Now that's crazy. If I want a better workout than what my commute provides I just take a detour of the desired distance on my way home.

I hope when you get to work there's a shower and a change of clothes!

we may be weird, but we have money in the bank though and are debt free, well im working on it, yeah that's weird.

Yes, we must relish the weirdness.

is this thread real?

Exactly, the way it works in my corner of the 'verse.

My "go bag" must weigh close to that. It goes with me everywhere I go, hence, the name "go bag".

Nah, you're not crazy or weird ,you're tough...I also ride with a backpack full of stuff.

i lived in Maine, why 30#?

I've been getting the "are you crazy" look at work on an off for the last couple of weeks. At least since the temp has dropped a bit. It was 25 deg when I left this morning. We had fog that was freezing on my jacket. When I got to work, I turned on a 36" pedestal fan and stood in front of it while I chugged down about 20 oz of ice water. That will get you some looks! My commute is not bad at all (3 mi). It's nothing compared to what some of you all are doing. I am very aware of that. It does strike me as odd that others (non cyclist) just can't seem to believe you are not in a world of pain. I keep telling them that it's not that big a deal. If I were miserable, I would not continue to commute by bike. The health benefits are what keep me commuting by bike. I feel SO much better. And IT"S FUN. There is some financial benefit, but at the distance I'm going it's not really huge. On the days I do not ride, I really miss it.

This is funny.

Are you still in Memphis? Lived down there several years ago and I'd definitely be wary of doing too much riding during rush hour there. I lived near Collierville and drove ~14mi to the area adjacent to Graceland, either you're on the highway w/ the crazies or on Winchester w/ the crazies. Right now I have bike paths (or lightly traveled residential areas) for pretty much the entire stretch, I do have 7mi or so where I'm on a medium-traffic rural highway but drivers here are very much aware of bikers. Traffic lights are relatively few and I probably don't spend more than 3-4mins at a complete stop each way.

I told you that's just one part of the reason I was in a job w/ no guaranteed future employment (when asked about whether my position was becoming permanent I got a very vague response), and was on schedule to possible have to learn an extremely archaic programming language to take on a project they were bidding on. New job is closer to family (50min vs 4hrs), old friends and it's also a much, much more bike friendly area. Negative is that it rains here daily during the winter in Oregon, but some BF Pearl Izumi raingear and I've been coming dry to work regardless of the weather.

enjoy your insanity.