+1. I used to ride the train on rainy days. Now I just get wet. You get used to it. It really is just water - really.

[MENTION=131376]PaulRivers[/MENTION], this is not a car free advocacy thread. I drive a car sometimes. Sometimes I even enjoy it. And for sure, it's much comfier in bad weather. Well, usually. As much as you ride, that's fine, and it's also fine to like driving. The thread is about how much we like bike commuting better. I'm very grateful I don't have to drive much any more. Driving irritates me most of the time. Now most of my driving is (1) between the city and the country and (2) short errands in the country, where driving makes sense. I even do some errands on bike there.

A few years ago, my sons and I were riding part of the route to a campground, the end of which includes a long, 3-5% downhill grade on a minor highway. As we were coasting rather nicely down the hill, my youngest at the front of the "peloton" (of 3) caught up to and slowly passed a cop car at which point, my son got rather worried that the cop would pull him over for speeding. So, yes, perhaps there are times when checking a speedometer might be useful. :lol:

The other day, I drove home on the last couple of roads of the route that I bike-commute home and nearly blew through the stop sign that I normally blow through on my bike.

I use Saga App on my iPhone. It keeps tracks of places I have been. One thing I have noticed when I look at the app is that when it shows my travel, it will show miles and average speed. Many of those trips are less than 10 mph when lights are factored in. It makes me think of riding more, well once the weather gets cooler and I am not sweating buckets in 15 minutes. ;)

Ha, fair enough, maybe I went to far with my "dead cold fingers bit". :-)

That's one of the tradeoffs I find though - bike is nicer when the weather is good, car is better for me for when the weather is bad.

I've never been to Minnesota. I went to summer camp in Maine, but I was a kid, and that was summer. I have no idea what it takes to survive one of your winters.
:beer:

I suppose you could say the bike is good when the weather is nice and the car is easier when it's not. But I do live in California and our "not nice" weather is still pretty nice. The worst thing I have to deal with is mid-40s and rain. The horror.

Working as a glorified taxi driver it's nice to live car-lite. I spend more time driving everyday than most people but that's at work. When I'm commuting to work or going to the store I use a bicycle.

Remind us to give you a wide birth. :)

A new tag sticker, and four insurance payments since I started the truck.

While this is true. What do you do with your wet bike clothes at work. I don't have much space in the office and I don't think people would appreciate me hanging my stuff out to dry.

In the summer I'm dripping wet even with no rain. I wring out my clothes and lay them on the top of my computer case where the fan gets them dry. I'm careful not to block the vents much.

When I rent a car, I make sure to take a few minutes to understand the controls. Car controls are evolving they've changed a lot in 5 years. There are read outs for what kind of gas mileage you are getting and all kinds of stuff. Check out the satellite radio.

Then comes scanning traffic and learning to be aware of what is going on around me. Feeling how people are driving so aggressively and impatiently is a shock. But I know I need to follow their pace, so I pick it up as fast as I can.

I have a train option too. My pristine carbon fiber bike doesn't go out even with threat of rain; for that I have a beater bike.

While rain may well be "just water," the spray kicked up from the road surface contains oil and grime to get all over and into the drive train, and as one BF subsciber mentioned, "liquified road kill." :p

Well car gets me to place I couldn't normally do on bike so not all is lost.