I hope I'm not committing a major breach of protocol by asking, but is it really worth the trouble?
No. you're not. Always question everything, even if it comes from the great Mustache himself. It's better to ask and have us (hopefully!) convince you here, than for you to start riding with a little doubt in your mind and have that doubt nag at you until you fall back into your old habits. Just as important as doing the right thing is knowing what the right thing is and why you're doing it. Maybe biking isn't for you, but it seems to me right now you don't entirely see both sides of the picture. So I'm glad you asked.
I get that there are health benefits as well as gas savings to be accomplished
You said you read the
article on biking, but I'm not sure you fully understand it. First, as Richard said, that commute is costing you $1000/year. One way to think about this is that you're spending $1000 dollars more than you need to every year. The more Mustachian way to think about it is that if you ditch the car most days then you can live on $1000
less per year. At 4% withdrawal, that means you need $25,000 less in your investments to be financially independent. For many (if not most?) Mustachians, that's over a year of savings! That means you can quit your job a
whole year earlier!The health benefits are also huge! How many of the people you know get over an hour of exercise every day? I would guess very few. Even if you ride in to work 3 days a week, and that's your only exercise, that's still more than your average American (don't have a citation on me, but I know it's true and will dig around for it if you want). If you like thinking about things in terms of money, that'll save you a thousands and thousands of dollars in medical over your lifetime. If you prefer to think in terms of time, think about how much more likely you will be to live a longer than average life! If you already do get regular exercise, well, more never hurts, and it's practically free (both money-wise and time-wise, we'll get to that).
but it sounds like riding in with a change of clothes and taking a shower before work would be a real pain
No it's not. That's really all I can tell you about this one. I hardly notice my backpack anymore, and I load it up with way more stuff than I actually need to get though a day. If you're really hung up on this one, do as Richard said and drive in with fresh clothes every Monday. You can drive back and pick up the dirties on Fridays and bike the middle 3 days, or if you're feeling a little more badass bring enough for 4 day and do both the drop-off and pick-up on the same day. Or do drop-off and pick-up on the same day, but do that every 4th day, so you ride more days on average but still only bike three days in a row tops.
and big time commitment
I spend an extra 20 minutes a day tops commuting by bike. My housemate (who works at the exact same place but on a different shift so I can't ride with him) takes 15 minutes to drive to work, 6 miles away. I take 25 to ride, on a slow day. Two ways - that's 20 minutes. The shower I take at work is the only shower of the day, so that time is time I would have spent showering anyway. The planning of taking a change of clothes takes a negligible amount of time once you get in the habit of it. And that doesn't count the time I
save by using my bike commute as exercise time. My body likes me to exercise at least a 45 minutes a day. If I don't I turn into a real grump. If I were to drive to work, drive home, and exercise (heaven forbid I drive to a gym too), I would spend 45 minutes a day past my drive time exercising. Now, when I bike to work, I get 50 minutes of exercise while only spending an extra 20 minutes! Rather than bike commuting costing me time, it actually saves me about a half hour a day!
to spare 16 miles a day of driving.
I'm just going to gloss over this since Richard did such a good job of explaining
how freakin' much this actually is, and how quickly it adds up. Most folks don't think about it anymore because we've become so accustomed to having cars at our disposal for even the smallest trips, but back in the day many people wouldn't think twice about
walking 8 miles each way to visit someone, or go do something important.
As much as I hate $4 gallon gas,
Again, the gas alone isn't the only factor here (although I do have a hearty chuckle every time I ride by a gas station on my bike).
it just doesn't seem very practical riding a bike to work and dealing with the consequences of heavy sweating/wet clothes to start the day.
We've shown you how to deal with the sweating, which will go down significantly after it starts cooling off soon - shower if possible, sponge off in the bathroom if possible, or at worst (which is actually very effective) just towel off before you put on your work clothes. I don't know how you got wet clothes, but if you think you'll sweat through your backpack just put them in a plastic grocery bag. Like most people have said, it's no big deal. The hardest part is just doing it.
Fwiw, that's sort of the basic premise of my blog, by the way: pursuing frugal practices, but only where practical.
For me, biking is practical, in that I'd choose it over a car given the choice, up to somewhere between 12 and 15 miles one way, depending on the weather and terrain. I've been doing this longer than most though, so biking everywhere is pretty natural. I think once you get in the habit, it'll be easier and more practical than you think. Eight miles one way is reasonable for pretty much anyone.
So there ya have it. If you still have doubts or questions, please ask. I'm sure someone here has an answer. Or if you decide that biking isn't for you, that's cool too. I just want to make sure you know what you're missing ;)
edit: spelling and such