As a European this struck me as odd. 8 - 10 miles on an ordinary bike is considered a pretty normal bike commute. Especially as Ohio is pretty flat right?
I wouldn't do it in the dust and exhaust of Stockholm, and American cities have even more dust an exhaust.
This is the key to encouraging Active Travel. So much infrastructure is designed primarily for motor traffic and provision for cyclists tends to be just tacked on and not really thought about in any depth.
One big problem with cycling is when you get a road with lots of light-controlled junctions that makes you keep stopping and starting - the loss of momentum can turn an easy ride into an exhausting one. It's particularly galling when you can see that there is room for cyclists to safely go through a red light (c.f. Idaho Stop style laws) and so you have to decide between being a law-abiding citizen of the road, or instead treat red lights as advisory. Sometimes, it's even worse than just slowing you down as junctions can be quite dangerous if you're setting off at the same time as motorists - I aim to anticipate the lights changing and get a brief head-start so that I can be highly visible in front of the drivers and across the junction before anyone has a chance to turn across me.
It's also how dirty/sweaty you get on the ride. In the USA, bike showers are a rare amenity from employers.
My last employer said they had showers for bikers, which seemed like a great amenity, until I actually looked at them -- the shower room was down a little used utility corridor that was only unlocked during 8-6pm business hours, so if you got to work before or after that time you couldn't get in. There were no lockers, so you couldn't even leave a wet towel there for the day, you had to take it up to your desk.
I had a 14 mile ride to work, 90% on a separated bike trail so it was a great commute, but I rarely rode to work due to the poor bike shower situation since after an hour's ride I definitely needed a shower before work. But I was lucky enough to be able to share a drive in to the city with my wife on most days, then I'd bike home since I usually left work later than her.
40 minutes might be a slow pace for many, but there’s a couple of decent hills, a bunch of stop signs and lights, and my steel frame bike with my panniers filled with the stuff I need for the day is pretty heavy.
An e-bike could change the equation significantly.
Ebikes make such a distance very easy. A friend of mine lives on the edge of Berlin (Friedrichshagen) and his commute is a full hour with an e-bike. A bit over 20 kilometers.
I walk to work these days. Much more relaxing and I listen to podcasts. I don't mind if it takes a bit of time. Anything up to 5, 6 kilometers is fine with me. I gave up my bike last year (I was renting one) as I don't need it anymore.
The issue with biking in Berlin is similar to what the Amish in this article are experiencing: it's dangerous. Traffic is not well adjusted to bikes and city planners keep producing these crazy traffic situations with their ineptness. Construction sites. Buses that have to cross the bike lane to the bus stop, etc.
And that's before you consider that the rule that Germans love rules has one giant exception: traffic rules. Jumping a red light. Not a problem. It was orange a second ago and who can tell the difference? Taxis driving 90 in a 50km zone (i.e. the city limits): happens constantly. 30km speed limits? More of a guideline and those signs are used very sparingly. Speed cameras are science fiction. I've never seen one in Berlin.
I've seen several, but they are carted around and look like some trailer parked innocently on sidewalk, I was curious about one "futuristic" looking trailer thinking it was maybe a bike garage or something but after careful observing it was indeed a speed camera.
> 30km speed limits? More of a guideline and those signs are used very sparingly.
Yeah, unless they are near school zone. Then they are almost invisible and you have a radar with flash to make sure that you know you are speeding.
There are more outside Berlin. I drove one road where it had a side road every 1km or so. And of course constant 60-80-60-80-60 signs. And a radar exactly there where you finally said "fsck it" and didn't slow at that next 60km/h.
And I'm from Holland and used to bike every day when I lived there. I wasn't exactly fit (we don't have that American reverence for sports or fitness in Holland) but not terrible either.
Now I don't own a bike at all but I walk a lot.
> The willingness to cycle over longer distances differs between countries, but in general we should not expect people to use a bike for transport on distances longer than 3-5 km.
Both are from before the e-bike boom. A 2019 Dutch study [2] says the average e-bike commute trip is ~8.5km, which indicates a rough doubling of the conventional bike range from 3-5km to 6-8km. Notably, commutes are significantly longer than all other ride types in the Dutch study, even with e-bikes.
[0] https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-po...
[1] https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/ped_bike/docs/walcyng.pdf
[2] https://sci-hub.wf/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2019.102202
In the Netherlands that would not be a normal commute. Our country is pretty small and although it's flat it can be really windy. And rainy.
Usually people commuting with pushbikes would be doing 5km or so. For more you'd get electric. Or even a speed pedelec which is a faster type.
People on e-bikes were more likely to get more exercise (i.e., more calories burned) than regular cyclists because of less (perceived?) effort, and therefore a willingness to travel further distances:
> Physical activity levels, measured in Metabolic Equivalent Task minutes per week (MET min/wk), were similar among e-bikers and cyclists (4463 vs. 4085). E-bikers reported significantly longer trip distances for both e-bike (9.4 km) and bicycle trips (8.4 km) compared to cyclists for bicycle trips (4.8 km), as well as longer daily travel distances for e-bike than cyclists for bicycle (8.0 vs. 5.3 km per person, per day, respectively). Travel-related activities of e-bikers who switched from cycling decreased by around 200 MET min/wk., while those switching from private motorized vehicle and public transport gained around 550 and 800 MET min/wk. respectively.
> Therefore, this data suggests that e-bike use leads to substantial increases in physical activity in e-bikers switching from private motorized vehicle and public transport, while net losses in physical activity in e-bikers switching from cycling were much less due to increases in overall travel distance.
* https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259019821...
Some work colleague of me does a 25 km bicycle ride for each direction (so altogether about 50 km) for commuting each day he is in the office. Yes, he likes going by bicycle.
After getting to the office building, he takes a shower (there exist showers in the basement of the office builing). He actually loves to promote the possibility of this way of living as a benefit to potential new hires.
In other words: where is the problem? Take a shower if you like to or it is necessary after the commute.
I'm considering an e-bike to make the idea more realistic. A couple more miles per hour with a little less effort changes everything.
A bigger problem, unfortunately, is that I'd need to travel along a really busy highway at each end of the journey, and it kills cyclists with some regularity.
Needless to say the office smell situation is difficult in summer, especially now that the government decided offices may not be cooled below 27 degrees C (80 F) i get sweaty just sitting at my desk. I mean seriously how can you concentrate in such heat? It's usually 28 or 29C there.
Most other companies just ignore that law and have the temp at 22-23C or so. But ours just has to be the one that doesn't.
That law was supposed to be a temporary thing during the energy crisis but they never repealed it and the situation is literally unworkable in summer.
I just avoid the office like a plague now, I hate working there :')
I honestly am surprised I survived. The commute was 90% bliss (down the beach path from Santa Monica to El Segundo) and 10% terror (getting around Marina Del Rey and when I had to go inland). One time I rode down Lincoln blvd (a terrible idea) and nearly got pancaked. I heard brakes squealing behind me for _several_ seconds and a pickup truck came to a stop 6 inches behind my rear wheel. I think they'd been looking at their phone and not the red light with traffic waiting for it. Absolutely joyous ride though - I wish I had a gopro back then, one time dolphins were jumping out of the water alongside me as I went down the Ballona creek Jetty https://maps.app.goo.gl/cSHddj3sRF7YUsFt5