How many miles are each of you commuting to and from work and how long does it take?

[ejwillis62]

My commute if I ever were to do it both ways would be about 30 miles. I have not done that yet, I am slow and it takes me about 1 hour 40 minutes to get home. I am pretty sure the way in would take me longer. Home seems very downhill. I ride from maryland and work on Fort Belvoir. I was just wondering how long others are riding. In my mind I keep justifying my skipping riding in to work in the morning because one it is FREEZING and two it is such a long way. In my mind I keep thinking that all of you must only be riding 5- 10 miles that is why you can do it everyday. How wrong am I? what are your distances. Or are all of you just super athletes?
Anyway just wondering.

LIZ W.

[Mikey]

@ejwillis62 43269 wrote:

My commute if I ever were to do it both ways would be about 30 miles. I have not done that yet, I am slow and it takes me about 1 hour 40 minutes to get home. I am pretty sure the way in would take me longer. Home seems very downhill. I ride from maryland and work on Fort Belvoir. I was just wondering how long others are riding. In my mind I keep justifying my skipping riding in to work in the morning because one it is FREEZING and two it is such a long way. In my mind I keep thinking that all of you must only be riding 5- 10 miles that is why you can do it everyday. How wrong am I? what are your distances. Or are all of you just super athletes?
Anyway just wondering.

LIZ W.

Door to door my commute is 25.3 miles each way. I ride from Fairfax (near GMU) to the Washington Navy Yard via Vienna, the W&OD, Custis, MVT and 14th street bridge. In the morning I can usually make it in under 2 hours (around 1:40-1:50) depending on how tired I am, weather, traffic lights, etc. In the afternoon it ususally takes just over 2 hours (1:55 to 2:15) because it is much more uphill to Vienna. I ride in to the city about 1-3 times a week, and ride home, maybe once a month. On the other days I ride my bike to a Metro bus stop (1 mile from home in 5 minutes) then ride the bus to the Pentagon. From the Pentagon to my office is 5.4 miles or 25-30 minutes depending on lights/traffic/weather. My multimodal commute takes about 1:15-1:25 depending solely on traffic, and how frequently the buses run.

The beauty of this multimodality is that I can ride the long way in the morning but still take the short way home. Once I figured this out my monthly milage spiked from around 150 to over 300 miles per month.

[Dirt]

I started with a shorter commute and only in nice weather and not every day. I think that is how most of us got going with commuting. Little by little more things seem possible… riding more often, riding longer routes, riding later into the winter.

Currently my commute is 38 miles round trip and I ride it every day. Many years ago, my commute was a little over 20 miles round trip and riding 2 or 3 days per week.

If you have a safe place to keep your bike at work, think about riding to work one day, taking public transport home that night and back to work the next day, then ride home on day 2. You’ll do 1/2 of a commute per day. That isn’t possible for everyone, but it works for some.

The main thing is to keep it fun. Ride when it is nice and fun. Little by little you may find that riding becomes more fun that other modes of commuting more often.

Enjoy!

Pete

[GuyContinental]

50 miles RT Clarendon to Sterling- Fairfax Blvd to Custis to W&OD to about Rt28

25.5 Miles to
24.5 Miles from (I go an extra mile in the am to avoid left turns in Loudoun traffic)

My time is largely dictated by season- when it’s dark and cold and I’m on the commuter/CX it’s roughly 1:40 each way (slower WB). In the summer, on the fast bike possibly with a tailwind it’s been as little as 1:15, with snow/wind as much as 2:00.

HOWEVER, I rarely do it everyday- the 3hr time commitment, super early rising and the need to take supplies back and forth (no backpack no panniers no way) makes it really hard to pull off more than 4x a week. Summer goal is 3x, winter 2x but sometimes (like this week) I’ll do 4 1/2 trips (leaving car at work) and one RT (which is also good for FS points

I wish it was a bit shorter- IMO 15 miles each way would be about perfect, enough to get a workout but not so much that it becomes a time suck.

[KelOnWheels]

I started commuting on Bike To Work Day last year – my commute is about 10 miles each way. I started out doing a couple of days a week here and there, then three sometimes, and now I’ve worked up to doing 4. I rode my first 100-mile week last week. (I think I’ll take it a little easier this week.)

I rode about 800 miles total last year and this year I’ve already ridden over 300.

The way in takes me about 50 minutes, the way home is longer since I have to go up a giant (well, giant to me) hill .
I am slow and I have a heavy bike. 😎

[ronwalf]

I have a 6 mile, sub-30-minute commute each way, which I sometimes extend by a mile or two when I get bored. An hour a day of biking is great – it’s good exercise and enough to clear the mind, but not too much of a time sink.

[TwoWheelsDC]

By the most direct route, my commute is 14 miles round trip. Takes 30 minutes in the morning and 35 in the evening due to coming up the Custis. This week I’ve been trying to be better about taking the long way home, via 4MRT, which stretches my PM ride to 12 miles. That takes about 55 minutes. Those times are on my relatively heavy commuter, with a garment bag pannier pretty well loaded with clothes/toiletries. Commuting on my road bike (which I haven’t done yet to my new office) probably would shave at least 5 minutes off those times based on the times of my old commute.

I just started bike commuting full time in November when I moved to Arlington. When I was in DC, my commute was 12ish miles and took about an hour. I did that usually twice a week because the route I had to take was a bit harrowing. In summer 2011, I was temporarily out in Reston for work, so I commuted 45 miles round trip, twice a week, for about 4 months. I actually miss that commute, since it was a nice ride out on the W&OD, but no way could I do that every day, just due to the early wake-up time it required.

[pfunkallstar]

My roundtrip is 22 miles from sorta-kinda-middle-of-Falls Church to Metro Center. It is an awesome ride coming in, especially with a tailwind, but regularly takes it out of me on the way home due to the hills. I ride pretty much every day, I had something like eight Metro (or as I call them “sad”) Days last year, which were mainly due to ice or illness.

Commuting was definitely something that took a while to perfect, you need to establish an infrastructure (clothes, bikes, wrenches), work on edurance, and balance out anything else you do in life. I have a REALLY hard time saying “no” to myself, which leads to things like putting on shingles in snow then biking the rest of the week with sore knees. But you need to know when to take a break, which means sometimes having an alternative commuting plan. In the beginning it might be good to pair up with someone, ask around at work, bike commuters have a tendency to try to avoid hanging their spandex out for all to see, except me, I hang that stuff anywhere I can.

[SerialCarpins]

I commute about 22 miles round trip…. the 11 in the morning takes about 45 minutes (much of it is level or downhill) and the trip home can take up to an hour (uphill in sections) I generally feel as though I’m a slower rider, as I get passed pretty frequently, but that’s what I look at for a commute. This tends to stay about the same, whether I take a blend of CCT and onstreet routes, or just do the onstreet route minus the use of the CCT.

I bike from Bethesda to the National Mall…

[culimerc]

My commute is almost exactly 15 miles each way. Falls Church to Reston. I’m not the fastest guy on the trail but I move along all right. Its a pretty flat ride over all. On the way in it’ll take anywhere from 58 mins. (no wind with lots o’ wheaties for breakfast) to 1:09 on a hard day with a head wind.

I load my bike up pretty well, its pushing 50 lbs. I’ve usually got a thermos of coffee, Lunch, couple of pieces of fruit, clothes, laptop, and the worlds heaviest flat kit. If it looks like rain in the afternoon, I bring the rain suit too. The biggest problem with having panniers is that room isnt an issue, I end up bringing *everything*.

I usually manage 3 or 4 days. Something usually pops up to keep me from 5. That said I only had 8 days in all of Jan.

[Steve]

I’m at just over 18 miles for the round trip. It takes me a little over 40 minutes to work and around 50 on the way home (uphill, and slightly longer to stay on MUPs). I can’t believe some of the commutes just posted. That is really impressive.

I don’t think you need to feel bad or justify anything to yourself. Ride when you want to ride. Don’t when you don’t. I think it’s important to enjoy yourself. Until recently, I rode to work maybe one day a week at most. A number of factors have led to me riding in a lot more, but like Dirt said, most of us started riding to work only sometimes, and probably in nicer weather. If you want to get yourself to ride more, my suggestion is to just try the two way commute on a Friday. We tend to feel a little less rushed on Friday, and are generally happy that the week has come to an end. If you know the weekend is on the other side of the commute home, maybe you’ll find it a little easier to try, and perhaps the full bike commute will be easier than you think.

[mstone]

20 miles each way. I have too many family commitments to have time to do it every day, and have sadly had very few biking days in the past month.

[jabberwocky]

My current commute is 7 miles each way, Reston to Great Falls (though moderately hilly, ~450ft of elevation each way). When I started commuting, it was 11 miles each way, Reston to Tysons. When the weather is nice I’ll often ride longer routes home (I have routes going from the standard 7 up to 25 or so).

[Subby]

I was on and off last year, but have made it a priority this year because I really have no excuse. I have my own office and our building has locker room/showers. The biggest deterrent is when I have youth sports stuff starting at 4p, but my boss is pretty cool about leaving early.

I have three routes, all are from McLean to near 15th & New York. Riding in is a piece of cake – Chain Bridge is 9.5 miles, Custis is 11.5 and WOD/MVT is 15.4 miles. I greatly prefer the latter if I can get out the door by 630am – it usually takes a little over an hour and the Bluemont Junction stretch puts me in the best mood ever. Going home via Custis is the WORST so I try to never do that. Best way is Chain Bridge, but that means I do 41st Street every day (which will probably add 5 years to my life). I also like doing the 15 mile stretch home, but I don’t always have time for that, as it takes a little longer.

I have spent a ton of money this year on winter commuting stuff – bike shoes, bike shoe covers, snow tires, winter tights, socks, sock liners, pedals for said shoes. My most important item though is probably my ELITE balaclava -I feel like I can commute in any weather with that thing on. It keeps my face totally warm. If I am properly attired, I can deal with anything.

EXCEPT FOR WIND. That takes a special mindset.

[Justin Antos]

3.2 miles and 15 minutes each way, if I go directly.

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