‘Again?’ I could be heard to mutter on occasion (especially in the winter), as I donned yet another pair of bibshorts and struggled into my overshoes (why do they have to be so tight?) in preparation for the five purgatorial urban miles in wind, rain and single-digit temperatures that would deliver me from office to house.
Was it worth it, the rigmarole? When were they – whoever ‘they’ might be – going to invent the teleporting device that we were all teased with by Star Trek?
Perfect. Except that rigmarole of the daily cycle commute – I miss it a lot.
James Shrubsall
James has worked at a variety of races for CW, from the Classics to the Giro d’Italia – and this year was his seventh Tour de France. He has been cycling on and off road for four decades, and misses his ride to work.
We’ve all read the articles extolling the virtues of the daily commute as a vehicle for training, and it can indeed work very well for that. If it takes you out onto the open roads over a useful distance – say 10 miles (16km) and upwards, you could chuck in a structured session a couple of times a week, and it might make up the bulk of your riding.
Indeed, there have been some very successful riders over the years who have built their condition almost exclusively on commuting miles.
However, if your commute generally totals 20-30 minutes of waiting at junctions and getting out of the way of motorists, the idea of throwing in a VO2 max session is as impractical as it is dangerous.
And no police officer is going to accept the fact that you were about to set a new five-minute power PB as an excuse for jumping that red light.
Extending the commute out into more forgiving territory can of course be an option. But many of us have enough commitments at both ends of the day that such a thing can only be an occasional luxury.
Sometimes that short, urban commute is only ever going to be just that. A practical…