Commuting

Today I started a part time job at the ligfietsgarage in Groningen, helping with making Mango velomobiles.

I had planned to cycle there, but as it was snowing this morning so I decided to take my folding bike on the train instead. This is not as effective as you might think. It shortened the cycle to 22 km instead of 63 km (13.5 miles vs. 39 miles), but the folding bike goes at half the speed and waiting around for the train meant it took over an hour each way - longer than cycling the lot would have done. I'm hoping for better weather next Tuesday. Perhaps at some point I'll be able to afford my own velomobile and be both out of the weather and faster.

The video is from last Friday morning when it wasn't snowing and I cycled up to have a chat. Note the wonderful cycle paths almost the entire way, on which your speed isn't restricted by anything but your fitness. It's reminiscent of riding on a velodrome (the ultimate segregated cycle facility for those who want to cycle at speed). On a good day I can do it in less than an hour in each direction. With a tailwind it can be very quick indeed. However, there are also those bad days when there is a strong headwind in both directions.

And as luck would have it, a colleague of mine, Harry Lieben, has two videos on youtube, one showing his commute and one showing him racing the same machine on the track:


Note in this video how the bright yellow velomobile standing beside the track goes around about every 18 seconds. It's a 250 m track, so that equates with a speed of about 50 km/h (31 mph).

Another of Harry's racing videos was featured earlier, and I also covered other commuters on my blog. In addition there are more posts about commuting, directness and featuring recumbents. A few months back I made a video about a journey in the opposite direction.