Cycling UK Forum

Is it sad that as a cycle commuter I find myself making excuses to go places after work so I get a longer ride home.

Been volunteering to do a load of jobs for the missus recently as a trip into town effectively doubles my ride home.

Suspect this is going to get worse as the weather improves too Loving my new bike.

Don't feel guilty.

De Sisti wrote:Don't feel guilty.

This! If you want a longer ride home then do a longer ride home.

Well done Thomas glad your loving your new bike. The best part of my day before retiring was the ten mile home ride from the office.

My commute is five miles if I go straight home but I usually try to stretch it to ten

Thomas125 wrote:My commute is five miles if I go straight home but I usually try to stretch it to ten

Don't believe you: you are going back to work and burning the midnight oil. [emoji50]

Glad you're enjoying. Very addictive...hc

For the last 17 years of my (paid) working life it was a 5 mile ride. However in better weather an earlier start allowed a 14 mile route.

Riding home I did the 14 miles at least twice a week all year and in summer did training rides of up to 60 miles.

All a distant memory now - 100 miles a week is a real achievement, due to both domestic circumstances and a physical limit of around 50 miles.

50 miles a week is good. Any miles are good I want to keep going as long as I can.

Hopefully will get easier to put more miles in when the kids are bigger. Domestic life makes things pretty challenging.

Thomas125 wrote:50 miles a week is good. Any miles are good I want to keep going as long as I can.

Hopefully will get easier to put more miles in when the kids are bigger. Domestic life makes things pretty challenging.

Definitely! My 5 YOD hasn't got the legs to cover massive miles but she's up for the trailer bike. My 12 YOD can out-pace me on a slight incline when I've got 2 loaded panniers and a trailer bike! Best bit about being a good dad is letting them beat you and keeping it to yourself. Esteem, esteem & more esteem...hc

My ride home is 8.8 miles from Manchester city centre along one road to the outskirts of the city.

Any detours just make the journey more grim.

Don't wan't to to make you jealous blackbike, but extending my ride home means fantastic views of the Dorset coast whichever way I go. I've lived here for 12 years now, but on a summer evening I still can' t believe how lucky I am.

Lucky ?

I was lucky about seven or eight years before I retired, my employer ( a county council) decided to stop much of my car use allowance.

However they did pay me a cycle allowance of 15 pence a mile for work related cycling,not for the commute.

I have lived in the tropics for the past 28 years. In a city at that and for many years flying country to country on work except for a year based in the jungle - real jungle, no tracks, let alone roads. This all means I neglected my bike until recently. Work has changed and I now work from home (15 seconds commute from bedroom to office) so I can set times a bit better.

Being the tropics means way hot everyday as well as it getting dark a little after 7pm all year round, so no long summer evening rides. Being in a city (suburbs) in a developing country means main roads only and massive amounts of traffic that includes a lot of 2 stroke bikes (cough cough) all with no respects for cyclists and I mean NO respect for cyclists.

I had to give up racquet sports due to an injury so I decided to try cycling again. I go out late at night or early hours 1 or 2 am when the roads are a bit quieter and it is a few degrees cooler (2:00 am means about 23 degrees centigrade on a cool night). It is frustrating that there are so few suitable routes to ride and also that whereas I was a hill climb trophy holder a few times as a teen I find myself reaching for low, low gears on even the slightest gradient. There is no wind here and humidity is always very high so keeping cool really is an issue. Over the past few months I've lost the weight I gained having stopped racquet sports and maybe a bit more, now being at my ideal weight, so all is good but only managing around 30km per ride is a little disappointing. Any distance over that either means going in loops or using a car to get beyond traffic bottlenecks that are simply too dangerous to contemplate on a bike.

I plan to move back to UK in about 2 years. I am looking forward to Spring and Summer cycling.