Tomorrow is Winter Bike to Work Day. Sometimes, regular bike commuters will respond to these events by saying "It's always bike to work day" or something. And I get it. But Bike to Work Day isn't for regular bike commuters. The point is to get people who don't bike commute to just try it once, in the hope that they'll get over the psychological barrier and maybe do it more often.
A recent study showed that one part of that barrier is that people are bad at estimating how long a bike commute will take. When it asked volunteers to estimate how long certain bike or walk trips would take they overestimated by at least 10 minutes 90% of the time. People who bike or walk often made almost all of the correct guesses.
Interestingly, people with a parking pass did worse than those without one.
Those with parking permits, a fiercely sought-after campus amenity, tended to overestimate active-commuting times significantly; the closer someone lived to the workplace, the better the guesses. Confidence had an outsize effect, too. The people surveyed, especially women, who had little bicycling experience or who did not feel physically fit thought that active commuting would require considerably more time than the Google calculations.
Anyway, if going to bike to work day just isn't doing it for you anymore, then up your game. The cool thing now is to bring someone new with you. Like an Amway meeting.
I like idea of the winter one more, even though it gets less publicity and use. So many people seem to think I'm crazy to ride to work in the winter, and while I might in fact be mental, riding to work in the winter isn't related to that. It's really not that big a deal on most days. If you have less than a 20-mile commute, you can do it in the winter around here most of the time.
Posted by: huskerdont | February 07, 2019 at 08:39 AM
I have a love-hate relationship with road salt.
Posted by: Crickey | February 07, 2019 at 09:46 AM