Are You Missing An Opportunity To Train?

I am constantly amazed by how few triathletes commute by bike. It's one of the easiest ways to get in extra training time with far less time taken from your day than a normal workout. And if you think that because you've got traffic and stoplights to deal with that you're not getting a good cycling workout in, or that it doesn't "count" if it isn't on your supercool tri bike, think again! Over the past few years, almost 1/3 of my total mileage has come from commuting by bike, and my bike times are as competitive as they were when I was using my triathlon bike exclusively. As an example of how efficient this is, take my old commute of 11 miles each way:

In a car, the commute took me 18 minutes (no traffic) to 45 minutes (heavy traffic) one way. On the bike, it always took 45 minutes (bike lanes negated any influence from traffic jams). So on heavy traffic days, I could get an hour and a half workout with no extra time taken from my day whatsoever. On light traffic days, I got a 90 minute workout, while only using 54 minutes of time (when you subtract the time I would've spent commuting in the car). On average, I probably got a 90 minute workout for 45 minutes of time. That's a big time savings over a week or a month.

Since it's National Bike To Work Week here in the U.S., many cities have events designed to help new bike commuters make the leap. In my town, they're serving up free breakfast to bike commuters, along with putting on seminars, giving away bells and tune-ups, and having a bike-powered concert. It's a great time of year to try commuting, and with gas prices going up, more people are turning to bikes than ever before.


If you're new to bike commuting, Paul Dorn has a nice page with tips on all aspects of the two-wheeled commute, and his Twitter Feed is full of helpful tips and articles. What are you waiting for? Get on the bike and ditch the cager commute.

The Case For Bike Commuting

I just looked at all of my bike stats over the last four months and came up with the following:

Tri Bike: 86.5 hours
Tandem (with kids): 26 hours
Commuter Bike: 19 hours
Total Commuter/Tandem: 45 hours
Total hours: 131.5

About a third of my hours on the bike have been on my commuter bike or commuting places with one or both kids on the tandem. Granted, I'm not usually going the same speed or cadence as I am on my tri bike, but I'm usually pulling a lot more weight (can you say "strength training"???). I think this is the reason that, although my training volume this year has been very low (I've only put in one week with over 10 hours of tri-specific training all summer), I set a bike PR last month at an Olympic distance race. I am hoping this carries through and I have a reasonable bike course at the Black Diamond Half-Iron next week, despite very few long rides under my belt.

All in all, I think this makes a great case for using a bicycle for transportation if you're training (of course, those of you who read my sustainability blog will know that I'm a huge advocate of bike commuting for reasons related to fuel consumption and global warming as well!) but even if you just look at the training aspect of it, using a bicycle for transportation is a great way to get in more hours for very little extra time spent.

For those with longer commutes, like my husband's, it makes even more sense. He's got 11 miles one way, which takes about 25 minutes in the car (with stoplights and such), but only 40 minutes on the bike. So for 15 extra minutes out of his day each way, he gets 40 minutes worth of exercise! Now that's a great deal. For those who aren't able to commit to commuting both ways, another possibility is to drive in with the bike on the car one day and ride home, then ride to work the next day and drive home. I used to do this when I had a longer commute after having my first kid, when I didn't have the time to commute both ways.