I've been commuting by bike for a good twelve years. Currently 62 kilometres a day, four days a week. Over thousands of kilometres, I've seen it all. I've been on the bonnet of a car, crashed into two tailgates, seen a dozen other bike commuters crash in front of me, crashed myself, been bitten by dogs and been mobbed countless times. But all of this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most people don't realise what regular commuting by bike really means. Five facts from the life of a cycle commuter.
1. environment, fitness and health
Let's start with the good. Commuting by bike is good for the environment, keeps you healthy and fit. While car drivers lose their nerves in traffic jams and train passengers catch the next batch of cold viruses, I ride my bike through the countryside regardless of departure times, rail replacement services and the like. My journey to work is long but rewarding: lots of cycle paths, lots of trees. Thanks to the fresh air and exercise, I have a balanced start to the day and can still burn off energy after the day's work. I cycle for around two and a half hours a day across fields and through suburbs in all weathers. I was completely exhausted at first. For the first two weeks on my current bike commute, I felt permanently exhausted and exhausted. Regular bike commuting of this distance is like a stage race. Even today, I still feel increasingly tired as the week progresses. Ten hours of cycling on four working days is exhausting, but on the other hand it also makes you fit as a fiddle.
You get used to everything. Today, the ride to work no longer seems so bad. It has become normality, part of daily business. My body has adapted to the constant strain and I don't lack basic stamina. Anyone who has problems getting up to their training volume should definitely consider regular bike commuting. Fitness will come almost automatically. The other side of the coin: at the weekend, I hardly have any motivation or energy left to get on my bike. By commuting, I've swapped the trail for the cycle path - a deal I don't always like! This makes regeneration all the more important, for example by getting as much good sleep as possible. That's also challenging on weekdays.
2. routine
The same route day in, day out: I know every corner, every house, every railway crossing on my commute. I've travelled the roads hundreds of times, I'm on first-name terms with every pebble. The automatism is now so strong that I sometimes wake up from my thoughts and no longer know where I am on the route. I could easily cycle long stretches with my eyes closed. Boredom is both a curse and a blessing. The eternal sameness bores me: I would much rather ride my bike through beautiful mountain landscapes. But the monotony also has something meditative about it. Turning your head off and cranking - others take far too little time for that in everyday life. On my bike, I have peace and space to think about work and private matters. I now even enjoy cycling in the dark to maximise the tunnel effect. Just the cycle path, the cone of light, my music and me.
3. eat, eat, eat
I'm a tall, sporty guy. Due to my high activity level and my height of 1.90 metres, my basic requirement is already around 3000 calories. The two and a half hours I spend commuting by bike add another 2000 or so. On the days I cycle to the office, I am constantly eating. The evening before, I prepare snacks such as sandwiches and fruit for the next morning to tide me over until lunch. The portion of porridge I eat every morning could probably feed a family of four. In the afternoon, I keep my head above water with muesli bars and jelly babies.
On the way home, however, the hunger pangs strike. Especially on cold days, I have to pull more bars out of my panniers. When I get home, I can't wait for dinner to be ready, so I head straight to the kitchen to make use of everything in the fridge. Only then do I head for the shower and the dinner table. Not only does this amount of food challenge my digestion, but it's also really difficult not only to fall back on convenience food, but also to keep non-processed foods in my diet for the sake of health and regeneration.
4. wash, wash, wash
Doing sport on a daily basis presents the household with completely different challenges in addition to large purchases: The smelly piles of laundry pile up in the bathroom. I have to start a machine about every two days. There are more cycling clothes in my wardrobe than other items of clothing. About six complete outfits are constantly rotating between bike, washing machine and office. The sweaty clothes fly around the small flat and the drying rack is in constant use. Washing, hanging up and hanging down the clothes takes up so much space that I have been forced to learn to multitask. So every time I phone family or friends, I'm handling the laundry, having conversations mostly on the drying rack. In the evening, I have to get my cycling and changing clothes ready for the next day. I've become a pro at predicting the weather forecast.
5. attention, cyclists!
Cycling in road traffic is much more dangerous than on the trail. There are the dreaded dooring accidents with car doors suddenly being ripped open, but also more exotic dangers. In my experience, dogs in particular are almost unpredictable. In a residential area, a dog once jumped in front of my front wheel out of the blue and snapped at me. He had torn himself away from his owner on the pavement five metres away - just like that. Another nuisance for cycle commuters in my daily experience is the growing fleet of e-scooters. Unlit, they suddenly get in the way in the most bizarre places. Their pilots regularly come straight at me against the direction of travel, looking down at their smartphones.
Even with the most powerful lighting system and reflectors hung like a cheesy Christmas tree, cyclists unfortunately cannot rely on other road users noticing them. On German roads, most people are not used to fast cyclists in particular. How many times have I been overtaken at 50 km/h in a 30 km/h zone? I've stopped counting. My appeal is therefore: ride defensively to work if your health is important to you!
Jan Timmermann
Editor
