I had a commute like that once... kept having the desire to just keep going. One day I did... I ended up doing a bit of bike touring... motivated by "I wonder what's over the next hill."

Had some great times.

The worst part of my commute by far is waking up in the first place, we as humans im pretty sure were not designed to be riding a bicycle at 5:45 am

worst part is this week when they decided to shut down lanes on the major roadways for construction so it's filtering alot of extra traffic through my local community roads now. There's like triple the amount of cars passing me now bleh! My blinking is always on!

[QUOTE=WalksOn2Wheels;11773554]
I usually peak around 22 mph and then as I get towards the top of the incline I'm at around 16 or 17 mph.
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I wish I was going 16 toward the top of the hills. Some have me going at about 5 mph.

Lately the worst and most dangerous part of my commute has been on the 1/4 mile section of bike path. Lots of dark blind turns, and lately it seams there is a cyclist with a high powered helmet light behind ever turn. They always seem to turn there heads at me blinding me with the light. Three close calls in the last 4 days because of this.

I guess hill is a bad description, really. It's a long incline. Not even a cat5. But when it's 1.5 miles long and into a headwind with streams of cars trying to run you down, it really sucks the life out of you.

Thankfully, I don't have any real climbs on my route. My bike is a 6 speed freewheel with a 53/42 up front. A decent cadence in the "climbing" gear has me at 13-14 mph.


And just to top it all off, I'm moving this weekend and won't have to do this horrible stretch of road ever again. Just thinking about it made me wimp out of riding to school this morning. The new route should be better and will be closer to 80-85% residential streets. But then again, the first two sections have steep climbs leaving home. Oh well, I need to work on climbing badly.

The entrance to Whitehurst Freeway on Key Bridge between Georgetown and Rosslyn. Can't tell you how many close calls I've had there. The cars see me, but frequently just don't care enough to even slow down, much less let me pass. This area is in stark contrast to my otherwise relaxing ride on MUPs along the banks of the Potomac River.

Going past the grammar school when the kids are getting dropped off.

I ride on a side street that runs parallel to a parkway where the speed limit is 55 mph. Unfortunately, many motorist refuse to obey the 30 mph posted speed limit.

I dont lieve far away for my job, it is about 1.3 miles. The only thing that I find uncomfortable is when I have a bus or large truck pass me... Other than that I am good =)

I'd have to agree that the worse part of my commute is the early mornings. I'm usually on my bike by 3:45, and with the coming winter, I really have to drag myself to do it. But after I start, it's pretty easy. My commute takes me along a busy factory, but at these hours, I'm all by myself out here

Ripping along at 15 mph, I'm a short fat clyde, I was tracking the sound of a car approaching from the rear on a two lane rural road. Suddenly the danger center of my brain threw a warning as a freshly killed raccoon came into view. The raccoon splattered across the middle third of the road was about to take another hit, this time from the over taking car.

I heard the car slow slightly as they sometimes do right before passing. I quickly decided that aggression was the solution. I stomped the pedals causing adrenaline to race through all that adipose. The Trek 2.3 responded with a burst of acceleration quickly shooting to a dizzying 23 MPH. As I drew along side the road kill, lungs and muscles screaming, I was picking up the overtaking car in my extreme peripheral vision. I heard more than saw the car slosh through the remains sending bits of God knows what flying into a space I had recently evacuated.

Road kill is the worst part of my commute.

There is a high-speed divided arterial I cross with 8 lanes of traffic. My bike won't trip the traffic controls but there is a right-turn only lane so the pedestrian button isn't easily accessible. There is no crosswalk. Even if I am at the front of the line when the light turns green in my favor, I can't get all the way across the intersection before my light is red (and the light is green for cross-traffic). The car on the farthest lane often has his sightline blocked and will drive out in front of me. Likewise, my view of that car is also blocked.

It's uphill grade and I sprint like crazy trying to get across. The cars behind me sometimes honk because I take the lane inside the intersection and slow them down. They don't realize that they are "escorting" me across and greatly improving my safety. Sorry cars, I have to cross this arterial *somewhere* and this is the safest place within several miles and is on a designated "bike route". This is where I use my helmet light to advantage and pan it across the driver's faces to catch their attention.

Some of you are downright crazy!

There's a puddle after it rains on my bike path... It's about 3 inches deep. Maybe 15 inches across. Usually black with dirt.
I hate riding home in the dark after the clock change last week.

the last 3/4 mi or so. Its a 4-lane road that's pretty busy and for some reason full of impatient drivers. Its posted at 40 or 45mph, but people go a lot faster.

I love almost my entire 18 mile bike commute - wide bike paths nearly the entire way.

There's just 2 intersection that I dread, though. A quick merge from the rt bike lane to a left turn less than 200m after a light, and car traffic averaging 30mph in that small stretch. Hate it.

One short section on the way home where I'm going downhill but I just cannot gain any speed here and I have no idea why. Then straight afterwards a short two lane road where cars will travel between 30-50mph to try and hit the lights and I need to change lane to turn right (I'm in UK). These days I just ride on the sidewalk for that stretch (there's a[n alleged] bike path).

The good news is that your ride home will have two great descents!

Max

My entire commute is pretty nice. The only part of my commute that I dread is the first 5 minutes of my ride home. I ride about a block in a hot/stuffy parking garage, exit up a ramp and merge with traffic at a stop light. Then I ride in a bike lane for about two blocks where I have to dodge pedestrians, busses, and cars. Then get on a feeder trail, go up a hill and merge on to the MUP. Then it's down hill on the MUP for a few minutes. By that time, I'm warmed up and life is good. The only reason this part of my commute sucks is the DC area commuters. They are a PITA (and I am one on days I don't ride).

i scream around every corner... maybe one of them was me. were any of them screaming kamikaze?!

The worst part for me is Canal St in Chinatown off the Manhattan Bridge. All the bridge traffic just clogs the narrow streets in the area. Coming home I approach it from the opposite direction and it is just as bad. At least there are bike lanes on both Chrystie and Allen Streets to take you uptown. Allen leads to the new 1st Ave bike lane, and 2nd Ave leads downtown to Chrystie.

My worst part is the round-about that is on my route. A cop went blowing past me, with no eye contact, nearly side-swiping me the other day, and other cars are unpredictable. Now I'm trying to figure out how to avoid it......

The part where I leave the road and enter the crappy unkempt, rock and branch-strewn gravel 'bicycle infrastructure' that DOT, in its infinite wisdom, thinks that I should prefer over the nicely tarmacked road.

There is one short section of road I ride that is bad enough that I will sometimes take a short detour to avoid it... what is a fairly wide 4 way narrows into a much to narrow 4 way and for a couple of blocks it is almost preferable to jump the curb and ride on the boulevard and the grass.

It takes a lot for me to not ride on any road here but this is a butt ugly stretch where traffic bottlenecks and there are regular traffic jams.

worst part of my commute was the "kill zones" which are the areas where i would most likely be killed.