Commuting

Any riders with daily commuting experience on a bike? I'm wondering how long a daily round trip commute becomes too long to do on a bike.

And, what bike, any brand, might be best for the ride.

I'm thinking of next summer, and the price of fuel. I'm a daily commuter, doing 180 miles to work and back in a car, but maybe this is too much for a bike? Any thoughts?

 

So... 90 miles there, & the same back, yes? Lessee.. that's about 1.5 hours each way? That should be do-able on pretty much any bike I'd think! Not even a problem on our XJ's....

Of course, you could make it a more comfortable ride by going with something along the lines of an FJR, or a ST1300, or a V-strom.....

 

It's a question of endurance and comfort. I commute 30 minutes one way to work. At first, the trip was a bit much for my bad back in the evenings (after being on my feet all day), but I got used to it. It just took a few months to build up my endurance level.

Comfort, on the other hand... If it's nice and sunny? no problem! Raining and wet? I think I'd be hating life if my commute were for any longer a time span. After thirty minutes of getting sprayed by dump trucks and rained on, I'm ready to get off the bike and warm up. There are things you can do to improve your comfort level, though.

Make the run on your day off in bad weather. If it's too much, you can always turn around and head for home. Then at least you'll know if you're up for the ride, or if you'll be staying in your cage.

 

Once I rode my SR500 to work every day 50 miles each way for a year and racked up 20K miles on it that year! It took about an hour each way and wasn't too bad except when it was only 30 degrees in the morning at 6:00am but there wasn't much traffic and I never got rained on. There was some rain but I could always take a different route and avoid it but I almost got killed by monster dust storms a few times.

 

I bought my current bike in May of this year to commute back and forth to work. I drive 22 miles each way. It used to take me 35-40 minutes each way. Now that the 35W bridge has fallen down, I have to detour around that area and it takes my 45 minutes to an hour. Still no problem. I'm glad I wasn't on that bridge with my bike when it fell, it would be a shame to have a perfectly good XJ end up in the river.

I rode my XJ650 to work yesterday and it was only 42 degrees when I left home. I installed a small windshield that was $59.99 from JC Whitney and added the $44.99 trunk to store my laptop bag.

I wear a full face helmet, a leather jacket, gloves, boots, and jeans. The full face helment keeps it a lot quieter and the full lenght snowmobile gloves keep my hands warm on those cold mornings.

For a longer commute I think I'd need to look at a better seat. The stock seats on an XJ are not that comfortable for longer rides.

 

I ride my XJ900 to work every day unless I have a lot of junk to carry. It's about 40 minutes each way, less if I take the main road, but if the weather is nice (and it usually is here) I take the long way home for the sheer pleasure of riding along a twisty valley road and through the hills. I've been doing this trip for seven years and I'm 62, so you young blokes should be able to handle much longer trips on a daily basis.
When I was based quite a bit further out, I found that at 75 minutes each way, I preferred the truck, but that was along a very boring and very busy main road, and of course, in those days I had no sound system in my helmet so the dash tape deck was a bonus.

 

My ride isn't in heavy traffic. Actually, I88 between Worcester and Binghamton is pretty lonely. Drove home in a hail storm and downpour Tuesday. Saw some bikers who were very unhappy.

The seat on my xj will not cut a long ride, and the suspension on a long haul, well, I don't think that would cut it either.

But you guys sound positive for the most part. My xj, hmmm.....

 

After I got my XS1100 and Seca 750 I would alternate riding them to work everyday because the SR500 was too slow to keep up with freeway traffic going 80. I rode them everyday for 4 years unless it was raining so hard that I had to take the truck instead.

 

I commuted from Indianapolis to Muncie (Indiana) for two years. Most of the first year and part of the second was on a 550 Seca. The last six months or so was on a 750 Maxim. It's about 70 miles one way. It really wasn't too bad. As long as there wasn't snow on the ground, I rode. There were some really cold sub-freezing nights because I didn't get off work until 10pm that I was less-than-psyched about riding an hour and a half in, but I got there and back and saved a lot of gas doing so. It's really not unreasonable at all to use them for commuting. I commute now, but it's only about 15-20 minutes across town. I don't miss that drive one bit at all...

 

Well, I guess I'll give it test run...I've got a day off, election day, coming up, I'll just be fooling around that day anyway. First I've got to put a helicoil in my #1 spark plug hole. Damn threads got crossed.

 

luna3, I'm not sure if you saw my comment on how to fix a cross-threaded spark plug hole, so here it is... if you're interested. I've had pretty good success with this method.

 

Thanks for the tip. I went to NAPA and got a helicoil kit. It came with the tool and insert. I'll rotate the engine to get the cylinder up, and i think I'll make sure the exhaust valve is open...blow air up the pipe as well. Should be OK. The starting threads are all right so the tool should go in aligned.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the Helicoil brand spark plug thread repair insert needs to be staked in so that it doesn't unscrew with the spark plug. Make sure you do this as per the instructions in the kit. (You may need Helicoil's tool for doing this.) I've seen a number of people who've come back with their brand new plugs in hand complaining they don't fit their holes. Come to find out, the holes had been repaired but the inserts came out with the old plugs. That's bad news because sometimes it trashed the hole on the way out.

 

MAKE SURE THAT THE VALVES ARE CLOSED OR YOU WILL THREAD THEM!!!
Yes I did that!!!

 

What windshield and trunk are you speaking of??

 

Yup, the instructions tell you to stake the insert with the included tool. Thanks for looking out.

 

luna3, you commute to Binghamton from Worcester? That must be a haul. I work in Vestal with regular trips to Oneonta, Hobart, etc. 88 would be kind of a drag commute on a bike. I like the back roads. Where do you work? I work for an industrial distributor (bearings, pt, etc.).

 

DOT. The ride really isn't bad. Traffic is very light, but the road surface sucks in a lot places. But that's getting fixed, even in Oneonta. In bad weather I stick to 7. Don't know too much about Vestal.