In praise of the humble commute

15 km. 30 minutes. Come rain or shine, snow or wind.

Commuting to work is often considered the most banal form of cycling. It’s not sexy, its functional, and you won’t see many dramatic commuting photos in cycling magazines. Our cycling fantasies are often touring through dramatic Alpine climbs or racing across Flandrian cobbles.

For better or worse, I work in an office, so I have relatively little time to train. Asides from a nice long ride at the weekend, I have to get my training done during the week on the way to work and back.

Commuting often involves very little variety, riding through built up areas, maybe some traffic, and experiencing various types of weather. You may be sleepy as you ride to work in the darkness. You may be exhausted as you ride back home, almost certainly in the darkness.

Roughly the same spot, different seasons. Commuting lets you know a route intimately.

I need to carry my equipment for work – laptop, suit, shoes, spare clothes, and any shopping I might pick up from the city. These go into my bags, waterproof and robust, specially designed for the purpose. My bike needs to be reliable – I can’t be later for my appointments, so I can’t suffer mechanicals. The bike just has to work.

Let’s assume a working year is about 230 days. Without fail (except for illness or ice) my commutes sum up to a minimum of 6,900 km every year. This is significantly more than the approximately 500 – 600km I may ride during my racing season. It’s much less than any ultra-endurance race I may ride during the year.

If I ride at an average of 25 km/h, that gives me 276 hours per year – 11.5 days – in the saddle. That’s a lot of time for just riding to work and back.

This distance and time is a serious commitment. Not only is it great for training, but its also good for testing equipment. My bike needs to be reliable, but equally comfortable. The frame geometry should be relaxed. The tyres must be robust for bad weather, the saddle and handlebars comfortable. My clothing needs to be warm, waterproof and breathable in winter, but cool in the summer. The lighting needs to be bright and durable.

In fact, these make perfect conditions for bikepacking preparation.

For this reason, my Triban has become my default bikepacking bike exactly because of the tough demands of commuting. I’m actually planning on upgrading my Triban’s lighting system to a dynamo, so that I don’t have to faff around with recharging. Equally, I can be completely independent when I do big mile riding.

Interestingly enough, daily commuting by bike has strengthened me psychologically. Regardless what the weather is, regardless whether I’m fresh or tired, regardless whether I want to or not – I need to cycle to work. Oddly enough, this helps me immensely. For long distance riding, often the first few kilometers are the hardest – the rest falls into place afterwards. In effect, I do this twice daily.

You may see some spectacular sights, something you’ll certainly miss from your car or a train.

I might be an extreme case, but the lesson is – don’t underestimate bike commuters. You may see us ride by in all shapes and sizes, but we are a bunch of committed cyclists who will ride come rain or shine, with great base fitness, and will probably cover more miles in a year than many amateur racers.

Personally, I can say that I’m a proud time triallist, ultra-endurance rider, and commuter.

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By the way, for tips on getting into commuting, I can recommend the Shifter Youtube channel here (external link).