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Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
I've been commuting by bike exclusively for 12 years now, ranging from 3km at worst and 15km at best, and now I've been working from home since April, and it's really noticeable. There's no reason I couldn't bike halfway to work at the start and end of every day, or all the way or whatever, but "you gotta" is a so much more powerful motivator than "you should". At least my wife is back to work now (rip essential workers) so I might manage to drag myself up in the mornings to keep her company to work.

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Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
Our winter has finally turned from a wet, dark, lovely excuse to some decent snow and sun, so I rode to work for a meeting.
The commute:
The meeting "room":
The happy rider:

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

learnincurve posted:

2015 year old me at my fittest and on that janky hybrid is still kicking my arse

Same for me. Past me's youth and spare time beats hardware any day of the week. My road bike has less miles on it than the lovely hybrid I had before, which got less miles than my grandfather's old '72 no-gears old man bike, despite having each for about as many years, because when I had that bike I lived at home and (barely) studied. Now I have like, obligations, and a home to take care of. Good bikes are more fun, but they don't create time unfortunately

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
My wife got her road to work improved. Before, you had to turn off the main road into a residential area, with narrow streets, tired people leaving their driveways, hedges, and children.
Now, it's separate from the cars, clearly signed, and when it crosses roads they have stop signs and it's elevated like a speedbump, so some cars even stop!

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
Motorists are pretty good around here. The idea of cyclists ever having right of way when crossing a road isn't entirely accepted yet, but it's also pretty new. On pedestrian crossings, we have to walk, and on combo ped/bike ones we've allowed to ride, but yield to cars, who yield to pedestrians. The new crossing type, which is elevated and has special signs, means they should yield to us as well, and I barely knew this a year ago, so I'm not super surprised a lot of drivers don't either.

We're also not actively hated on by most drivers, and usually when sharing roads out in the countryside they pass sanely as well. Mostly.

Edit: "here" being a fairly large (for us) city in Sweden, where the city council actively encourages cycling, with proper measures. It's no Netherlands (I miss biking there), but it's pretty good.

Phosphine fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jun 11, 2021

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

evil_bunnY posted:


NL is the only country on earth that puts their money where their mouth is when it comes to ped/cyclist safety. Driving in most dutch is a total PITA, by design.


One things that's great about my town is that both the town center and any new (read: last 30 years) areas lack central roads. There are ring roads around the areas, with occasional roads into them, but no road going through, so there's very little traffic on the roads inside near houses. They also build tunnels under large roundabouts where you have to cross the large roads between areas, so generally you are very spared from traffic.

I'm moving to a suburb-ish this fall, and from our house I will be able to get on a bike path without touching a road, and get to work 6km away crossing only like three streets, none of which are large or heavily trafficked, because most traffic is diverted to the one big road, which I go under instead.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
I have some sort of slippers in my office, and also bikeshoes that look almost shoe-like, which covers all my "not walking around in stupid shoes"-needs. Last winter, before I stopped ever going to the office, I got into the habit of bringing a change in my panniers and commuting in bike clothing, which did wonders for being disgusting all day.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
Had to swing by the office to touch a computer. Didn't need to bring anything so I went bagless on the fast bike. Noticed I had forgotten my indoor shoes under the table.

I think I might have looked slightly idiotic on the way back.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

evil_bunnY posted:

Spurbells aren't particularly lound IMO. They have crazy sustain tho.

My record is -26C but that was 10 years ago and I'm not sure I'd do it again.

This year is about the same as you, and -15C is ok provided you leave no skin uncovered and use 3 proper layers + goggle.

It was -17 here this morning, and against my better judgement I went for it.

I asked my wife to come pick me up for the trip home. It's managable, but it's just not fun, and getting dressed/undressed takes as long as the actual ride. Especially now that it's pitch black until like 9, just slippery cold darkness.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

Korwen posted:

I recently started commuting to work a couple days a week, since we're able to work from home most days. It's been a lot of fun, although I'm hilariously out of shape from taking a few months off, to the point where it's evident on my ~3 mile commute.

That said, I was storing my bike inside and was told last week that facilities says that's a no-go, so now I have to lock it up outside, which sucks but not enough to make me not ride to work I suppose.

I have a kryptonite u-lock to use. I guess I'm going to have to take my lights off, should I take my saddle bag off too and bring it inside with me? Anything else I need to be wary of locking my bike outside during the work day?

Your awareness of the risk level of the area is probably the most important deciding factor. I leave stuff on my bike outside of work, and just throw a u-lock through the rear wheel and main triangle. Locking up down town, I strip it of everything I can and pull a cable through the saddle rails and the wheels, and the u-lock goes around something sturdy.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
Temps increased a bit, about 12C, so now it's only -5. I also got up late enough to have some sun on my way in.

Fun: restored.

On my way back home it was dark, but with some nice cozy snowfall.

Also pitch black, but here in the burbs the streetlights plus pixel camera sorts that out.

Edit:

Koth posted:

My record low is -45C/F or however cold it gets in Winnipeg. Though my commute is only 15 minutes so I just have to dress warm enough to last that length of time.

Yikes. I've not biked in much colder than -30, which really sucked. It was on a terrible bike and about 10 miles, but even 15 minutes at those temps is a major pain.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
I was gonna switch to summer tires today but apparently we're getting snow and ice again towards the end of this week so NEVERMIND I guess?

They swept the roads properly last week so it's been easier and faster anyway, but I was looking forward to the tires. Also putting on a fresh new chain, bike deserves some love.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊

EvilJoven posted:

Wait you guys clean your winter drivetrain? I just throw it in the garbage and put new stuff on.

I clean it and run the same chain for like two years, I've had this chain on since 2019 since I didn't commute last winter.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
For reference, I commute on a cyclo-cross bike with I think 37 winter tires, in pretty intense winters, and it's mostly fine. Sometimes when it's near zero so it melts and then yesterday's tracks freeze it gets sketchy, but generally it's fine. The stability win from wider tires (I've winter-commuted on mtb to alleviate this problem) is not worth how much more work it is. I just ride slower for the bad parts and still arrive faster than on the mtb.

Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
I've been working for home for two weeks, and taking the car to the office this week, because of a spot of cracked rib, and not biking every day really is the worst. Why anyone would do this voluntarily I do not understand.

Tomorrow I will bike to work, coughing and laughing is barely excruciating anymore, how bad could it be?

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Phosphine
May 30, 2011

WHY, JUDY?! WHY?!
🤰🐰🆚🥪🦊
When I was bike touring in the Netherlands, on the type of bike Netherlanders calls "normal", it was decent enough on flat straights with no wind, but against a headwind it was meh and the few times we had to go up a hill I cried.

And even at the most optimal of times, it was both less comfortable and more work to use than a proper bike, which is a feeling I have despite growing up with the same type of bikes as entropist.

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