Why wouldn't you commute by bike?

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fozy tornip said:
Wherever you come across best practice guidelines around facilities which support cyle commuting the big three invariably tend to be secure, covered cycle storage; storage space/lockers for clothing and kit; decent changing facilities/showers.
As a backpacking youth getting a strip wash at a village pump or service station hand basin gave a roughing it frisson to the experience, but as a middle aged man trying to wash my sweaty arse and back stood at a toilet hand basin every working day is a dispiriting indignity. Never mind whether I stink or not, I want to feel clean preparatory to a day's work. Sure there are commutes which are short enough and topographically mild enough to make a shower unnecessary - I've had them, and there are hardcore cylists who'll happily swab up with some baby wipes - I've been one. But the idea that the car dependent might be tempted out of their cars with the prospect of a dowsing with deodorant in the disabled loos is absurd.

This is absolutely spot on. I have also done the getting changed in the loos thing, but nowadays I prefer not to. If my commute involved heavy traffic it might be different - when I commuted in urban areas it was always quicker by bike - but in the rural idyll in which I commute it's quicker by car. And I don't have to expose myself in the horrible toilets.
 
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