Cycling Question.

[Sharla]

If I'm going to be honest I HATE TRANSPORT CYCLING!

It's not so bad in groups in places where cyclists ride often and drivers are used to them or in places like Japan where everyone cycles.

Here though to get from A to B it's risky. I've been hit THREE TIMES. Or technically hit twice and doored once.

Each time the car drivers were really sorry and took full responsibility for it but what bothers me is that these people were nice. If nice people can hit you by accident when you do nothing wrong then assholes or people hitting you when you make a mistake are a LOT worse!

Once I waited for all the traffic to go across a busy one way road and went to cycle across to get to the footpath on the other side. A woman decided she'd missed her turn and went and reversed the wrong way down a one way street and hit me!

Another time i was going straight ahead through some traffic lights. A car turning left into that road didn't see me - she was focused on the car behind me and decided she had time to get in ahead of it and drove straight into the side of my bike. I saw her coming and yelled stop 3 times but she said afterwards she heard something and just didn't wake up to it. I was thrown in front of oncoming traffic in the next lane but luckily they saw it all unfolding and stopped without hitting me.

Another time a taxi driver in a rush to get something while he waited for a client swung his door open at the last second without looking as I was cycling past. I'd left about a metre gap between me and the parked cars be he still caught the front of my bike by about 2 cm. I was flung over the handle bars - again into the next lane. Luckily the oncoming traffic was stopped at some lights up ahead and I was pounced on by 3 nurses that happened to be in the area at the time. Plus he gave me a lift to work with my mangled bike afterwards.

Transport cycling something you do when you're transitioning between other forms of transport but it's not worth it for exercise. 12 miles of transport cycling is not going to make someone as fit as you any fitter. It'll benefit a sedentiary person who just needs to move but not an athlete! Especially as someone with a young family who needs you I don't think it's worth the risk.

At least don't cycle at night or in overcast conditions! PLEASE!

Anyway cyclists might average about 25 to 30 km an hour over a longish distance but a lot depends on the type of bike you have and how much it all weighs. A good cyclist will be cycling at 40 km an hour and faster but that's not easy to obtain on normal roads with traffic lights and especially on a mountain bike as opposed to a road bike.

The best idea if you're fixed on this is to cycle the distance and judge for yourself. Go by your own benchmarks rather than what is acceptable in a cyclists world because so much depends on your equipment and the road it's hard to predict.

[donnydarkoIRL]

I'm just debating in my head whether to do this or not. There's a world class weights gym available to me in the mornings, but there are no buses and bringing a car to town is a liability as parking is so expensive, I'm really undecided, but if it's more than an hours cycle it's not worth it.

[md]

Cleats are a good investment to attach your feet to the pedals if you decide to go for it. Once you get used to them you'd be able to give your hamstrings some work too.

[Sharla]

Long time no see MD! I have been wondering where you went! I have cleats for my road bike but not my mountain bike.

I like them but don't really like having to carry shoes everywhere then.

Can you maybe leave stuff in a locker there if you decide to do this hitmandonny?

[donnydarkoIRL]

I'm actually just investigating that now Sharla

[bikersk]

Hey Hitmandonny. If you haven't cycled much before it will take a bit of time to get used to it but lets say you start off being able to cycle at 30 kph average. Thats 1 k every 2 mins so it would take you about 1 - 1hr 10 mins to cycle that distance. That kind of pace is fine for someone starting on a bike. If you are on a mountain bike that's the sort of pace you might expect at first. If you have a road bike it might be a bit quicker. After a while you will get quicker and should get in under the hour. My experience was that I used to run a lot and got into mountain bike riding after a bit of a bmx racing stint when I was young. I rode to University and training as well as running and got into running straight off the bike which is great for the legs. My running times came down quite a bit too. One thing I found good about biking to things was the increase in leg strength. This should help with punch power but if weight is an issue this would have to be weighed up because muscle can weigh a bit. I used to think my legs were strong untill i took up bike riding. I reckon you should be able to get under that 1 hour soon enough.

[donnydarkoIRL]

Thanks Biker nice one mate!

[:::PSL:::]

I have a pretty messed up knee joint cartilage. I can't ride bicycle for more than half hour.