Your 2024 commuting year in review
 

Well, we are wrapping up another one.

Check your entries in the mileage thread and think back on your year. How did you do? If you set goals (for mileage or budget or fitness), did you meet them? Did you learn, were you happy? What does 2025 look like?

Previous iterations.
https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...ar-review.html
Assess yourself for 2022! - Bike Forums
Commuting - Assess yourself for 2021!
You can forgive me I'm sure forgetting 2020, we all had a lot on our minds
Assess yourself for 2019!
Assess yourself for 2018!
Assess yourself for 2017!
Assess yourself for 2016!
Assess yourself for 2015
Assess yourself for 2014

The best part of my 2024 commuting year was the opening of a bike line on a major bridge.
My metro area is bisected by a river with only one bridge suitable for bike crossing. That bride was closed for one year to be refurbished. The good news was they put in a really nice bike lane separated from the car lane by a concrete wall. Now my commute to work is a breeze.

Not as many weekend miles (which are not commuting). But I feel like I commuted more often, but I don't keep track. Even though I upped the gearing on two of my bikes, I know my average speed is beginning to fall. It's a combination of physical decline and cautiousness.

I really enjoyed the 16" folder I resto-modded the previous winter and brought up to speed. And I am enjoying the 1997 Specialized Rock-hopper 26" MTB (winter snow bike) I bought to replace my '97 Nishiki Blazer MTB whose frame broke after 27 years.

I bought a new helmet of a lighter, more comfortable design...the first one of a different design in 15 years. I bought new cycling sneakers...the first in 6 years that don't light up.

Because my hair has thinned so much, my wife asked me to grow it long so that it looks thicker. For the first time in 20 years I have to brush it and use hair gel to hold it in place. But because I am so bald (think actor Peter Boyle) I still don't have helmet hair like I did in my 30s and 40s.

My clothing, and commute bag didn't change any (other than the shoes).

I have more mixing and matching of routes, and I started using a slightly longer route that uses two trails after the city connected them last summer...although one is closed for now as they pave the remaining dirt sections, which is fine, since I avoid it in the wet and snow because of the mud.

I know the idea of this thread is to review distance and stats, but this is my general self-assesment.

I would say my daily commuting in 2024 was nearly near 1500 miles with back and forth travels to do the grosseries, take medicaments at the pharmacy to my mom and ride to the railway station when going to work. Will try to maintain the habitude of using the bike whenever I can.

I have ridden over 6,000 road miles, just like last year. I average more than 500 miles per month.

My bikes are my primary mode of commuting. I do not keep the exact mileage count.

You might also consider putting down your recording devices (Strava, pencils,etc.) and ride as often and as far as you want when you feel like it. Your stats might not be as impressive but you might enjoy your riding more when it isn't an addiction nor a chore.

Usually two days a week, I commuted to and from work (11 miles each way). Sorry, but I don't have much else to say.

One incident with a motor vehicle.
Changed to a new work assignment that starts/ends 30 minutes later - makes the darkness and cold much less obnoxious during the winter.
Estimated 6120 total miles commuting.
Still ride a beater bike.
Got the reflective leg straps. Not only do they reflect, they also keep my legs warmer.

I feel 40% less badass than pre pandemic. Since going to a hybrid schedule, I commute 3 days/week instead of five. Can't bring myself to do a fake commute ride on my wfh days.

​​​​​To maximize walking steps for an office challenge, I walked my bike home every commute day in May. That was a weird deviation. I won the challenge 😀.

Weird year.

We moved from the mountains to the flats this spring. My one-way commute of 22 mi/35km, 3,600ft/1097m elevation change is now 7 mi/11km and no appreciable elevation change. I miss the adventure of the prior commute but not getting up in the dark nor the extra time required in the morning for the commute, wardrobe change and shower at the other end. And at most I commuted three times a week (with a lot of missed weeks due to snow and ice), while now I commute everyday, regardless of weather. And the commute for groceries and visiting friends is nice too. The ICE vehicle just sits there and I love that. Also, I have a new commute bike that takes studded snow tires and panniers. 45 years of lugging a courier bag a thing of the past. So new house, new route, new bike, looking forward to 2025’s commuting.

In October '23 my younger boy was diagnosed with leukemia. Leukemia treatment is now often quite successful and he's doing ok on it. Since August he's been back in school full time. My two boys still have scandalous behavior in grade school. I don't remember ever even being sent to the principal but they throw and scream and tantrum and maybe kick and get suspended once a month or so. And I'm still on the hook for afternoon daddy day care / WFH for 2-3 days a week. This often does not matter to my job since most of my coworkers are on central time and I'm doing emails before the kids get up.

That has allowed me to resume riding my bike to work usually 2-3 times a week. I have not been logging mileage, nor riding much otherwise. Fitness is kind of in the toilet. My heart med is still working.

2024 was a good commute year for me. My commute isn't particularly long--slightly over 4 miles each way--but it is hilly with almost 750' elevation climb on the morning commute to work, and I have a lot of options to take extended routes home. Compared to 2023, I increased my commuting miles by almost 40% purely based on more days commuting. I had a bad cycling accident during the summer of '23, which kept me off the bike the entire summer and most of the fall months. In addition to being accident-free in 2024, I was also more consistent with riding to work almost every day. Since my school started in August (I teach 4th/5th grade), I rode to work 79 out of 83 work days, and I'd estimate I rode at least 95% of work days in 2024 as a whole.

I also expanded my commuter fleet to include a vintage Motobecane Grand Jubile, and I used my vintage Gitane Grand Tourisme with fenders instead of driving to work on rainy days.

In addition, my car died in October and I haven't replaced it. Down from a two-car family to a one-car family since then for the first time in my adult life. My wife works from home, so the second car hasn't really been missed.

I completed another year without driving to work a single time. Assuming nothing happens to break my streak, on Feb 10 2025 I will hit the nine year mark since the last time I drove a vehicle to the office.

I set an annual goal of riding at least 3,000 commuting miles during a year. In 2024 I only hit 2,900 miles, which was the first time my mileage has been that low in about a decade. In looking back at 2024, I used nearly six weeks of vacation time, whereas I normally only use about four weeks worth. That extra two weeks I didn't commute is likely what kept me from hitting my mileage goal.

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.

I set a 5,000 mile goal, not realizing that meant ~ 100 mi / week. I can get that in summer if I stretch, but my commute is only 4 mi/day, so it means I'd need to take longer rides on the weekend. I love to do this, but I also have a family and rain/snow to deal with and I don't take the longer rides in our cold winters here. Here were my final numbers:

• Ride: 2,954 miles
• eBike Ride: 1,180 miles
• Gravel Ride: 198 miles

The eBike riding was mostly commuting, with some shopping errands thrown in.

I'm happy. I learned that 3500 miles is a more realistic goal until my youngest daughter goes to college. I'm looking forward to retirement 12 years from now, when we will hopefully sell one car.
I'd like to do more bike commuting this year and less eBike commuting to take up the fitness a notch, but being able to control the sweating a bit more with an eBike is just too attractive of an option to ignore.