I can easily beat the bus for my 1.75 mile commute, even if you back out the 1 or .5 block walk to the stop. (I can choose from two buses near my house) and the 1 or 2 block walk to my office. That is due in large part to the bus stopping at every dam corner, which I think is totally ridiculous and a total waste of time and fuel. There was a proposal to experiment with every other block stops, but I think the people who regularly rode the routes where it was tried nearly rioted.

That is either pathetic or sublime .... i will take the positive view, because jefnvk seems like a decent guy ... so


Bravo!


Beer wouldn't do it for me. Coffee, maybe.

Ha! I enjoy my beer as much as my biking, so I can kill two birds with one stone, and the place generally has quite a few other cyclist so it is a fun place to hang out. They even run a cycle club out of the place. Makes for a nice out and back 16-20 mile ride a couple times a week.

But in all seriousness if I lived in that town, cycle commuting would be faster than dealing with traffic in a car. Not by much, but it would win out.

Public transit is one of the reasons I started riding my bike in the first place.

Back to the basic premise of the topic of a bike being too nice to commute on.

I bought the old Colnago Super around 1982. I rode it to high school, and college. Not all the time, but a lot. When I lived on campus, it tended to stay parked most of the time, it was more convenient to walk than ride. But, commuting from my Parent's house, it was the only choice.

Then, around 1990, I got a swing-shift job. I drug out the old beater with a generator headlight. That lasted a couple of days until I had enough of it. I bought my NightSun, and the old Colnago road bike became my regular commuter for the next 20+ years.

The bike has taken a beating. Had more than a few parts wear out and get swapped out over the years.

Looking back at it, I don't regret the decision to commute on the bike one bit. Ok, I'd love to have a pristine 1960's Colnago hanging in my garage (was used when I bought it), but I got to ride the bike I enjoyed for all those years. If I take the purchase price divided by the 35 years I've ridden the bike, it works out to be about the value of 2 cups of coffee per year. Not bad to ride a bike one enjoys.

I can understand the apprehension about riding a nice bike in foul weather or locking it up in public as far as commuting with it is concerned, but if you have a secure place to store your bike at work what why wouldn't you ride a nice bike to work?

No one except some cartoonist trying to make a buck with a bad joke said anything about it, really.

Let's put this thread out to pasture.