What's your biking cutoff distance?

[cbr shadow]

I'm biking to work which is 10 miles each way.  That's a perfect ride for me to feel like it's long enough to benefit from it but short enough where I can do it twice daily without an issue.
Well I do these "focus groups" where I'm paid to give my opinion.  I qualified for one that is 20 miles from my home.  It's 90 minutes long and pays $100, so I'd like to do it.  I'm thinking I will ride the 10 miles to work, hitch a ride with a coworker going to the same focus group, then ride the 21 miles home.  Too much?  Do I just drive?

What distance do you normally say "ok that's too far to bike, I'll drive"?  These are mainly on busy roads that have bike lanes, stop lights, driveways, etc..so it's not like a 20 mile ride on a bike trail :)

[grantmeaname]

Do you only ride to and from work, or do you also ride around for exercise? I ride for exercise (quite a bit), so there isn't really a 'too far' up until the length of a day-long ride.

[Joet]

I once considered biking to Fremont (~22m) from san jose to purchase a bike and then take BOTH bikes back homeless-guy-style :)

normally anything outside ~15-20m is outside my comfort zone, depending on my motivation.

The longest bike trip I've taken was a mixed public transportation [caltrain + ferry] event from san jose to mt. tamalpais to mtbike the whole thing and return. woah. fairly epic.

[matchewed]

Just to an event or work? Probably 15-20 miles. Just to bike to bike? Last summer I was able to do 50 miles round trip. That was ouchie... probably small stuff for the more veteran people and I want to try it a few more times this year.

[frompa]

If you are regularly biking twenty miles round trip, you should be able to do a twenty mile round trip without difficulty.  I used to have a ten mile each way work commute, as you do now, and on weekends was able to easily bike 60 miles in a day, 100 miles if I pushed myself, and I'm in a pretty hilly part of the country (Pennsylvania).  As for fairly busy roads versus bike trails, I find it much easier to put in many miles on the roads, rather than on trails.  Go for it, dude.

[cbr shadow]

Frompa you talked me into it.  I'll feel like a wussypants if I don't do it so I'm just going to go for it.

[Paul der Krake]

It really depends on the conditions, heat, what you're wearing and what you're going to be doing at your destination. Casual work clothes I don't want to sweat too much in? Probably 3-5 flat miles.

Going to visit a friend or running an errand on a lazy sunday morning? 6-8.

Cycling for the sake of cycling? No more than 100-150 in a day. Above that you're into expedition territory and probably need logistics.

[Jamesqf]

Also depends on the terrain.  20 miles on the flat is easy. 20 miles of hills is not.   Just how not of course depending on the steepness of the hills.

[Shandi76]

Like others have said, it depends the terrain and how quiet or not the roads are. My old commute was 17 - 18 miles each way and was rather hilly and I never got into the habit of doing it more than once a week: it took twice as long as driving at rush hour (I was pretty slow), and the cycle home had the last 6 miles as a steady climb, just when you were most tired.

When I go cycling for fun with no time pressure then 20 - 30 miles is nice. I usually get pretty wiped if I try and go further than that. I might manage longer distances in flat terrain.