From car to bike

[Shorticusson]

Hi all,

Im thinking about making the journey from 4 wheels to two but i have a simple and rather complicated question.

I commute 80 miles each day roughly on the m20/20/25 to redhill where i work.

I want to know who on here has made a similar leap and how it has changed your commute. In particular on time. Im currently spending 3hrs total in the car. And want to cut that down without having to move as i have only just finished renovating my house!

Advice and positive views welcome!

[Nobby the Bastard]

My commute is about 45 minutes each way on typically 50mph limit roads.

It's about 45 minutes regardlesss of the traffic. In a car at times it could be double that.
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trevor saxe-coburg-gotha:"Remember this simple rule - scooters are for men who like to feel the breeze on their huge, flapping cunt lips."
Sprint ST 1050

[struan80]

Great idea, go for it. Biking is great, travel to work will be a joy. No more getting held up by pesky cagers, other bikers will love you, cagers will hate you. Girls will be indifferent unless you can take them out on the back.

[Hong Kong Phooey]

25 mins on bike hardly ever any different vs 35 to 55 in the car depending on traffic.
If the weather is bad, car. Not used the car much at all since March.

Motorways can be dull though, so some days I go via the twisties, which is longer and negates any time or mpg savings but it puts a smile on my ugly face.

I can't remember the last time I just went out in a car for a laugh.
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'81 CG125, '97 FZS600 : '99 CBR600F4, '09 KTM RC8

[Easy-X]

In a car, on a main road or motorway, you'll get a sinking feeling when you see a big line of traffic ahead...

On a bike it's a moment of elation
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Kentol750]

Easy answer is above....yes, smiles per miles. It's only on the right bike will it be fun. Quick filtering is still filtering....
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Some bikes.

[Bhud]

Do you have a bike licence? A big bike is going to make that 80-mile motorway journey a breeze. A small bike is going to make it an ordeal. Now, there are always shortcuts in life. You could get a modern 125 scooter and justify it to yourself. But then you would also be making compromises in every area of your life, and not really living at all. So, get a licence first if you don't have one (this will take a bit of planning and effort, and you'll know a lot more by the time you have one).

Also, bike commuting feels different in the winter than in the summer...

Just make the most of this summer - get a licence if you don't have one. Get experience with rush-hour traffic if you do have one. Think about how you're going to deal with winter.

[crussell]

That's about what my commute is, just under an hour. I ride the bike every day that I can. It sure beats sitting in a cage for two hours a day--I get enough of that at the office!

[Teflon-Mike]

There's more than one or two imperatives here being compounded into this 'plan'....

First is you don't want to move; next is that you dont much like the idea of travelling 80 miles a day by car; next still, is that a bike is that a bike seems to offer a 'faster' way to work.. and possibly cheaper, then there's more speculation chucked in the mix,and probably ideas about bikes being a bit more exiting and something a lot of us do 'just' for fun.... oh... and motorways.

Oh-Kay.... lets start at the top... You need a bike licence.

There are three, the A1, 125 'only' licence, the A2, 45bhp 'middle-weight' licence, and the full 'A' ride-what-you-like' licence.

You 'may' ride a 125 on L-Plates... but 'L' is for learner, not test dodger, and IF you are competent enough to tackle the daily commute, you are dang well competent enough to take and pass tests... the on-road Mod Test is 'only' a half hour simulated cross town commute, with a clip-board carrier watching you, usually not in the rush-hour, and you only have to do it once!

And you cannon legally ride a 125 on L-Plates on a motorway, so that possibly makes the idea of L-Plating less practicable... but....

First up, you need a licence... and there may be a query over which one...

A-N-D lets actually look at that 125 idea, so oft shunned when tests and training get stuck on the menu, and motorways mentioned.... and actually answer a 'bit' of your proposed proposition....

Yes; I have commuted that sort of distance each day by bike.... a-n-d...... a fair bit of it on a 125...

Lets start, with a couple of precepts; first commuting aint 'fun'. Its going to work, and work, aint often all that much fun! If it was fun, they'd charge you for it, not pay you! So, why should getting there be much fun? Next; Motorways is rather boring, and on a bike, can be a bit more fraught, cos most drive cars and don't pay attention to bikes, at the best of times; and.. it deserves its own paragraph....

FILTERING - or as the septics call it 'lane-splitting' and which in their native, is in many states actually illegal. Here in the UK, its not, but it has no specific definition in UK road law. Here, it is, to all extents and purposes 'Over-Taking', warned in the High-Way-Code, as a 'hazardous' manoeuvre, undertaken entirely at the driver's own risk.

A-N-D the thing is, it's exactly that, 'Hazardous', especially as you are dealing with other road-users, like car drivers and pop-up pedestrians and pram pushing teen-mums, with a mobile phone glued to their chin, who do NOT watch out for bikes at the best of times, least of all when they don't expect anything to come charging down the gap twixt queues of stationary or semi-stationary cars.

This begs the statement, you 'may' save time and make progress on a bike, BUT, you can only do so by going faster than other traffic; which implies either speeding and or filtering, and probably both.

Therefore, any road-time you might 'save' by bike, will, likely ONLY be saved by taking more chances, and putting yourself at more risk of calamity.

Basing an entire strategy to account for 1/8th of your working life on this added risk is then probably some-what misplaced... would you swap jobs and become a lion tamer or crash test dummy, to make your living and get them likely very few minutes of non-work time, back? 'really' is the risk worth the reward? Begs quite a bit of ponderation,

The 'Reward', is that you 'may' on an 40 mile commute, that's likely about 1 hour's journey time, each way, save, oooh.... five minutes... maybe.

It's a LOT of risk to accept, for what is really a pretty small reward. Want to get to work five minutes earlier.... leave five minutes earlier! But more, them few minutes, wont actually be saved very often, if at all.

To go by bike, rather than by car, or by train; begs 'togging up', putting on dedicated bike-wear, whether that's a water-proof over your work-cloths, or a complete change either end into leathers, up to you, but, its time you need to tag on to the trip, and take off the possible 'saving'.

And there's more; bikes need maintenance, and often quite a lot of of it; 80miles a day, is 400 miles a week, or a major service interval a month... not a year, as it might be for a car! And here the presumed economics tend to go skew.

On a lightweight like a 125, the service intervals tend to be little and often, and are mostly pretty DIY able. On a middle or heavy-weight, they are a 'bit' further apart, but not much, and the service spares and costs tend to be a lot more onerous, and probably less DIY-able.

Either which way, though; a morning out a week, or a day out a month, to deal withe the bikes service demands, are easily forgot, and in total, far far greater than that possible one hour a week, you MIGHT, and it is just a might 'save' on travel time.

You wanted personal experience; well, I have done it a few times, and back to that 50mile hike each way a day on a 125, which was when I was at Uni, many many moons ago, and the 125 in question was a two-stroke with rather a more get-up-an-go about it than modern crop of comusmerised four-stroke eco-cycles!

Commute was Stafford to Coventry, approx 45-50 miles, accross the city snarl of Birmingham. I had two choices, or more, for route. Direct one was the M6 motorway, which at peak travel times is a car-park! Other was the A34, that took me through the city.. which was a car-park entrance for the most part, with a few trees in the pretty bits!

Door to door, it actually didn't make an awful lot off odds on journey time; took me anout an hour and a half whether I took bike or car, or just jumped on the train.

The 125 was not, by bike standards very fast; but it could do the elevated speed limit on a duel carriageway or motorway, of 70mph, as fast as anything is legally allowed to go in this country (and having a full licence I could use M-Ways on it)... but NOT really the best of ideas to try 70mph 'filtering' in a stuffing car-park! As said, the rewards of saving time, come from taking more risk... and not particularly smart ones!

It 'could' be quicker... and I 'might' save maybe 15 minutes on an hour and a half's journey time, 'on the road'. A fair chunk of that wasted either end, togging up and togging off to ride the bike, even though, as a Student, and on a sunny day, that may be no big switch!

There was actually far more time to be 'saved' picking my travel time, and dodging the snarl, leaving early and enjoying a bacon and egg butty at the taxi-shack before I went into lecture, or enjoying a pork and stiffing one, after before I left! Begs suggestion, its not so much about travel strategy as more reaching time management...

Later in life, pretty much the same was discovered commuting from Stratford to Birmingham, aprox 20 miles, and 45 minutes to an hour travel. Now, the train claims to take 40 minutes, and the station was pretty much on the factory door-step that end, but I had to add a hike accross town to the trip the other. Still worked out pretty comparable though, and taking bike or car, I couldn't 'really' save much time on my travel, and what I might, was wasted togging up and off, and servicing the bike. What I did have though, was a wonderful, subsidised works canteen, and again, a full English breakfast when I got in, or a full Sunday roast before I left, the change in departure time, saving as much or more journey time than mad-cap filtering, not having to peel spuds when I got home, more still! Like I said, time management....

Worth a ponder here, when I worked in Brum, bike was a 1000cc, and ate tyres at the rate of aprox a pair every month.... with 16 screw-and-lock-nut tappets to check at about the same regularity; the performance was incredible, but so too were the costs! A-N-D, on that bike particularly, I was measuring the tread depth of the tyres on a free Friday afternoon, because a 1000 miles in a week-end was very do-able, but if I did.... I probably wouldn't be using the bike for work the week after, and come Free-Friday afternoon, it would be a trip over to Water Orton for a new set, before I could us it for anything...

Hmmm... well, there, is a day of travel time savings, 'gone' in the blink of an eye! An hour to wip the wheels off and chuck them in the boot of the car; two or three hour after work to go to the tyre emporium and get new ones fitted, than another hour, probably on Saturday afternoon, to put the wheels back on... and dilemma, come Sunday, whether to take the bike to Cheshire for a chindig, or wales for some 'fun', or, save the rubber to get to work!

NOW, on that bike; with silly-speed on tap on demand... LOTS of opportunity to 'make time' on the road... BUT only by risking life or licence to do it.... and, called a 'nutter' for rather aggressive filtering, by more than a few, including a couple of ex-London dispatchers, not exactly renowned for their sensibility on that score, we are STILL only talking about saving less time than it takes to play Behemian Rhapsody, over an hours journey time!... and still be takin the water-profs off and adjusting the tie, when the DJ starts chirruiping his early morning 'glee'! Let alone the time to treck to water orton for rubber, or tackling them tappets or adjusting the chain...

SO, you HAVE to take the whole deal on bag, and look at ALL the pro's and cons of the plan... and it DONT automatically mean savings in either time or money, it DOES almost grantee a higher level or 'risk' be taken to find anything. A-N-D the economics get perverse as well, and on anything even remotely Motorway-commute sensible, certainly more than a 500 commuter twin, the possible savings over a car, start to get nibbled and erroded verry quickly by that high maintenence load; and IF you hope that your daily commute will save you time, you are likely going to be making excuses, if you think that 50mph over 35 will save you money, even more, and come the crapper weather, taking the train or car...

End or the day, it's your call, BUT... the sort of 'sensible' justifications you might presume make it a good idea, rarely bear fruit; and on bag; you will, most likely spend more time and more money to get to and from work, and rue even more the 'fun' you don't have on the week-end, having bike there available to play with....

And straight off the top... you NEED a licence. Take a week to go do-DAS and get one..... that's 40 hours you 'need' save on commute time, just to get back the time, let alone the £1000 course cost; that's a pretty big overhead to amortise before you begin, and you HAVE to actually find real cost and time saving to pay back any-of it!

IF you are enthused by getting a bike licence and bike, likelihood is you will actually spend MORE time and money indulging in this new found enthusiasm; if not, then you will likely leave the bike at home, and not find savings or anything for your investment.

STILL your call.... but... there's a bottom line, which IS, if you like bikes, you ride them; they are not 'sensible' and there is absolutely NO 'sensible' reason to be found for either wanting one, or riding one... so you do it completely in-spite of the facts.... for the fun, where commuting likely wont figure in the factoring anyway.... and you take the hit of the time and costs involved....

Or you dont do it, or you do, and make an awful lot of excuses, and get very very frustrated by it all...

At least sat in a tin box in the car-park of the motorway, that frustration may be tempered by the radio... if you tune away from the oh-too-chirrupy 'morning' DJ, and reach for the thermos you made before you left; rather than having the same debate YET a frugging again withe Dearest and Dearest, when you walk in with a new neck-warmer in your mitt, and get asked "So WHERE have you Been? And HOW much did you spend, THIS time!? I THOUGHT this bludy bike, was supposed to SAVE 'us' time and money!!! ... And just WHEN, will you get round to sorting that new kitchen I showed you in the brochure?!"

Motorbikes are seldom a panacea for your travel problems... possibly a bit of a placebo occasionally, but more often aggravate the symptoms rather than alleviate them.

You have been warned.

If you do it, you do it for the love, not the money, and chuck out ALL ideas of 'sensible' before you start, or you are on the back foot from the off!
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[ThatDippyTwat]

Christ Tef - There's no need for that. A paragraph will do nicely.
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'98 VFR800 (touring) - '12 VFR800 Crosrunner (Commuting) - '01 KDX220 (Big Green Antisocial Machine)

[Sister Sledge]

[ThunderGuts]

Tef has it in the bag; factor in everything associated and a bike is unlikely to save much time unless you're going to take risks. There are exceptions, but generally this is what I find in and around Manchester; yes, you can filter past the big queues, but it's mentally taxing as you're watching out for the inevitable idiots about to do something stupid.

In theory, my commute from the outskirts into the city centre should be motorbike heaven, but the reality stats are this (admit this is rather different to the OP's situation, but hey for info):

By car: 30 minutes in (early morning), 40-1hr 10 home (depending on traffic). Allow 5 minutes messing around with the gate at the side of the house per day, total average time of 1hr 30 per day.

By motorbike: 25-30 minutes in, 35-40 minutes home. Messing around with locks at each end, garage, getting changed/togged up: 1hr 20 mins overall I'd say.

By bicycle: 30 minutes in, 40 minutes home, 20 minutes daily for showers at each end, total 1hr 30 (but you could argue I'm saving 10 minutes I'd otherwise spend showing at some point in the day for the other transport modes).

By train/folding bicycle: 25 minutes in, 25 minutes home, no shower needed - 50 minutes total.

The thing is, the latter two modes are reliable within minutes (barring train problems, which aren't as common as people make out). I generally cycle more than any other mode for the reason it's fast, reliable and also helps justify beer and curry at the weekend.

The most fun? Motorbike . . . probably. The faff though does grind away a bit - probably less of an issue if I lived in the middle of nowhere and worked somewhere similar and I could just jump on it and go without having to secure it to everything in sight. The cheapest - bicycle, but actually not that much cheaper than a motorbike (incredibly) as bicycles eat through consumables even faster than bikes. Car is the most expensive, despite overpriced trains.

Back to the OP, I wouldn't bank on it saving a whole heap of time. Probably won't be a net saving when you factor everything else in, slight saving of moving time, but then you lose it with the faffing. I have faced a similar dilemma . . . I ultimately changed jobs as while you can do all sorts of things to make your commute more efficient, you can't get away from the number of miles you have to travel. Probably not what you want to hear, and while obviously getting into biking is fun anyway, I don't think it's the solution to your problem.
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TG.

[TaffyTDM]

Rob i find the situation in the south east is completely different. On the bike the main plus is consistency in the commute and going into central london at least the car is twice the time as on the bike. A shunt on the m23 in the morning and its game over if you are stuck in the tailback.

For me at least, and for many others unless you are on megabucks or landed a lucky perk, there simply isnt the option to park a car on company premises in zone 1-2 anyway, whereas most will have motorbike space or at least tolerate a cheeky shoe in somewhere. Then factor in the con charge and it all adds up. Appreciate the situation is different up north, but down here if you are only saving 10 minutes you are doing things very wrong

[djson280]

[bigdom86]

for the sounds of your commute tbh I would stick with a car, only reason I ride a bike in London is because it saves so much more time than going by public transport, my commute in is from Beckenham, Kent into central London - around 10-12 miles each way

public transport + walking to station = 1hr 30min there and 1hr 30min back (if no delays or cancellations and on southern trains this happens often)

by car = anywhere from 1hr to 2hr in and out depending on traffic + congestion + ULEZ soon

by bike = 40-50min in and 40-50min out regardless of traffic, when schools are out this goes down to 35-40mins (+5-10min faffing about each end with locks etc)

currently running an old cbr600 which only really requires oil and filter change once a year to keep it happy, and tyres and brake pads as needed

[ThunderGuts]

[stevo as b4]

If you can cycle to work as quickly as you can ride a motorbike there, then something is very wrong IMO. But in general:

1, to me filtering is only filtering if the cars/vehicles in all lanes in the same direction or just on a normal two lane road, are doing less than 20-25mph. If you filter past 30-40mph traffic between the designated lanes between on-coming traffic on a normal road or lanes on dual track/motorway then it's just being a prick IMO. You can't blame drivers moving at speed in their lanes for not seeing you filter past even quicker while not in any of the lanes.

2, Bikes are not really cheaper to run than cars on balance, so changing to two wheeled commuting must be for another reason time/enjoyment/risk of being stabbed by crazies on the bus/train etc.

3, It was said that an 80mile commute could only be pleasant on the right bike (Probably a bigger than smaller one). But the same could apply for a car too. 80miles in a Nissan Micra with a poorly supported uncomfortable drivers seat and fewer comforts would be far less pleasant than in a big comfy Mercedes-Benz or BMW saloon loaded in spec and infotainment.

4, Saving time on a commute only works if it doesn't make more work for you or leave you alot more tired or stressed.

5, There's nothing wrong with say a 125cc bike or smallish bike/scooter if it works for you, and does what you want it to do? To some people owning a motorbike or a push bike or a car is for one specific purpose (getting to work) and no love is felt, nor will the owner ever become an enthusiast or nerd.

The WR's of this forum think that everyone who rides a moped or bike for a boring A-B commute and then gets on a Fireblade or R1 etc and opens the throttle wide, will come in their pants instantly and become a gibbering bike obsessed nutter or want to ride everywhere they can all the time on this rocketship device.

OP, would a bike be safe and secure at your home address and work address, as if it's not a nice place with secure parking and no history of car/bike theft or vandalism, then that could shoot bikes out of the water before you even start.

You've got alot to think about that's for sure. For me it's all about money not time. I can put up with long commutes and long days wasted sat still in traffic if it saves me money to spend on things I want to spend it on.
It'd take alot for me to commute by bike or cycle, as I've got company vehicles to use. If I didn't then it'd be about how cheap or not the train is in comparison to buying my own vehicles to use.

[Shorticusson]

thanks to all for the information!

Teflon-mike and thunder guts for the essays!

and everyone one else for all your input. im going to take some time to digest this but ill also start adding in to this

[ThunderGuts]

[Derek Noakes]

i haven't had time to read everything everyone has said so this may have already been cover4ed but you indicated you're spending 3 hours in the car, that's and hour and a half each way, to be honest id be surprised if you could shave much off that on a bike. you might save a bit but i dont think its going to make a massive change to your life. if youre going to commute on a bike think about getting a tourer or a tall adv or at the very least something with a nice bit of wind protection as otherwsie it wont be much fun in the winter

ps did you say youve a big bike licence or no?

[djson280]

[Minty]

Teff 2.0
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My fingers smell of your mum.

[Baffler186]

[Shorticusson]

[Nobby the Bastard]