{"id":8484,"date":"2019-07-03T21:26:47","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8484"},"modified":"2019-07-03T21:26:47","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T20:26:47","slug":"joys-lessons-commuting-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8484","title":{"rendered":"The joys and lessons of commuting with a bike"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2016-09-14-17-16-48\"<\/a>I’ve spent two weeks on holiday and two weeks on a course hence the lack of posts on FB and the blog.\u00a0 The course required commuting.\u00a0 It was near enough to my mum to allow me to stay with her and far enough to be a hassle.\u00a0 I originally thought I would use her car and drive.\u00a0 Then I looked into the trains and thought about commuting with a bike.\u00a0 My mother’s car is a diesel bought when they were thought to be more eco friendly.\u00a0 She doesn’t use it much and is about to stop driving.\u00a0 In the end I decided to drive would probably take as long and would be just as stressful.\u00a0 (Notionally according to google and bing maps this is untrue).\u00a0 I also think you have to practice what you preach.\u00a0 So for two weeks I took two trains and cycled 3 miles in each direction.\u00a0 What have I learnt?<\/p>\n

Information is contradictory.<\/strong>\u00a0 The rail companies gave different information about whether I was allowed to travel with my bike in the rush hour.\u00a0 In fact I was.\u00a0 Ditto whether I could use my ticket on the inter city trains.\u00a0 Ditto I was.\u00a0 Although apparently not the 08:10 Virgin train from New St.<\/p>\n

Cost.\u00a0<\/strong> \u00a39 return; probably could have got this cheaper.\u00a0 Taking \u00a30.45\/mile as the true cost of running the car (depreciation\/fuel etc) then the train would be cheaper.\u00a0 A surprise.\u00a0 I would paid my mum for the fuel.\u00a0 In actual fact I had to spend a load of money on my bike (tyres\/wheel straightening) although this has needed doing for years (second bike) so now its good for some time.<\/p>\n

Bikes on trains.<\/strong>\u00a0 With Virgin you have to book in advance, which for practical reasons was not possible if you are commuting with a bike.\u00a0 Others you turn up, albeit for limited spaces.\u00a0 After a few days of struggling on and off trains in the rush hour I risked leaving my bike at the destination station.\u00a0 This worked very well.\u00a0 There were at least 100 other bikes there and I spoke to some police you were keeping an eye on them.\u00a0 My fellow commuters did not appreciate the bike, although the bond between cyclists is amazing.<\/p>\n

Commuters.<\/strong>\u00a0 The trains were rammed pretty much all the day.\u00a0 Those who oppose HS2 on capacity grounds are wrong (although I think there are better alternatives).\u00a0 Part of the problem is that people chose to live a long way from where they work.\u00a0 I experienced this where I used to work.\u00a0 The lab moved location.\u00a0 The old one was fairly near the station the new location wasn’t.\u00a0 Many people commuted 30 miles and suddenly they had a huge problem.\u00a0 Last week I met people who commuted very long distances.\u00a0 Another problem is the companies run too shorter trains.\u00a0 Its all about money of course.\u00a0 I learnt which trains were quietest.<\/p>\n

Its not just commuters.<\/strong>\u00a0 There are a lot of homeless people who ride the trains now.\u00a0 One man tried to beg off us.\u00a0 Its obvious why especially in winter, but desperately sad.<\/p>\n

Its not just the train stupid.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Commuting with a bike is also about cycling!\u00a0 I gradually improved my cycle route to make it safer.\u00a0 Most of it was on an off road cycle route (tarmacked).\u00a0 This was a national cycle route.\u00a0 I used the rest of it when I worked it out.\u00a0 There are no reliable on line maps of the cycle routes as I write this.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve spent two weeks on holiday and two weeks on a course hence the lack of posts on FB and the blog.\u00a0 The course required commuting.\u00a0 It was near enough to my mum to allow me to stay with her … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[259,27,15,235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commuting","category-cycling","category-practical-low-carbon-living","category-rail"],"yoast_head":"\nThe joys and lessons of commuting with a bike - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8484\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8484\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8484\",\"name\":\"The joys and lessons of commuting with a bike - 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