BillyBob

I made it from Alabaster, Alabama to downtown Birmingham Alabama in one piece!!!

For the locals, I rode north on Route 31, made a left on Columbiana, crawled over the mountain, kept crawling over the mountain, crawled some more over the mountain. I went north on Greensprings Hwy, made a right on Greensprings Ave. and bombed around the side streets to UAB.

The total damage is 25.89 miles in 1:59:04, for an average of 13 mph. Traffic was light and drivers were courteous.

Lessons learned:

1. Glad I took the mountain bike with slicks. 1.5 inch tires are great for when you have no choice but to go through gravel. I felt much more secure than I did on my cross bike with 32 mm tires.

2. Got to buy a rack. The messenger bag worked, but it will be great to get it off my back.

3. Got to buy fenders. Hit a couple of small puddles and found out that fenders are needed no matter the weather.

4. It will probably take me about 2.5 to 3 hours longer per day to commute by bike than car. I will probably try to commute twice a week which will give me 100 training miles during the week.

Questions to Ponder:

1. Why did I not do this sooner??? I feel great, and I actually had FUN going to work.

2. Platform, clips, or clipless? I have platforms on the bike now. The virtue of platforms is that I am less likely to try to hammer my way in. Plus, they are great in traffic. I guess one day, I will have to try the clipless for comparison sake.

3. New bike? Always need a new bike.

CigTech

Nice commute. I too feel like I'm more productive at work when I commute. It well get a lot easer after a while. You will get faster as time goes by as well.

I ride 35 miles a day, All with traffic. I agree platforms are very nice in traffic. And we are all ways looking for new bikes.

squeakywheel

Cool!

I'm on my second year of bike commuting now. Like you, I wonder why I never did this before. I've always lived where I would have had a nice bike commute for my entire 21 working years. Even when I was without a car, I sought the bus. Left the bike chained to a post on the patio at home. Jeesh.

For me, one bike = slow fat tire bike with platforms. Second bike = faster skinnier tires with some form of pedal clips/straps. With the distance you go, I would be looking at optimizing speed. My commute is half the distance yours is. So, I'm always looking for ways to make it more difficult. (Single speed, fixed gear, take the long way home).

jyossarian

2. Yeah, right. I have commuter pedals that are platform on one side and clipless on the other. I hammer it in whether I'm wearing cleats or not. The commuter pedals are convenient though. And clipless makes hills flatter.

3. Of course. I use an IRO Rob Roy fixie-cross bike when it's nice out and the beater mtb. w/ the commuter pedals when it's not or when I need to haul stuff. The mtb has racks and fenders and the fixie doesn't.

Kimbercop

Congrats on the 1st commute. I ride about 9 miles each way mostly on trails so I have clipless on one side, platform on the other. I like having the flexability to change depending on the situation.

Keep up the good work

crtreedude 

Clipless on one side, platform on the other? That sounds like a nice idea! Granted, I love clipless and probably will kill myself with platforms(foot comes off becomes I am trying to left, pedal comes around and smashes shin.. I can see it now).

Congrats on the 1st commute!

newbojeff

Congrats on the first commute. Enjoy.

I have the 1/2 platform, 1/2 clipless pedals that I originally bought for flexibility. In 4 years, I've probably used the platforms once. Clipless is fine in traffic. Am switching to full 520 pedals.