Author Topic: All working members of my family now partly commute by bike  (Read 9180 times)

stylesjl

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All working members of my family now partly commute by bike
« on: April 23, 2016, 03:16:29 AM »
We've done it! Now me, my brother and dad all ride bicycles from our house to the train station and back again every working day. The distance to ride is only about 1 KM and we all still must use the train to get to work and back but at least now the daily mini clown car commute has been eliminated. Best thing is not only do we all get some more healthy exercise but the time it takes to get to the station is about the same for the car anyway (10 to 15 minutes).

Not sure how much this will save in terms of fuel and longevity of the car though, it is after all a very short distance but I think it would be a couple of dollars a day in expenses between me and my brother.

alsoknownasDean

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Re: All working members of my family now partly commute by bike
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2016, 04:06:20 AM »
That's pretty good, although it'd have to be longer than 1km if it was a 10-15min bike ride. One can walk a kilometre in that amount of time.

Also yeah it should help with the cars, not only are they not having short trips (which aren't good for cars), but they're not sitting at train station carparks all day with the potential for vandalism/theft.

Good stuff!

stylesjl

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Re: All working members of my family now partly commute by bike
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2016, 02:34:08 AM »
That's pretty good, although it'd have to be longer than 1km if it was a 10-15min bike ride. One can walk a kilometre in that amount of time.

Also yeah it should help with the cars, not only are they not having short trips (which aren't good for cars), but they're not sitting at train station carparks all day with the potential for vandalism/theft.

Good stuff!

You're right actually, I checked the address of my house and the station in Google maps and it reckons 2.9KM, though the route was a bit unusual, that will teach me to rely on intuition.

Never had the car vandalised or stolen though, but it can never be ruled out, my dad was a bit worried about the security of the bicycles at first, so he observed what other bicycle riders were doing. Many of them leave their heavy duty locks along the gates of the station even when there is no bike in them, funnily enough we've never seen bikes in most of those locks even when we get home earlier than most.

DagobertDuck

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Re: All working members of my family now partly commute by bike
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2016, 04:40:48 AM »
Good move!
(I find it hard to believe one would even consider using a car for such a short distance)

Not sure how much this will save in terms of fuel and longevity of the car though, it is after all a very short distance but I think it would be a couple of dollars a day in expenses between me and my brother.
Cold starts and short rides are quite bad in terms of fuel efficiency and wear.

.x.

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Re: All working members of my family now partly commute by bike
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2016, 06:40:33 PM »
We've done it! Now me, my brother and dad all ride bicycles from our house to the train station and back again every working day.

That's cool that you got them to do it with you!  My drive to town is 15 minutes, so not sure how long that would take on a bike, but that's a future goal for me.  Congrats on the shift!