I've enjoyed commuting in Okinawa these past seven years. I've gotten what is apparently a dream transfer to Europe, specifically to Belgium. I'll be about twenty miles from the French border. Belgium and the Netherlands have a reputation of being bicycle Meccas. I hope to continue riding throughout my middle and later years. I want to take my commuting to the next level, using either a heavy duty trailer or Xtracycle.

Though I'm in no way suited to be a racer, I do enjoy watching the Tour de France, much like a person who likes cars might enjoy NASCAR. This year's Tour went through a couple of Belgian towns.

Petroleum is not the solution, it's the problem.
I've seen news stories where they imply that if those poor people washed out in New Orleans only had their own cars, everything would have been fine. Now, more than a million are trying to DRIVE out of the way of Hurricane Rita in Houston and Galveston. The highways are freeways are so clogged, they're travelling forty miles in TWELVE HOURS! You can walk faster than that. Now they're blaming the poor planning of the government for evacuation snags in Texas. The transportation "system" itself is flawed. Metropolitan areas and their freeways CANNOT handle everyday rush-hour, they will NEVER be able to handle every motor vehicle trying to go the same direction at the same time.
Able-bodied men, women, and children should be routinely riding bikes every day. Give me twelve hours and I'm easily more than a hundred miles out of town.

It's the middle of September, the typhoon season is coming to a close and the bicycling weather is gorgeous. By next month we'll be to those temperate room temperature days that keep me living here on Okinawa.
Neal Skorpen is the creator of Cyclotoons, a monthly feature that appears in bicycling newspapers across the US. Judging by his keen insight, he has logged many miles, many of them as a commuter.

It has been a hot and humid commuting week in Okinawa. Sweating is the body's way of cooling. When that sweat can't evaporate, there isn't any cooling, just soggy shirts and shorts and continued heat. I remind myself that in a few weeks, I will remember why I love this island: from October pretty much to the end of the school year in the middle of June, the weather is wonderfully room temperature.
I've made low-ball bids on e-bay on a couple of dream commuter bikes for myself. A Rohloff Speedhub-equipped fourteen internal speed Trek and a Bianchi eight-speed internal. The Trek went for $1,000, the "buy it now" price and the Bianchi is still in play. It retails for $600 which seems quite reasonable to me.
I test-rode a Breezer Uptown 8 in Logan, UT this summer. I could only try it out on a an incline from one parking lot to another. Wimmer's Sewing and Cyclery (great combo) is located in the flat part of Logan. They didn't have them in stock, but I'd like to also try Breezer's Greenway and Liberty. They refer to them as "Range" bikes.

While in the states, we got my daughter a Schwinn Sierra. It looks nothing like the Schwinn Sierra I had back in 1989, my second commuter after the Schwinn Impact was stolen after one year of riding faithfully. I've never seen this configuration before. The front ring is just a single instead of a triple. The back hub is an internal three-speed with an external seven-speed rear derailleur beside it. She opted for the women's step-thru model. It has smooth profile tires. We'll add on the fenders, rack, and basket once we receive it here in Okinawa. I hope she likes it and that it serves her well for many years and miles.

Pedal point
When my youngest daughter was born in 1988, I realized that my days of maintenance-free health were over. I was twenty-seven years old and starting to thicken around the middle. I enjoyed running recreationally in college, but hadn't done much exercise at all for the few years since graduation.

The hook
I went looking for a form of exercise that I'd stay interested in. I didn't want a piece of exercise equipment that would be primarily used for hanging laundry. Mountain bikes had really caught on at the that time, so I looked into them. I was pleasantly surprised by the sturdiness of the frame, the width of the tires, and the strength of the brakes.
I spent $350 on my first adult bike, a Schwinn Impact, a chromium-molybdenum frame with Sun Tour componentry. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a high-quality bike suitable for commuting was available for my youngest daughter for around $400 in 2005.

Accessorize
Bicycle shops make very little on the sale of a bicycle. They make their money from repair, maintenance, and sale of accessories. Most bike shops will offer 10% off accessories at the time of sale of your bike. At the very least, a good commuter bike should have a helmet, rear rack, fenders, front and rear lighting, and either panniers or fine grid baskets.
I was very frugal and chose folding wire baskets that fastened to the rear rack. When not in use, they folded and clipped out of the way. It was not until I had been a faithful commuter for six years that my wife bought me a nice pair of roomy panniers. The answer to "What bike (or accessories) should I buy?" is the same as what the reputable computer salesman tells you: It depends on what you want to do with it.

Length of the commute
When I bought that first bike, my apartment was less than a mile from the school where I taught. After teaching summer school, my job remained the same, but was moved to a different school, about three miles away. The following year, we moved to an apartment in the suburbs, lengthening my commute to five miles. A few years later, I became a junior high librarian and my commute extended from my home in the southern suburb to my new school in the northern suburb, eleven miles each way for a weekly total of 110 miles.

Through rain, sleet, snow, dark of night...
I was determined to make my investment really work for me even through the cold, often deep in snow northern Utah winters. One of my favorite commuting memories is listening to the school secretary telling a teacher on the phone that "Yes, I know the weather's terrible, but school has NOT been cancelled and sorry, you need to come in." She looked up and saw me brush half a foot of snow of my rear rack before entering the building.
A rule of thumb that has served me well is: If I don't feel well enough to ride my bike to work, I don't feel well enough to work at all.
It became a real point of pride when people would ask, "Did you ride TODAY?" Those people really inspired me. My hope is that I've inspired a few of them too.

Folks ask me often WHY I ride to work every day. Frugality? Environment? Exercise? Recreation? For me, it started off as exercise, but has spread to all of these and more.

So, let me know how and why you commute by bicycle. What do you ride? How have you outfitted it?
Let me know why you DON'T commute by bicycle. What would it take to get you on a bike even once a week?