Bicycles!

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I even got a new bike mostly in order to reduce rolling resictance, so there'll be no winter tyres for my bike. If this winter turns out to be as mild as the last I most probably will encounter temperatures between -2 and 4 degrees celsius in the morning, and if it gets any colder commuting by car most probably will be preferred anyway.
 
My commute is basically 7km of mostly straight road through one town and into the center of a second.

Because it happens at 5:45, it's also generally at the coldest time of day, but in general nothing a set of gloves and a beanie can't help, although my thighs get a bit cold, and I generally have icicles in my beard at the end of a ride if the temp drops sufficiently below freezing.
 
I have a ten kilometre commute, but I only do it by bike if the weather is good and I don't have to carry my laptop. And not even then mostly.
 
I have a ten kilometre commute, but I only do it by bike if the weather is good and I don't have to carry my laptop. And not even then mostly.

My commute is 10KM as well. My principle is that I don't start a bike commute in rain, otherwise only lazyness will keep me from taking the bike.
 
I try to let weather dictate my decision on how to commute as little as possible, but a very rainy morning will likely see me taking the bus to the station, even though my raingear is good enough that even in the most torrential downpour only my beard gets wet.
 
Currently it's around the freezing point (no need for converting between Celsius and Fahrenheit here :p ) and I just cycled 25 km to a friend and back after work - now I'll sleep really well... :mrgreen:

I have a ski mask and rain gear, between that it's doable. When I overtake the cars in the traffic jam in the morning that's motivation enough to get out in the cold. :)
 
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Let's revive this thread. :)

I have owned my current bicycle for almost exactly one year now, the trip computer tells me I cycled this much:

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It might tick over to 2500 today since there will be a Critical Mass I'll attend: 18 km to the starting point, about 30 km Critical Mass, no one knows yet how many km from the end point back home since the end point isn't certain until it gets chosen by the mass. :)
 
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About 1 1/2 weeks ago I cycled about 80 km in one day, that included the old Harburg bridge over the Elbe:

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...and I just discovered that I completed 2000 miles by bicycle:

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I see 3200km... :p
Anyway, good job!
 
Since I'm riding so much currently (about 500 km per month) I forgot to post the 4000 km pic which I took last Friday, currently I'm already way past it at 4156 km...



Today I nicjasno'd chain and sprockets of the bike, I have to do that more often judging by the tons of greasy stuff I scratched off...
 
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Another 2 1/2 months (I didn't cycle that much in the 2 1/2 weeks of the roadtrip), another 1000 km done...

 
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On New Year's Eve I just had to go for a ride to get to this mileage:



Since I sold my E46 in late December I needed a second bike for when the first one had to be fixed so I bought a used cyclocross bike:



Maybe I'll get a folding bicycle as well. Reason: in the rare occasion I'll need a car I'll use car sharing, but in my area the two most popular car sharing companies aren't available, their areas to park the free floating cars end 6.5 km from my home. If I ride there with a normal bicycle I have to chain the bicycle where I pick up the car and have to leave the car there again. With a folding bicycle I can fold it up and put it in the trunk so I don't have to worry that the bicycle gets stolen and I have the freedom to park the car at the nearest possible area to my home.
 
Today I changed the front brake pads of the new used bike, then I almost overcooked it on the test ride since the rear wheel was what felt like 10 cm off the ground... o_O

Well, the stopping power is adequate now and the brakes don't squeak anymore and that by changing parts for just 5,90 Euro. :love: Longer test ride later today since I have a doctor's appointment about 15 km away, afterwards a meetup with some friends and then heading back home, all in all about 40-70 km, depending on the route and what I do between the doctor's appointment and the meetup.
 
Great, I have a conversation with myself... :p

I'll participate in the so-called Schokofahrt (chocolate ride) in April, it's an event where people transport chocolate by bicycle (mainly cargo bikes, but you can transport it on a normal bicycle with panniers or a trailer as well) from Amsterdam to their home city. The chocolate itself is made of cocoa beans which are transported by Tres Hombres, an emission free shipping company which run a sailing ship between South America and Europe. Additionally, the cocoa beans are fair trade and the packing paper and the other ingredients are organic and fair trade as well.
Since I never rode a cargo bike before I rented one over the weekend and did a 60 km ride yesterday and a 75 km one today by myself. The Schokofahrt itself will be 100+ km per day for four days, but since it's a group ride the motivation is higher so that should be no problem.

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So much to unpack here.
 
Let's revive this thread. :)

I have owned my current bicycle for almost exactly one year now, the trip computer tells me I cycled this much:

View attachment 3555159

?

It might tick over to 2500 today since there will be a Critical Mass I'll attend: 18 km to the starting point, about 30 km Critical Mass, no one knows yet how many km from the end point back home since the end point isn't certain until it gets chosen by the mass. :)
One year (and two days, but whatever...) later:

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Nope, this is not an April fool's, I really did cycle 5000 km with that bike in the last year. But wait, there's more - I did about 300 km with the Cyclocross bike I bought in January as well...
 
Great, I have a conversation with myself... :p

I'll participate in the so-called Schokofahrt (chocolate ride) in April, it's an event where people transport chocolate by bicycle (mainly cargo bikes, but you can transport it on a normal bicycle with panniers or a trailer as well) from Amsterdam to their home city. The chocolate itself is made of cocoa beans which are transported by Tres Hombres, an emission free shipping company which run a sailing ship between South America and Europe. Additionally, the cocoa beans are fair trade and the packing paper and the other ingredients are organic and fair trade as well.
Since I never rode a cargo bike before I rented one over the weekend and did a 60 km ride yesterday and a 75 km one today by myself. The Schokofahrt itself will be 100+ km per day for four days, but since it's a group ride the motivation is higher so that should be no problem.

View attachment 3555158
Well, I came back the day before yesterday and did about 800 km of cycling in 8 days:

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On Friday 19th I went by train to Amersfoort (had tickets to Amsterdam, but as I had time to spare I hopped off two stations earlier to cycle the last 45 km to Amsterdam), then met up with a bunch of people from Hamburg and Kiel, picked up the chocolate on Saturday 20th (there were 150+ people with all kinds of bicycles there which picked up more than 2 tons of chocolate) and went back from Sunday 21st. Since there wasn't enough capacity from Hamburg to Kiel I did that leg as well.

This is at the small factory where the chocolate is made and where we met up with the 150+ people:

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Here are the cargo bikes we used for transporting the chocolate from Amsterdam to Hamburg:

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And this is the second cargo bike which went up to Kiel as well, at our first drop off point for the chocolate:

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A cool photo someone of our group took when departing from Amsterdam very early to keep the chocolate cool-ish even in 24+°C weather:

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It's weird to use a normal bike again after cycling more than 800 km on a cargo bike, you wobble around as if you couldn't cycle anymore... xD
 
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