Hi folks!

I am about to get transferred (hope so, at least!) for work, closer to my home, but in fact work will be further away. Lemme explain: in summertime, I work as a wildland firefighter. I usually live in Qc city, and last year I started my fire job in Val-d'Or. I rented a room there, and the good thing was that my room was 3.5 km from job. I could easily run/walk/bike there, according to my mood and the weather (and my wake up time!).

Now, if I get my transfer, I won't have to rent something around, because I'll be working in the same region as my home. But now, work is further away: taking the car, it's a 40 km one- way drive on the higway/major roads, so a 80km ride round trip. There is a more direct way with a cycle path, but it is still a 36 km bike ride each way, which I feel is too far away for a return trip every day.

I have no problem about biking 15-20 km to go to work in each direction (already did a 38km commute round trip - that was my max), but that is tops for me, for a round trip, 'cause I also like to have some gas left in the tank for mountain bike rides, running training, kung fu and kayaking in those long summer eves'. That also means I want to have some time besides, so a 3h round trip commute for me is too much. I was thinking about splitting it up/mixing things a little, maybe a bit of driving and a bit of biking. I could easily do one or two complete rides up/down by shift (I work 10 days on 4 days off). Rest of time I guess i could carpool, or drive up, bike down, and then bike up, drive down.... Surely when it'll get to fire season with 14-16h days, I won't be feeling too much as biking up and down.

For those of you who have a long way to go.... do you vary things or you stick to your plan? Do you carpool and then use the extra time to go riding? i guess that varying shift lengths will have me to carpool with someone from my own shift.

The 40 km drive is on the opposite side of the traffic, and I live close to the highway, so no problem really, except for the raising gas prices. Fortunately, I usually spend a lot of time out there in the bush :-)

Just askin'

Yeah, that's um.... like 22 miles, so yeah a little long for a commute, on the edge of doable IMHO. I might try that if it wasn't hilly and on a nice day, but everyday... nah. How you vary this is entirely up to you. Some people like routine. Some people like variety. Some people like to cruise and enjoy the views. Some people like to push and go fast. You know best what you like and there are no strict rules to follow other than: (1) Be Safe and (2) Have Fun. So experiment, and do what fits you best.

Yea put a Bike rack on the back you can fold up and put in the trunk,
or a folding bike you can put in the trunk, and ride from the car park to work,
and back.

I suspect there is a lot of that going on , now that the City of London
has that congestion tax.
quite a few park their saloon just outside the fee border then ride in,
or get on the Public transport.

I do about 30-35 miles a day. Pretty much everyday unless it falls under resting day. Sometimes though, I just break off pattern and take a break with driving. Sometimes, I will just extend it for longer trip back with extra routes... I don't try to force myself into things per say on this.

I did the half and half for 5 months last year. Bike leg was 11.5 mi. which is a very nice distance, happened to be all MUP which was fantastic. Total commute time was 1:00 to 1:10. Would have been nice to be able to bike door to door, but I was grateful for the 50% I was able to pull off. Distance was not the killer so much as lack of bikeable roadways past the half way point.

My commute is ~40 miles each way (80 miles round trip).
I do half-n-half 4-5 days a week, just over an hour each
way works well for me. I'll do the full ride once or twice
a week, most Saturdays.

I am a fair weather commuter, I generally (try to) skip
extreme cold & wet.

Experiment to see what works for you, & make sure
you have fun doing it!

Some commuters I know do this: drive to work with the bike on a rack (not a folder...), ride home for the evening, ride to work in the morning, drive home in the afternoon. That can work to a nice pace but breaks down a bit if you wake up some morning to a torrential rain and your car is at work.

Another pattern is to drive a considerable distance and complete the commute by bike. Unfortunately with your more direct, bike trail route, this probably won't work.

Thanks everyone for some nice answers and personal experiences. I already had the idea of mixing it up, as gerv said drive with the bike, leave the car at work, then ride home and invert it next day. Some days I'll do it round trip, and others I guess I'll be happy to drive a bit, then take the MUP and ride the rest.

The only little thing is that I just learned my job starts next tuesday, and I'm not done with school yet. I guess I'll have a three weeks of optimizing everything so I can finish my semester on time... even with the strike going on, I guess! :-) So bike commutes will start in may for me!

Hi: I do a considerable amount of multi-mode commuting. My whole ride is about 19-20 miles each way (30-32 Km) and I do that a couple of times a week in good weather. During the winter, I tend to drive about halfway, park and ride somewhere between 8 and 12 miles. I also use the car if I need to get somewhere earlier in the evening, as it saves me about 20 minutes at the tail end of my ride if I drive 4-5 miles, and then ride about 14.

Invest in a good rack for the car, if you don't already have one. Consider security, in addition to ease of use, as you will eventually want to make a stop along the way home, and you don't want the bike disappearing from the car. I love my Saris Bones, but security is an issue - no easy way to secure the bike to the rack and the rack isn't secured to the car at all (there are ways, though).

I did park+bike commutes for a while. Found some secure places to leave the car - our company's recreation association is midpoint between home and work and has secured perimeter. Another spot was a suburban hospital lot that has free parking and has a security guard.

My Honda CRV did not require a bike rack - I've folded down the rear row of seats and placed a flattened cardboard bike box that my fully-intact bike just slides over. That really makes it simple to transition between bike and car modes. Still, it is more fun to do a full commute. I had a few misfires finding I'd forgotten lights, gloves (winter), etc when I'd already driven 20 minutes.

My 9/80 work schedule means 9 hour days M-Tu-W-Th, then 8 hours on working Fridays and 0 hours on alternate week Fridays.
That left me with a little extra time to do a full commute on Fridays; during the other days I would flex my work schedules a bit during the week to work a little longer on car days and a little shorter on bike days.

Bike commuting can be all that you want it to be. There are no rules how far how often how fast. It's still a great way to start/finish your workday. Enjoy.

no shame in doing the half and half. in the morning i have been putting my bike on the bus and commuting half way, then riding the distance in. I prefer it like that. I used to also drive partway most of the time. My commute is 20 miles each way, and i prefer to ride the long way on the way home instead to work.

I forget which thread it was in before, but we've had a member(s) who ride half-way then locking their bike up, and taking the bus the rest of the way into work.

The thing about that method that I don't understand is why? Why only ride half-way and then lock your bike up so far away from where one works? Isn't that asking to have it either stolen or vandalized?

A half-half commute is how I've managed to stay cycling five days a week while still getting my daughter to daycare 3 mornings a week - drive to the daycare with bike on the rack and our girl in the back seat, park the car near the daycare, drop off and then ride to work (about 11km.) My wife picks up our daughter and the car on her way home. The nice thing about this arrangement is that both my wife and I can choose whatever means we feel like of travelling between the daycare and the office (i.e cycle, public transit etc) without having to coordinate anything except where the car will be parked.

My total commute is 52 miles round trip, so I usually drive 22 and ride 30. The 11 mile beginning and ending is very hilly and the roads are narrow and winding, so driving is better for that portion. The 15 mile riding portion is mostly MUPS/trails and fairly flat.

I have lots of options on where to park, all safe locations, and the ride can be shortened or lengthened, depending on the weather and traffic. Nice thing is, the riding portion of the commute is the most traffic congested, so riding is actually faster or about the same as driving. Tried the "leaving the car at work routine," but it makes for fewer, longer rides, rather than spreading out the riding evenly over the week.

alan, sounds like a pretty good setup. My combo last year was similar, but the car part was freeway and arterial. There were no good bike options for that leg.

One of my old workplaces was about 50 km or so from home and I used to drive 15 km and pull the bike off the rack and ride the other 35 km mostly on a rail trail. There are a few parking lots along the trail and I would vary the cycling distance depending on my mood. By the end of that work contract I was doing the 70 km round trip. It did get rather interesting as it got darker and ended up having to buy another light system.

nelson, sounds like a pretty decent setup also.

My commute is 35km/22mi each way, 4 days per week. I have the option of doing a multi-modal bike/train commute which cuts the biking portion down to 15km/9mi each way, but I prefer to ride when I can because the train is often crowded and sometimes on strike. However, I work at a desk all day, so my commute is my "outside time". If I worked long days outside, I would find it much harder to have the energy to put in those 3hr round trip commutes. Also, if you don't have to deal with traffic or toll/parking fees, it'll take a lot of willpower (or incredible scenery) to pull over before your job site and bike in the rest of the way.

There is another BF member (CCrew) who used to have a 74 mile commute each way. He drove 50 and biked the other 24. In his case, the last 24 miles had terrible traffic and expensive tolls.

That's almost incredible. So he was spending ~6 hours a day going to and from work? Or did he drive and ride really fast?

I started off with half car/half riding and only fully abandoned it this year really. Initially I parked in the same place every day but after about 6 months I would mix it up a lot depending on how I felt. I also felt better not parking my car in front of the same houses every day (not for any safety reasons - just out of a sense of courtesy I guess).

I always wanted to bike more on the way home so eventually I would end up doing loops before getting back to the car. Once I figured out how to stomach the longer early morning rides it was easy to make the full commute daily, but then it's only 10mi each way for me anyway.

Huh? They've had a congestion charge for quite a number of years now.

He was fast at both and did the round trip in 4 to 5 hours per day. Apparently, he slept very little since he mentioned he would get up around 3am to start his day and go to bed around 10-11pm.

It was pretty neat but got interesting when it was deer mating season. I was happily steaming along listening to the news on the IPod on the railtrail just south of Galt when I smelt a very musky odour and heard crashing around behind me. Turned my helmet light around and saw I was only a few feet from a full sized buck. I think we scared the daylights out of each other.

One morning I surprised a doe about 1/8 mile ahead of me, that began to canter along in front of me for a few seconds until she realized I was closing, then she bounded into the bush.