Distance and Route
How far is far? The only answer I can give is “It depends.” There are many things to consider, but for now let's a consider the simple case. Let's assume, you live right on the edge of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia and commute to University of Pennsylvania via Fairmount Park, like I do incidentally. Or, you can dream a bit. Picture yourself living one of those chic designer houses a block or two off the beach in Manhattan Beach near LA. You commute to your job at Santa Monica Community College. Perhaps unrealistic, but it is a dream after all. Your route is the beach front bike path. Both commutes are about seven miles. And both trips are mostly on level ground. On a mountain bike, your average speed will probably be something around eleven miles per hour. That means your trip will be about thirty eight minutes. In other words, you will spend a little more than an hour total in transit each day. Not too shabby. I usually do worse by bus. The time needed to park the car and walk to work is usually even greater since I won't shell out over a grand each year to park on campus. Both commutes are on level ground as well and neither has a great number of stoplights and cross streets. Both routes have purpose made bike paths as well. These represent the ideal commute. If you run a smooth tired hybrid or touring bike, knock eight minutes off the time each way. If you field a racing bike like the one I recently crashed, you can get the time each way down to twenty five minutes with an average speed of sixteen miles per hour or even faster.
For comparison sake, let's say you have to avoid the Regatta one day and can't ride the park by the river. You have to take an alternate route. In my case, my alternate route down Belmont ave is shorter in distance but usually takes ten minutes longer. Why is that? Stoplights and traffic. I also have to be much more alert when I turn down Lancaster Ave. Stoplights add about a minute for each on average, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You get a bit of a break. The formula might be better as one minute every other stoplight since you sometimes get a green. The mere existence of traffic will slow you down a bit as well since you have to alter your speed, look both ways an so on to avoid the large, metal killing machines that you share the road with. Most people are not homicidal maniacs, and most people aren't even jerks. So as long as you makes yourself visible you can co-exist with traffic in most cases. The biggest indicators of the ability to co-exist are volume and speed. Against the literal law, I ride on the sidewalk going down Belmont because those two factors indicate that drivers will spend more time avoiding one and other than paying attention to little ole me. If a high volume, high speed traffic area has a good shoulder, you can easily and safely ride on the street. Speaking of shoulders, many streets have actual, bona fide cycling lanes. Boulder, Colorado even has actual bike roads through the town as well as bike lanes on just about every major street. Cities like that are real joy to ride in.
If there is a bike lane or the conditions on the road favor riding, do not ride on the sidewalk. There are two reasons for this: One, if you hit a pedestrian with your bike, you will do about as much damage as you would hitting them with a motorcycle, especially if you ride fast. Second, intersections are dangerous. Most drivers are not looking at what's coming off the sidewalk. Rather they look past that and into traffic. And when they do look at what's in the intersection, they anticipate it to be moving at walking speed. You are most likely to be hit in an intersection. If you are riding in the street, you are part of the traffic flow that the driver is paying the most attention to and the driver will often treat you like a car. Beware though, lots of people are impatient and they will dart out in front of bikes and slow moving cars with equal recklessness. Be alert!
Choosing a Route
Now, how do you find your best commuting path? There are several ways, First, do your home work. A bit of Internet searching will almost always turn up maps produced by the city or civic groups . You should also stop in at a good, pro bike shop. The guys behind the counter ride their own bikes to work and are generally very knowledgeable about the local biking conditions. You will also find pamphlets, generally for free, that detail local bike routes. You should also check out and donate a few bucks to the Rails to Trails Conservancy. This group has been buying up unused trail lines and converting them to multi use recreational trails for close to two decades. Many of their trails link cities and are vast bicycle touring adventures just waiting to happen.
Now, before you just hop on your bike and try to get to work, slow down and take it easy. Before you have to worry about arriving on time, try your path on a day where tardiness won't count against you. Ride your path on a weekend and get a feel for the lay of the land. I also suggest traversing the path in your car once or twice as well. This is a good idea if you suspect that the neighborhoods you'll ride through will be problematic. In that case, you will want to do a couple of drive throughs after dark. Much of Philadelphia is one large ghetto and that presents some problems. For the most part, the people in the ghetto are decent people who work way too hard for way too little. This means that pedestrians and motorists alike may be distracted and inattentive. Once again, few people are homicidal maniacs. Stick to large streets with many shops and you will be okay. In any case, if you suspect the neighborhood may have a high crime rate, stay away from the residential streets and any street that does not have a lot of stores.
One trick I've learned that works well for any neighborhood is greeting the people you see day after day. That makes you a nice person and any kindness you give will be appreciated. Folks on Lancaster Avenue tended to look out for me after I helped a panicked guy straight out of rehab fix his bike so he could get to his first job in years. After that, I was no longer that crazy white guy on a bike. I was part of the neighborhood. And that ties back to the overall philosophy of the Local Lifestyle. The Local Lifestyle means that you are always part of the community. Keep an eye out for people and they will keep an eye out for you. If you see an older person in distress during the summer, stop and check to see how they're doing. If you see something wrong, grab your cell phone and call the authorities. If you see a crime, call the cops. If you see trash, admonish the city council. On your bike, you're not just passing through. You have both opportunities and responsibilities.
Distance and Training
I casually throw out figures like “seven miles”, “ten miles” and so on. Since I think a ten mile ride is nothing more than a walk in the park. Actually it's a ride in the park. That's the distance of a lap around Fairmount Park in Philadelphia where I currently live. Meanwhile, twenty miles is a nice weekend ride to me. Readers in a bike club will probably snort at these figures because they're doing fifty or one hundred mile rides on the weekends plus twenty on weekdays. They do have a point, but those folks are very focused and single minded. Cycling is just one of the things I like to do so I devote less time, and consequently achieve fewer miles. However, the bike club people have something to teach us about training. First, they build up those 100 mile century rides they do, putting twenty and thirty miles before they reach the fifty mile mark. And once they get there, they try to go a little faster each time. The same methods will work for us commuters. If you're starting up from scratch, take a few weeks to build up. Several nights after work(or mornings before) do short rides that build up to your goal. Then find a fun trail on the weekend and do some longer rides. In a month, maybe even three weeks, you'll be ready.
Now here's a few more tips on riding technique. Do not push a big gear. If you have three rings attached to the crank arms of your pedals, stay in the middle one and learn how to alter your pedaling cadence to road conditions. You can shift your rear gear to suit, but that big chain ring is basically your passing gear. If you push it for long, you put a lot of stress on your knees and they might develop a condition known as chondromalacia. I also suggest playing around with your gears quite a bit until you find the ones you like. Most bikes have eighteen gears standard these days and quite a few have twenty one. What do you do with all those gears? Most of us have three or four that we like and a total of five or six that we use. Why then all those gears? We're all different and we even change over time. The gears let you find the ride that's just right for you. Don't be afraid to use them. A tip that might seem obvious to experienced rides is to pedal continuously and don't stop pedaling to coast. You never develop your legs that way. Quite often I see folks pedal a few strokes and coast for a hundred feet. If you do that on a long ride, you won't get any where. Keep your cadence constant and continuous and those miles will fly past effortlessly.