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Comment by matsemann | Hacker News Reader

I'm an avid biker, and commute by bike all year around even in harsh nordic winter climate. But my numbers for 2020 are faaar lower than usual. Normally I would bike to and from work 5 times a week, to swimming 3 times a week, to meet a friend for jogging, to the mall, etc. But now all those things are closed, so I use the bike for something maybe once a week instead.

So I hope and believe the numbers will be even greater for 20211, actually. Multiple new people with bikes, and soon people will move about as usual.

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I'm with you. One thing I try to do to combat that is to "commute to my bedroom office via the garage" --> I go for a short loop ride in the morning that replicates my commute length.

I find that it really helps my energy levels and mental state in the same way my commute used to. Obviously, it takes a bit more discipline, but I actually look forward to it - a chance to check in on the neighborhood etc.

Another hint is it do something new on the route every day. It has grown to be quite a mental challenge to figure out a street or alley (or way of hooking things up) that I haven't taken before!

this is a great idea! i really miss my bike commute.

Interesting enough, my "commute" is now walking the dog around the area, starting in the kitchen ( or whereever the dog - a 2 year husky!, is waiting for me ) and ending up in the office "room". The fresh air and the 20-35 mins walk is really ideal to kick start my brain for the work. Ideally the walk is without the phone, this helps me to really disconnect.

I have heard this called a faux-mute, catchy name

I do something similar, sometimes even riding to work and back without ever going inside.

My experience echoes yours. I love biking to work, especially with an e-bike, and I normally did it five days a week, I even started blogging about my experiences[1]. With the right gear, cycling is really practical form of transport for me to completely avoid unnecessary covid risks on public transport.

Now with lockdowns, I'm not biking nearly as much, the weekly five-a-side football is closed, there's nothing open, so little motivation to walk around town, and so on.

[1] https://ampedcycling.com/is-an-e-bike-actually-worth-it/

It's not hard to imagine a situation where normally avid/active cyclist are taking fewer trips (since they aren't going to an office 5 days a week or whatever) but this loss is dwarfed by normally occasional non-cycling people taking more trips than average.

The latter group is likely two orders of magnitude larger than the former, so the interesting thing will be if some people become "converts" as it were, when the restrictions are released. I can see arguments both for and against.

It would be interesting to see an analysis of this in a couple of years, but comparing areas of long term disruption (e.g. USA) vs. shorter (e.g. New Zealand) but that also has all the usual problems of comparison.

Similar situation here. I live in NYC and commuted year-round to work via bicycle for 5 years straight ... and then COVID happened, I haven't even been allowed into the office in 9 months, and my bicycling activity has correspondingly plummeted off a cliff. I now do most of my biking on weekends (for errands and such), which was far from true before March.

So, it's amazing how much the cycling numbers here have gone up even with people like me staying home. I'm looking forward to seeing how many people are cycling once it's all over. Will people like me going back to cycling be added on top of all the others who switched from subway to cycling, or will they go back to subway?

I did the exact opposite as you. I was a commuter biker before Covid and then once that stopped, I got Strava and took my bike all over the five boroughs. I was biking 100 miles a week until December when it got a little too cold for me. I added a gravel bike to my collection and took that out of the city on weekends. 2020 was the year of the bike!

I've just been doing lots of running instead as exercise. I don't actually enjoy a lot of the biking in the city that much. It's too often too crowded and/or feels just a little bit unsafe because of driver misbehavior. I've done the whole 100 km ride up to Nyack and back on 9W thing and ... those cars man.

Biking in the city is its own beast - no bones about that.

I started up the old Turf app [1] for having some goal while biking. It's a great way of finding new routes you haven't seen before. Perfect for a short lunch-ride or in the night after the kids are in bed. It's a bit low on zones in the rest of the world but the nordic countries have a lot. England recently got an upswing too so getting new zones the whole time. And if you wish for zones or leave the app running over the night, someone will notice you and add zones for you. Ofcourse there are some crazy competing going on too [2]. I'm not quite there yet...

[1] https://turfgame.com/

[2] https://turfvasterbotten.wordpress.com/2020/11/11/eat-sleep-...

I read somewhere about the idea of a "fake commute" where you go for a ride of equivalent duration every day. I did that for a while, but have switched to taking a long walk every morning. I've gotten the winter bike out, but have barely used it this year.

I have to second that this is exactly my situation as well. Since my elementary school years some two decades ago, I don't think I ever cycled so little in one year as in 2020. Bicycle is my #1 transport but due to forced remote work and generally low level of activity outside home I haven't had the need to go much anywhere. (I won't even begin with the massively detrimental effects on my fitness level.)

That being said, I sincerely hope people who took up cycling during the pandemic will continue to do so 2021+ forward. More cyclists = more planning focus on cycling = better & safer cycling infrastructure.

Same here. But I've seen a ton of people on bikes this summer, and by the looks of it a lot of them were new riders. Bike stores were cleared out of inventory, and bike shops / coops overloaded with customers. There's been a definite surge in cycling where I live.

Similar here. I slacked for a while but when my fitness started slipping made an effort to get out almost daily just for a spin. Not training, just decompressing and stretching the legs so when the weekend comes my buddies don't kill me out out mountain bike ride.

same situation. my commuter bike has been hanging on the wall since March. moving more into weekend, MTB rides with my family. i find it very hard to get motivated to just ride a loop for exercise. the utility of commuting into work really motivated me for some reason.

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