That's odd.

[Racing roadkill]

I've recently moved from the center of a city, out into 'the sticks'. My commute used to be 6 miles each way, mostly city riding, and a little bit of out of town riding. The terrain was simple ( mostly up hill, but not steep), but the vehicular traffic was a complete nightmare ( even at stupid 'O' clock in the morning, and there were about 100 sets of traffic lights per square inch).I've moved to a much more rural location, my commute is now 9 miles each way ( only because I can ride, where I can't drive en route) if I had to use just roads, it would be more like 12. However, because I rarely see any vehicles, and there are no traffic lights on the route, it's marginally quicker, even though the route in now has a bit of a climb involved. I thought I'd be commuting less by bike, more by car, it's actually turning out to be the exact opposite.

 

[mjr]

That sounds quite understandable to me. My usual route into town is shorter but I've discovered that there's little point hammering it because any time I make up on the more open rural section near the start is usually wiped out by the run of up to 13 traffic lights on the edge of town (varies depending which part of town centre) and the shorter distances between junctions in the town centre restricts the top speed there and it's faster to keep merging into gaps than sprint-stop-sprint-stop. One of the best things for cycling would be ways to bypass traffic lights where possible.