I cycle as my main form of transport around where I live (in the UK, so a bunch of this may be weird to you US people). Most common journey is to work and back (~1.5 miles, takes me about 10 minutes on the way there and 15 or so on the way back due to hills). I do this every weekday and also cycle to leisure/hobby locations, supermarket, etc.
Reasons for choosing cycling:
Habit. It’s been my main form of transport for about 6 years now and I cycled a fair bit before that too.
It’s free other than the initial cost of the bike (and I would want to own a bike even if it wasn’t my main form of transportation) and occasional maintenance costs. Overall, over the lifetime of the bike, unbeatably cheap.
It’s a lot quicker than walking (especially downhill!). It’s also a lot quicker than driving over the short distances that I mostly cover, on roads that are often blocked up with traffic that I can easily cycle around. On most of the routes I regularly cycle, it’s far quicker than any of the public transport options too, especially if you count waiting time.
It’s a lot better for the environment than driving.
It’s a good way to incorporate a little bit of extra activity into my day.
It’s easy to park a bike, virtually anywhere, for free. Most places I cycle to are in the middle of a city and parking the car there would be either prohibitively expensive or, more likely, impossible.
It’s flexible. I can jump on my bike at a moment’s notice and go from door to door rather than having to faff around defrosting the car, checking that it has petrol, finding somewhere to park, etc etc, or waiting for a bus.
If I’m lost, it’s dead easy to stop at the side of the road and check where I’m trying to get to, and I can walk back along the pavement if it turns out I’m on the wrong track. These things are often not easy when driving!
I enjoy the opportunity to spend a little bit of time outdoors just about every day; I feel it creates a nice gap between activities/work/etc. Of course I moan like crazy about this when it rains heavily, but I still do it.
I certainly do cycle on bike paths where they’re available, but nearly all my regular routes are just on primarily residential streets. Sometimes there are bike lanes in the road, which is fine and obviously I ride in them, but it doesn’t make me feel that much safer as they are shared with buses and often contain parked cars that are liable to open their doors without warning. Depending on the type of road, the situation, and the turn I’m about to take next, I either ride most of the way over to the left (staying out of cars’ way but not rubbing right up against the kerb, and looking ahead to pull out around a parked car if necessary) or take the lane (if there’s not room for a car to reasonably overtake me, if I’m riding at/near the speed limit on a steep downhill, if I’m about to turn right).
I generally feel fairly safe while cycling. I wear a helmet 95% of the time, and use lights at night (which cyclists legally must here). I’m normally a fairly defensive/paranoid cyclist: I slow down if I’m not sure what a car is doing, I practically insist on eye contact with the driver before I will cycle across someone waiting to turn out of a side street, I always look over my shoulder, I don’t run through red lights, etc. I’ve had about 3 “near misses” in the last 6 years of cycling virtually every day, all caused by cars that looked straight at me but did not see me. No actual accidents.
I cycle as my main form of transport around where I live (in the UK, so a bunch of this may be weird to you US people). Most common journey is to work and back (~1.5 miles, takes me about 10 minutes on the way there and 15 or so on the way back due to hills). I do this every weekday and also cycle to leisure/hobby locations, supermarket, etc.
Reasons for choosing cycling:
Habit. It’s been my main form of transport for about 6 years now and I cycled a fair bit before that too.
It’s free other than the initial cost of the bike (and I would want to own a bike even if it wasn’t my main form of transportation) and occasional maintenance costs. Overall, over the lifetime of the bike, unbeatably cheap.
It’s a lot quicker than walking (especially downhill!). It’s also a lot quicker than driving over the short distances that I mostly cover, on roads that are often blocked up with traffic that I can easily cycle around. On most of the routes I regularly cycle, it’s far quicker than any of the public transport options too, especially if you count waiting time.
It’s a lot better for the environment than driving.
It’s a good way to incorporate a little bit of extra activity into my day.
It’s easy to park a bike, virtually anywhere, for free. Most places I cycle to are in the middle of a city and parking the car there would be either prohibitively expensive or, more likely, impossible.
It’s flexible. I can jump on my bike at a moment’s notice and go from door to door rather than having to faff around defrosting the car, checking that it has petrol, finding somewhere to park, etc etc, or waiting for a bus.
If I’m lost, it’s dead easy to stop at the side of the road and check where I’m trying to get to, and I can walk back along the pavement if it turns out I’m on the wrong track. These things are often not easy when driving!
I enjoy the opportunity to spend a little bit of time outdoors just about every day; I feel it creates a nice gap between activities/work/etc. Of course I moan like crazy about this when it rains heavily, but I still do it.
I certainly do cycle on bike paths where they’re available, but nearly all my regular routes are just on primarily residential streets. Sometimes there are bike lanes in the road, which is fine and obviously I ride in them, but it doesn’t make me feel that much safer as they are shared with buses and often contain parked cars that are liable to open their doors without warning. Depending on the type of road, the situation, and the turn I’m about to take next, I either ride most of the way over to the left (staying out of cars’ way but not rubbing right up against the kerb, and looking ahead to pull out around a parked car if necessary) or take the lane (if there’s not room for a car to reasonably overtake me, if I’m riding at/near the speed limit on a steep downhill, if I’m about to turn right).
I generally feel fairly safe while cycling. I wear a helmet 95% of the time, and use lights at night (which cyclists legally must here). I’m normally a fairly defensive/paranoid cyclist: I slow down if I’m not sure what a car is doing, I practically insist on eye contact with the driver before I will cycle across someone waiting to turn out of a side street, I always look over my shoulder, I don’t run through red lights, etc. I’ve had about 3 “near misses” in the last 6 years of cycling virtually every day, all caused by cars that looked straight at me but did not see me. No actual accidents.