that for 16 km .
My fault

My feelings every time I'm required to drive during rush hour .... what a PITA?! How do people do this every day?!?!

I hadn't to ridden for at least 5 years because of health. I bought my e bike just so I could commute and save time over the bus. here in portland we have only had a couple days with frost but I was able to ride. the weather has not been bad enough to need studs then I would ride the bus as it would only last a day or two. I actually keep warmer riding then I do waiting for the bus. last year I struggled to keep warm even with a high end ski jacket. Now even if it is 30 I don't really have any issues. I needed some electric gloves to keep my hands warm as anything below about 46 even the best cycling gloves failed me. But I feel os much better riding that I don't mind doing the same thing every day.

I actually am able to tolerate rush hour pretty well, because I have to suffer it so rarely. The whole time I can just think 'I almost never have to do this anymore, these fools do it EVERY DAMN DAY!"

Last night, I brought my bike into the apartment to give it some small mechanical tweaks. It leaned up against the wall after I was done, and as I was eating my breakfast, admiring my bike, I realized I'm really happy I get to ride a bike every day, even in winter weather.

^^^^^^ That's "winter" weather? (Giggle...) But +1; being independent of the bus and the car 12 months a year is a blessing.

My office looks out over a major artery, a causeway over one of the lakes. Up until a few years ago, late afternoon, you could look out upon a sea of slow-moving taillights (or not-moving brake lights), everyone lurching "outbound" from downtown to get on the Beltline and lurch some more. Recently our economic 800-lb gorilla, Epic Systems, opened a sprawling campus out in one of the suburbs. They hire a lot of millennials, who like the fast pace / pulse of living downtown. So there's also been a high-rent residential building boom downtown. So now, at the same time of day, there's the same sea of tail/brake lights, but also a slow-moving sea of headlights on the other side of the road, all the Epic people driving INTO town to go home. I often go home on the MUP that parallels this road, along the lake shore. At least half the time, I'm going as fast as the cars. And there's a rear-ender or t-bone clean-up probably once a week.

I commute to a couple of other nearby cities. It's getting trickier to do though because the region is removing traffic light controlled intersections and replacing them with terribly designed small roundabouts with mounds in the middle of them that you can't see past. At some of them during rush-hour there's a steady stream of traffic entering them from one direction and getting a break to get into the roundabout can take quite a long time. I miss traffic lights at rush hour.

Cheers

Just catching up with this discussion, here's a picture of the Velotoze MTB cover on my hybrid shoe in warmer weather. It really has been my savior in all wet conditions. The short version I have isn't too clammy, I haven't tried the tall version.

Bike lights have improved so much over the 30+ years I've been commuting by bike. Positively certain that the lighting has helped me survive and be noticed.

At one time I wondered why I don't see many bike commuters. Today I question other things. Because I've come to accept that the vast majority of humanity are not able to ride a bike to work, I am simply grateful that I have it in my life.

There are so many reasons for people not to ride to work. First of all they need a bike, and second they need to be close enough to work to ride.

My ride home avoids the clogged streets. All those people who drive cars motivate me to ride. I try to be grateful for that motivation.

When I have the occasional luxury of getting off early in the afternoon, or when the days are long, there is nothing better than extending the commute ride into the countryside, getting onto some single track or dirt roads, and putting in some more miles and climbs. Those evenings are great to come home from. Grateful to have the job and the happy home too. It just makes it worth it right there to ride to work, and be ready to take advantage of a windfall of a little precious time to create another ride on the way home.

Who here doesn't configure different routes to and from work by bike? Variety is salutory. In the morning I generally stick to the shortest and safest route. But the return trip can be anything. Sometimes I let the traffic lights show me the way, as I try to keep moving. Other times I compose a route like I might compose a song and try to stick to the cue sheet, and even then I end up improvising.

There are many things to see and feel on a bike ride. Not all of it is good, that's for sure.

I've now spent 5 years, altogether, as a carless all-weather bike commuter. Some of that was in London but most of it has been in Portland, OR. However, I take public transit when it's icy, but in both of those towns that's pretty rare, like less than a week per year if at all. My wife is now going on 8 years of the same. We can afford cars, but love the benefits of biking and would rather have the $10k (at least) per year to use towards something other than cars. Also, in Portland, there's no way I could get to work as quickly by car without working odd hours to avoid rush hour(s). It's 7 miles, one-way, but dependably 30 minutes by bike.

I occasionally drive when the weather is foul and I have to wear a suit for a hearing or meeting. Because of a change of assignment, I'll be in hearings 4 days a week till April, so for the first time in my career I have bought a monthly parking pass. Blergh. May try to ride on my non-hearing days, but I fear I'll get out of the habit.

glad to see I am not the only portlander that does this. so far this year no real ice. one day was a bit sketchy.

I ride year-round, 13 mile basic commute roundtrip. 7.5 yrs ago got hit by a car pretty hard, halfway tore my rotator cuff, recovery led to us going from a 1 car family to what is now a 3 car family. Got back in the saddle after a few months back then, never ditched the 2nd car, one thing led to another... anyway, still maintained bike commuting year-round until this past February I went down hard, dislocated my shoulder, tore the rest of my rotator cuff. Kept riding through May at which point I scheduled shoulder surgery. Theoretically should have been free to ride at that point figuring any further damage would be repaired in surgery, but did not. Surgeon suggested waiting a full year before resuming cycling, said it would take that long for the surgery to heal. I gave it 5 months. Undoing the surgery in another wipeout would super suck.

My wife wanted to sell one car when we got the 3rd but it was easy to keep around as our eldest was driving at that point. She and I also disagreed somewhat on which to sell. Now our younger is driving age, so again 3 makes sense-ish, and I believe my wife and I continue to disagree on which is the odd car out if we are to ditch one.