And I commute by bike 24 miles R/T almost every work day of the year. I also recognize that nobody else who lives that distance from work anywhere in the county does it and that relatively few other working people or family people ever consider such a distance practical for daily bike commuting anywhere I have ever lived.

I ride 25 too.

I ride 18 miles/day when I do commute. I do that on a 28 year old bike . . . my first 10-speed. It is scarry as hell playing chicken with the Metro busses and the SUVs. I live in Cincinnati and it is hilly here. My elevation varies from 860' asl to 500'. I know that I need gears on the hills on which I have to ride. Perhaps others could do it on a fixed bike, but I'm a whimp.

So only the distance is being considered and the daily/frequency part does not have anything to do with it? And there is no value in bike commuting 1,2,or 3 times per week?

Thats pretty rude. I think you need to save that term for people with an elitist attitude. The OP is clearly down to earth.

This is great! You can never get drunk as you just sweat the beer out at the same time your drinking it.

Other than that, normal pics of a general European city. I cycled in Heidelberg and Karlsruhe in Germany and bikes and foot was the normal way of transportation on the streets of the downtown areas.

Well, RI is only like 3 miles wide so that's definitely doable.

The things that make cycling work anywhere comes from a society that is willing to accept the bike as a form of transportation. First the willingness to accept needs to come because when you have those plans ready to implement traffic calming techniques, more bike lanes, and more bike parking there is going to be a major fight against those things. It is a god given right that people should be able to hop in their car and drive 1 mile to get a coffee, and nothing is going to change that except economics. When it becomes too expensive for them to do that, when the gas to go get your coffee is more than the coffee itself, people will start to consider other options. Once that happens you can start thinking about calming the traffic on those 50mph street, adding bike lane, etc. This society is sick and addicted, and the problem is that our policy makers keep enabling the society to just keep doing what we are doing instead of considering other options.

I am all for due process, but when they want to implement pedestrian only zones, traffic congestion pricing, and traffic calming i think that they should just do it and anyone who complains can just change their ways or stuff it. If you go to a public hearing about these kinds of transportation planning techniques they are often very heated with people screaming at each other, and eventually NOTHING gets done. In my opinion they need to just do it to force a change, and stop worrying about pissing people off ad losing votes.

Another thing about this thread...Are we commuters because we only ride our bikes to work? Do you take your bike with you to the store, the coffee shop, the bar, the library, or anywhere other than work? Do you wear lycra to go pick up your latte? Sometimes i get the feeling that around here we have the commuter only types that outnumber those of us that take our bikes everywhere.

Although parts of downtown Manhattan in NYC are looking more and more like the average Euro city cycling/density-wise, this is the main issue. Many large European cities are just not conducive to automobile transit. Tons of streets in European city centers are closed to vehicle traffic and were never designed with that intention in the first place. As our cities get more dense and pedestrian friendly (and they will, or at least NYC will and I intend to live between here and Europe forever, haha), we will start to see more bicycles. Most people won't bike until they have to, as this is the type of choice that is usually made for you. Those of you that bike to work 20+ miles are privileged/lucky to be able to do so - many people just struggle to get by every day and aren't in the position to try something new even if they would like to.

As far as the countryside goes, we lack this as well due to intense suburban sprawl and the predominancy of high-speed motorways. The European countryside is exactly this: cities separated by farmland and connected by smaller roads, with motorways sort of disconnected from this much older network. I do not think that the US will change outside of major cities like it will be forced to in urban centers.

Good/funny post, viplala. Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in Europe and I've been to many. I've been hearing that there is some right-wing influence (of the negative sort, no offense to you sensible conservatives out there) clouding your... already characteristically cloudy skies lately though.

There is only one commuting rule: find out what works for you in you situation.

Commuting tips have to always be evaluated in one personal context. It would be nice to commute "Netherlands" style but my commute is 16.5 miles (26.5 km) in steamy south Florida. I've tried it with regular clothes a few times (while still searching for my old cycling gear that my wife must have thrown out... ) and then had to visit a dermatologist. With the distance I need to go - I need to be on an efficient bike or there won't be enough time to commute.

I went to high school in Coral Springs and I cannot belive you commute by bike there. That was 20+ years ago and traffic was horrible. Cheers to you!

Hi kwrides!

Even with a lot of cars taking the Sawgrass expressway traffic still is horrible during snowbird / school season. It took me a long time staring at Google Maps all the way zoomed in and driving many different ways to work in Boca until I finally found something relatively safe.

Who said there is no value for any commute? Read the words that are written without finding some hidden message. That many people live long distances from their frequent destinations doesn't somehow make bicycling look more appealing or practical to them, in the U.S. or anywhere else. Or to use your terms few people (except bicyling enthusiasts) find bicycling long distances a better value or use of their resources (including time and comfort) than the other choices they have available to make those long commutes.

I cycled every workday 35km R/T to and from Heidelberg for five years and on most weekends too. My bike parked in foreground in front of the HD HauptBahnhof (main train station). I liked it even better than cycling in Amsterdam, far less vandalism and bike theft. My family never had a bike tampered with or disturbed in the five years of daily cycling in the Heidelberg area or the ten years of living in Germany. Not many commuters coming from outside of the city but zillions commuting from within.

This is so sad...

Good luck with your hysterical dementia.

28 miles, double-digit grades, hauling 130 pounds of children, have to be professionally presentable within minutes when I get to my job on Wall Street, and a bakfiets won't fit through my apartment door.

I do it anyway. I couldn't without the gears, the change of clothes, etc.

The OP isn't stupid, but he's ignorant.

130 pounds of children. How much do they weigh? Double digit grade to Wall Street? Is that on one of the bridges? I didn't thinkm they were that steep.

What do you fit through the apt door to haul 130 pounds of children, plus presumably your work clothing and whatever else you take to Wall Street? Where do you park your child carrier at your Wall Street location? Are you one of those guys with a corner office and lots of room and the clout to bring your bike and trailer inside your own Wall Street office? I am impressed. How many of your Wall Street partners also bring their bikes in from the suburbs, distant locations or anywhere else?

50 and 40-something pounds, plus the trailer, which is in the mid-20s, plus toys and snacks, plus the spare diapers, etc., in the back of the trailer. 130ish total.

Double-digit back from Wall Street. I had to upgrade the stock gearing on my bike to make it up this one *$&% hill with the trailer. (The downhill in the morning is a lot of fun.)

Burley d'Lite double trailer, folded. Xootr Swift with Crossrack and Arkel Bug pannier. Children. Self.

The trailer drops off at preschool with the children, folds, and goes in their lunchroom. I continue a few more miles down to work, where the bike folds and goes next to my desk. (They won't allow non-folding bikes in the building.)

No. I'm a freelance graphic artist at the bottom of the org chart.

Two coworkers bike occasionally. Everyone else takes the subway or the ferry, or drives.

Taken this morning once we were all assembled downstairs and ready to go:


This is the minimum configuration I've managed to put together for actually accomplishing this in New York City. (Though I admit I spent more than I necessarily had to on the helmet. I like lots of vents.)

Did I mention we moved to a new apartment closer to the Henry Hudson Greenway so I could haul them safely to preschool?

That's what it took.

Is the OP the ignorant one? Do you even understand tongue in cheek humor?
I laugh too when i see the state of things in this country, transportation and otherwise.
BTW, i think it is funny to see you complain about hills in NYC

I complained?

I'd think it was funny too, if I weren't trying to get a heavy trailer up what's probably the steepest one on the entire island.

If I missed the humor, I missed the humor. I saw it as the kind of humor that's at the expense of the people you're talking to. If I got it wrong--I plead father-of-twins sleep deprivation.

Nice Pic.

We've had a Burley for years and while I think the kid hauling bikes the Dutch use are cool, I'm not sure that they're better than a Burley, - all things considered. No doubt there are pros and cons to each. The nice thing about about a Burley is that you can use them with just about any bike and they fold pretty flat for storage. They're also great for hauling stuff.

I guess what bothers me about threads like this is the notion that not wearing spandex and using Dutch style bikes is a key factor in what makes Amsterdam and other cycling utopias work. In any cycling Mecca, you will see low maintenance bikes, but they don't have to be Dutch bikes. You'll also see a lot of people in regular clothes, -but why decry the use of spandex if that is what helps keep others on a bike?

It's not the bikes and it's not the clothes. Amsterdam is what it is because they deliberately decided to make the bicycle a critical part of the transportation system. That and the fact that the bicycle has been an important part of their transportation system historically, - in a way that it never was here.

I've actually been lusting for a Triobike, but there's simply nowhere to put it. Nowhere at home, nowhere at preschool, nowhere at my office. And it wouldn't fit out my door, or into the elevator, or down the stairs.

I just find it easier to have one set of cycling clothes and habits, so when I go for a spin on my road bike, I don't forget my keys, and when I take the boys to the park, the headlight's not accidentally left back home, etc., etc. So I don't bother trying to avoid the lycra when I commute. I can't keep multiple setups straight. (And at 28 miles, the lack of underwear seams really is more comfortable.)

Yeah.

I wonder if it's possible to correlate historical bike transportation systems with lack of hills. I mean, it's an easy enough conclusion to draw, and I draw it myself, but I wonder if there's data to back it up.

I think people have always adapted to their environment. That's one reason why we're so successful as a species. Bikes work better in some places than in others. A different style of bike might lend itself to different conditions as well.

It's really hard for me to imagine even if the political will were there for Minneapolis to be like Amsterdam. Minneapolis is flat. That's not the problem. The problem is the climate and the way the city, or more importantly, the metropolitan area is laid out. It's not built for cycling and the changes required are monumental. Changes within the city itself are easier to picture.

I'm not so sure it was never like that here, but something happened to stop it, that is for sure. I don't know maybe it was the invention of the automobile.

Bicyclists had a large part in getting our road paved originally. We had the mentality then, just not now. I mean look at us, even bicyclists argue about what would be best for us, there is no solidarity. The motorists refuse to try a different lifestyle or embrace anything that takes away their precious "freedom" that the car gives them. Meanwhile cyclists fight over which bike lane color is most appropriate, what you should wear while riding, and even what bike you will do that riding with. It is more or less a hopeless situation, and i am quite fed up with it. One guy came in to poke fun at us and show what biking is like in his area and it turns into the ***** that we now have in this thread.

"The Good Roads Movement was founded in May 1880, when bicycle enthusiasts, riding clubs and manufacturers met in Newport, Rhode Island to form the League of American Wheelmen to support the burgeoning use of bicycles and to protect their interests from legislative discrimination. The League quickly went national and in 1891 began publishing Good Roads Magazine. In three years circulation reached a million. Early movement advocates enlisted the help of journalists, farmers, politicians and engineers in the project of improving the nation's roadways, but the movement took off when it was adopted by bicyclists.

Groups across the country held road conventions and public demonstrations, published material on the benefits of good roads and endeavoured to influence legislators on local, state and national levels. Good road advocates involved themselves in local politics. Support for candidates often became crucial factors in elections. Not only advocating road improvements for bicyclists, the League pressed the idea to farmers and rural communities, publishing literature such as the famous pamphlet, "The Gospel of Good Roads."

Oh, and if the hills really bother you THAT much then maybe you need to look into other solutions, be a bit imaginative, because that is what other countries are doing, and doing it successfully.
Take a look at this video https://www.trampe.no/media/trampehigh.mpg