Since I still intend to cycle to work’s new premises when we move in June, I decided to do a Test Run yesterday, to see what the journey is like. For comparison, my existing commute is about 7km and typically takes between 20 and 25 minutes, depending on traffic levels and the weather. The test run was perhaps not wholly representative of a typical commute: I did it in the middle of day, and it was hot; I wasn’t carrying my backpack and it was a reasonably quiet Sunday afternoon; however, there was quite a strong head-wind and these factors hopefully cancel out to enough of an extent to give a pretty good indication of what my commute will be like.
It’s 11km door-to-door, and it took me 35 minutes, which I thought wasn’t too bad. It’s not so much that it’s an extra 4km which makes a difference, it’s the fact that there is a very steep (1km long) hill right at the end. Certainly wasn’t much fun in the heat of the middle of the day (it was about 24’C, I think), but might be more bearable early in the morning. At the end of the day, I get to go down that hill, of course …
The net result of this is that the move to new premises will be adding about 30 minutes to my day, but the new surroundings are OK: decent building, more bandwidth (!) but not much in the way of local facilities: the nearest ‘corner shop’ is about 10 minutes walk away, for example.