how much closer does it need to be? one of my colleagues bicycles 80km round trip to come to work! we moved last year and i was afraid our new place might be a tad far: 8km away, almost double the old distance... but actually it's dead easy. and though i don't do it often, i've made the trip at temps around what you have. but not with a cold! go back to bed! have some noodle soup! with chicken, white meat! eat bubbala!
I haven't biked to work since I don't own one, but I could if I did since work is only about 2.5 miles away from where I live. I take public transportation now and in the spring/summer (when it isn't 90 degrees with 100% humidity)/fall I will walk home from work. only problem with biking to work would be finding a place to lock it at the office.
It would be nice say if it was not that busy, but when you have to drive,walk or bike on one of the busiest boulevard's I don't think it's that smart of an idea..
hey, i've biked in NYC and it's no worse than lots of streets here. when it's really busy it's slow enough to be safe (i'd wear a mask)... cars are especially dangerous when they go (too) fast, but the blvds are sooo wide... but above all, you don't really need to bike much on the street from hell to get around. when i see people biking here on certain avenues i think: "sheesh, what a peabrain!"... parallel there are almost always much better routes, with a little experience any chimpanzee of average undimness can find them. and if they can't there are help groups: an association called pignon sur rue can even pair newbies up with veterans to guide-dog them through the best route to their job. i'll bet NYC has the same... aha! and in half a dozen clicks i found them. just off the top of my head! http://www.bikenewyork.org/education/classes/commute.html http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bike/mmdbins.shtml you see, there's no such thing as bad people... only bad excuses!
but on second thought i agree with you. sub freezing weather in manhattan streets, with a cold (btw dude, you gave me your cold)... take a cab!
and in an ikea bag no less! how far do you go on that thing? it looks like some pretty high grade material, but would you like, cycle 5 miles on it?
while it isn't the kind of machine that you would go miles and miles on, it fills a very real need, by combining biking with public transport. the ride from my neighborhood metro station to the nearest metro to my work is only 15 minutes, counting 3 minutes for the one change. but then i either have to wait (10 minutes) to ride a bus (10 minutes), or walk (20 minutes), and from my house i have to walk 10 minutes to get to the metro. 45 minutes total, which is longer than it would take to drive to work. people started using folding scooters a few years ago, but those are crap, and can even be dangerous. this is much better technology. here's another solution that is very successful here in lyon, and has even caught on in paris and other cities in france: these bikes are for hire all over town. the cost is almost nothing; the card is 1€ for two weeks or 8€ per year. the first half hour use is free, then it's 1€/hour. if you have a transit pass i believe that covers the 8€ yearly fee and lengthens the free usage period to 1 hour. part of the cost is is the rapid transit budget, but a lot of it is taken over by the company who installed the system, who also has the contract for all the bus shelters, and whose main line is outdoor advertising. there are lots of pros and cons of this system, and i personally am not a huge fan, but although it doesn't replace personal bike use imo, it does make public transport a lot more usable.
I want to say that Boulder had free bikes. Like, seriously, just take a bike and go. 11 most bike friendly cities in the world. Yeah, I realize that Boulder and Denver are basically the same, but I am surprised Denver isn't listed. 650 miles of bike paths in the city, and it isnt listed as one of the most biker friendly. haha.
It actually rides very nicely and comfortably. I've taken a number of rides over 20 miles on it. It is very light with quick acceleration - perfect for city streets (however, watchout for potholes). In high gear - it can do about 23 MPH on flats. In April, I plan to take the Shinkansen down to Kyoto and then ride the 300 miles back to Yokohama on the Old Tokaido Road. Should take about a week, methinks. Can't wait!
when i lived in amsterdam they started something like that... within 2 weeks people had taken all the bikes, but brought none of them back! all the modern bike-borrowing systems learned from that; if you look at a velo'v, not only does it take special tools to work on them, not one wheel, nut or bolt is standard measure. so you can't cannibalize them. i wish there were more bike paths here, but above that they were better and better respected. too many of the 500km the city claims to have are just laughable. sometimes they're no more than just bicycles stencilled onto the pavement, sometimes they're actually comical like above (even if the truck wasn't there, there's still the question of the two posts. at http://lyoncyclable.free.fr/ you can see more examples. we have a city hall that thinks it's very cycle friendly... but its main accomplishment, besides velo'v, is a very good propaganda campaign that got lots of people on their bikes (without exaggeration, there are TEN TIMES the cyclists today compared to 5 years ago) by convincing them the city had become cycle friendly, even though the situation on the ground hasn't really improved.
this morning i rode for good stretch along two other cyclists on interesting machines. one was an elderly (well, older than me anyway) gentleman on what proved to be an electric bike. at first i didn't even realize that; it was normal except for a discreet box attached to the seat tube... but when i saw gramps keeping up with me almost effortlessly (my pace is 7.5km in 16-18 min. acc to traffic), i knew something was up. the other was a young lady on a folding bike something like cosmos' (not quite as nice), and she was keeping up pretty good too. so you really can do better than just get out of your own way on a machine like that!
That is interesting. Our bike lanes look like this It can create some fun times when a car is, say, turning right, or going to park along side the road (though there is generally enough room between the bike lane and the sidewalk so the car doesn't have to park IN the bike lane). We have another major one which follows a creek through the city, so the bike path is basically at the level of the creek, while the two roads that follow the creek are graded about 10-15 feet higher than that. Of course, a lot of the pictures from that link look similar to things we have here. Some people don't respect bike lanes here, either, but I think you'll find that everywhere. The "share the road" program is fairly strong. And as for the development of bike lanes, it goes without saying that we have more space and land here to do that than you would in an European city.
I absolutely hate to drive to work. And I used to be somewhat of a car nut. But I don't like it. And that became even worse when I could actually walk to work. Being in the Northeast of the US, that has loads of benefits. Snowstorms didn't matter to me at all, and my car would stay nice and dry in the garage. Turn on the tv in the morning, look at the news... hear about the nightmare traffic I would've been stuck in... but isntead, just put on the MP3 player and walk out the door and be in the office in about 5 minutes. There was a free gym where I worked as well which was pretty good... I could go whenever I wanted... never know how good you've got it's behind. Biking's probably the way to be but now I live too far from the office to do that. So... it's in the car again. But I definitely am striving for the moment when I can just walk to work. That was absolute bliss... I thought I'd hate living that close to work but... since I enjoyed my job, it really didn't matter at all.
where this works best is where the most drivers... are also cyclists! in holland for example. if only everyone would go live there for just three months and see what a wonderful world it could be... well i work in the automoble industry and still am a car nut in a way, my favorites are english roadsters of the 50's/60's... my first car was an MGA 1600, in college i had a Tr4... last summer in CA i almost bought myself a bugeye sprite with miata running gear, but finally decided i didn't need a headache like that right now. as soon i'm retired and the kids are out of the house though, the minivan is out and a little red ragtop under a ton is in. but as for driving to get somewhere, it gives me hives. strange as it seems, 5 miles in rain or subzero weather is nothing to me, but finding my keys, then opening both sides of the gate, putting the key in the ignition... god just thinking about it makes me tired. when we were househunting we looked at a great place... the only problem was it was right across the street from the factory where i work! besides the question of what i would do for exercise, from the top floor bedroom i could actually see the desk where i work. brrrrrr....
I think thats another reason it works here, too. Even if you can't commute to work on your bike, a lot of people here ride for recreation, whether its mountain biking or road biking. I've seen a fair amount of "share the road" bumper stickers on cars, and, they even have license plates now.
the stupid motorist stories... well, i could, any urban cyclist could, give you 3 or 4 pearls every day. but this morning i saw a stupid cyclist trick that really is worth telling. in lyon we have trams; and one of the lines runs on an old railway line and has level crossings and everything... and just as i'm waiting at the barrier i see a dad come up the left lane, daughter sidesaddle on the baggage rack, son on one of those little "trailers" you can attach to a stroller, his youngest on the handlebars... and he goes right around the barrier and races the train... this morning that took the cake!
Anyone ever been hit by a motorist while on a bike? I got taken out by a jeep cherokee once. He was going to make a right turn on red (there is a little yield lane for it, thankfully he stopped), anyway, so he is looking UP road for traffic, I am coming from the other direction, he was stopped, so, right as I am in front of him, he guns it to get out in traffic, obviously not seeing me, and hits me. I was lucky, didn't hit my head, messed up my shoulder for a couple of weeks, though, it taco'd one of my wheels, but the rest of the bike was OK... Could've been a lot worse, but wow. I wasn't sure who was more in a state of shock/worry, when the guy got out of the car. He may have been more freaked out than I was (Though I was spewing a barrage of insults and swear words at him. Hah)
For the first time in my life I walk to work at the moment. Not only that but the views along the way are spectacular. Not sure how long this situation will last for, but I'm making the most of it while it does.
twice in fact, once in CA a guy in a pickup knocked me off my bike while rushing into a parking spot. i was sprawled all the way onto the sidewalk, and it drew quite a crowd. i remember there was a big black guy madder than i was, he got the crowd fired up and the driver was probably afraid he was going to get lynched! my front wheel was crushed but i wasn't hurt. the second time a lady pulled out of a side street right in front of me, and i ended up on her windshield, but it was at slow speed because i more than half expected her to do it*, so no damage... but i thought the woman was a bit selfish to say "mon dieu monsieur, vous m'avez fait peur!" (I scared HER !) and one time a guy opened up the door of his parked car right in front of me (the classic) i could have taken evasive action, but that can be even more dangerous, so i just braced myself and plowed right into him. i don't think he'll repeat the stunt anytime soon! *if you can't make anything resembling eye contact with a driver you're confronting, you have to assume they don't see you at all.
this is so true. in your car, you're in a cocoon, in a cage. you're only connection with the world is the radio, and you're probably listening to traffic reports. boys and girls that is no way to go through life! on foot or on a bike you can make eye contact with people, exchanges pleasantries... with garbagemen you can even converse*... instead of honking your horn, the ONE way motorists communicate with the outside world. *the garbage truck is the cyclist's best friend. once you get by it the road is yours and yours alone. i love the smell of garbage in the morning! it smells like... VICTORY!!
This youtube-vid gives you a pretty good idea how common cycling is in the Netherlands. It focusses on Amsterdam but it's like this in every city in The Netherlands. [youtube]qk6YxhKH590[/youtube] And there's this fantastic website of an American obsessed with our cycling habits.