Commuting weather diary

what_traffic

07-05-2014
Trip: Work Commutte @ 14h00
Distance: 11 km.
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Windy, overcast and dry
Comment: Pleasant cycle as wind was behind me. Traffic was light.

Trip: Work Commutte @ 23h00
Distance: 11 km.
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Overcast and windy.
Comment: Traffic is non existent at this hour. Traffic lights at Western Motors/Parkmore are unresponsive to cyclists.

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip (wed & Thurs)
Mode: cycle.
Weather: showery and windy
Comment: got caught in a few showers last few commutes. Bit wintry out there.
Wet: 7/76= 9%
Nice: 69/76= 91%
Too Dangerous: 0/76= 0%

Iwannahurl

Usual school run. SI on own bike. Cool rainy windy weather. No rain on outward leg but got caught in light shower towards end of return leg. Traffic relatively free-flowing, making the use of "courtesy crossings" rather dodgy. Saw one red light breaker, aggressively accelerating through junction in attempt to beat the Green Man phase.

Iwannahurl

Usual school run, Senior Infant on own bike. Very wet weather recently, with temperatures below average. Waited for heavy shower to clear, so ended up leaving much later than usual. No rain during trip. Approx 1.5 km line of slow-moving stop-start traffic on route. Passed one car with sticker in the rear window: "you've just been passed by a girl." Buses stuck in traffic as usual. Got caught in two showers on return leg, so had to take shelter.

Iwannahurl

3+4 km morning school-work run, with Senior Infant on own bike. Lovely sunny morning, though a bit on the cool side (c. 11 degrees). Welcome respite from recent rain though. Forecast is for better weather later in the week.

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny
Comment: nice day today. Drove to work on Fri & Mon, sitting in traffic watching cyclists go by really killed me.

Wet: 7/78= 9%
Nice: 71/78= 91%
Too Dangerous: 0/78= 0%

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Passed one car with sticker in the rear window: "you've just been passed by a girl.".

We'll have to get one for the back of the helmet "You've just been passed by a cyclist"

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny
Comment: nice day today. drove wed & thurs.

Wet: 7/80= 9%
Nice: 73/80= 91%
Too Dangerous: 0/80= 0%

Iwannahurl

I finally got around to analysing the weather-related information accumulated over 100 school days since starting this exercise on 18th November.

I found it to be a useful and informative process, and I hope others do too. I've done my best to ensure that everything has been recorded and reported accurately. If anyone spots any errors or omissions, please let me know. The attached PDF lists all the dates and, where helpful for reference purposes, the post numbers. Constructive criticism welcome.

A few points to note:

1. The 100 days included were, for the purposes of tracking weather experiences, randomly selected. In other words, the weather conditions were those that happened to occur between 8am and 9am approximately on the 100 school days that fell between November 18th and the arbitrary end-point of the diary. I decided on 100 days because (a) it's a reasonable sample size for illustration purposes and (b) it makes percentage calculations a cinch. The time period also included winter and spring weather.

2. The analysis was done on what medical researchers call an "intention to treat" basis. In simple terms, that means that all notable 'real-world' occurrences are accounted for, even if they are not strictly about the effects of weather on commuting. For that reason I have included other factors such as sick days, missing/incomplete records and incidents such as punctures. Additionally, where Senior Infant's mode of travel was not clearly recorded or could not be recalled, it was assumed not to be by bike. This tends to underestimate the actual number of occasions on which Senior Infant cycles, but in the context of this thread such an underestimate is preferable to an overestimate. An important point to bear in mind is that whether Senior Infant cycles or not is a good indicator of weather conditions.

3. The rainfall experience is described in two ways. Firstly, if any rain at all fell around the time of the morning school run, whether outward or return, this was coded as 1. This has the effect of overestimating the impact of rainfall, but for the purposes of this thread that's preferable to an underestimate. However, since rain can be light or heavy, or can be avoided in certain circumstances, there is also a "Got Wet" category to indicate the number of occasions on which rainfall was actually a problem, eg if it caused a soaking. Problematic rainfall was relatively infrequent (and in any case wearing proper waterproof gear makes heavy rain manageable).

Now for the actual numbers. All figures based on 100 records, so N=%.

Days on which school run was done by bike: 93
Mornings on which Senior Infant cycled own bike to school: 76
Morning school runs during which any rain fell: 30
Number of school runs during which rain was a problem: 12
Sick days: 5.

If sick days are excluded, then Senior Infant did the 3 km school run by bike 80% (76/95) of the time between November and May. In my opinion that figure alone strongly supports the original premise of this thread, which is that Galway's level of rainfall ought not to be regarded as a significant deterrent to cycle commuting over distances of 4 km or less, especially for able-bodied adults.

Patrickheg

Thanks

El_Dangeroso

The most creative usage of ITT analysis I have ever seen. Bravo.

Iwannahurl

The thought occurred to me this morning: how might the figures (and their significance) be different if the afternoon/evening school-home commute was systematically included in the above?

On average you would expect the frequency of rain per trip to be the same, unless there is some meteorological reason for rainfall to be more prevalent later in the day. However, given the nature of Galway's weather, while the outward morning trip could be dry the afternoon/evening homeward trip could be wet. And vice versa of course. During very wet weather both outward and return trips could be rained on.

The effect of this would presumably be to increase the number of days when the school trip is rained on either on the way there or on the way home. Nevertheless I still contend that such commuting days would still be in a minority. Based on the above figures, even if there was a doubling in the absolute number of school-days "during which rain was a problem", which I believe would be unlikely, the proportion of such 'problematic' days would still be no more than 25% (12 x 2).

Another thought occurs: numerous trips, for example to more than one school or to after-school activities, would also increase exposure to the possibility of rain falling during any one trip. However, this brings us back to the issue of preparing properly for rain. In my view we need to get over the notion that Galway's rain is so bad that we cannot avoid it or adapt to it.

On that note, here's a pic of a well-prepared commuter I spotted on 8th May:

sonandheir

Fair play Iwannahurl on your above analysis. It takes a bit of commitment but once you start daily cycling you start to see it's a minority of trips that it rains.
And sure if it didn't rain we wouldn't appreciate the sunshine.

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny
Comment: nice day today. Been off work for last two weeks so didn't commute.

Wet: 7/82= 9%
Nice: 75/82= 91%
Too Dangerous: 0/82= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny
Comment: nice day today.

Wet: 7/84= 8%
Nice: 77/84= 92%
Too Dangerous: 0/84= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: sunny
Comment: nice day today.

Wet: 7/86= 8%
Nice: 79/86= 92%
Too Dangerous: 0/86= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip Tues, Wed, & Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: mixed few days
Comment: some wet commutes, some nice dry days too.

Wet: 9/92= 8%
Nice: 83/92= 92%
Too Dangerous: 0/92= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip
Mode: cycle.
Weather: Wet.
Comment: Managed to avoid rain this morning but still got some splash back from road as there was a fair bit of rain overnight. Drenched on way home and also had forget my rear mudguard today just for good measure.

Wet: 10/94= 11%
Nice: 84/94= 89%
Too Dangerous: 0/94= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: work commute 22km round trip Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: lovely few days, dry
Comment: So I've recorded 51 days cycle commuting(102 trips) odometer reads 1,158kms, since 17Feb. Will keep going to clock 100 days as Iwannahurl did and see % of wet days. Running @ 10% wet commutes so far
Wet: 10/102= 10%
Nice: 92/102= 90%
Deadly: 0/102= 0%

what_traffic

13-06-2014
Trip: Work Commutte @ 14h00
Distance: 11 km.
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: No Wind, overcast and warm
Comment: Pleasant cycle. Traffic was busy in city centre

Trip: Work Commutte @ 23h00
Distance: 11 km.
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: No wind and warm.
Comment: Traffic is non existent at this hour. Traffic lights at Western Motors/Parkmore are unresponsive for cyclists.

Iwannahurl

I just found this by chance: http://www.smartertravelworkplaces.ie/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Cycle_Poster.pdf

If you cycled to work in Dublin, you’d have only an 11% chance of rain falling on you in the morning or evening. The chances of getting wet twice in the one day are only 1%.

Iwannahurl

Iwannahurl wrote: »

If you cycled to work in Dublin, you’d have only an 11% chance of rain falling on you in the morning or evening. The chances of getting wet twice in the one day are only 1%.

Some rough math

52 weeks minus 4 weeks of holidays = 48 weeks
5 day week = 240 days

Assuming you can shower and change at home so its not a big deal, I'll only look at the impact when someone gets wet on the way to work, so 11% / 2 = 5.5%

240 * 5.5% = 13.2 days when you are going to be cycling to work in the rain in Dublin

Nearly 3 (working) weeks of cycling in the rain

Anyone any idea of how much wetter Galway is compared to Dublin? Assuming 30% wetter (pure guess) the figure goes to 22.3 days of cycling to work in the rain.

If you include cycling on the way home also, its 44.6 days of cycling in the rain either on the way to or from work.

The above was done purely out of curiosity and the figures for Galway are open to change as I assumed the difference between the 2 cities

Iwannahurl

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone any idea of how much wetter Galway is compared to Dublin? Assuming 30% wetter (pure guess) the figure goes to 22.3 days of cycling to work in the rain.

I don't know what the direct comparison would be, but in my experience (as described in this thread) only 12% of morning commutes were problematic in terms of rain.

In fact the rainfall during the morning commute was non-problematic to the extent that Senior Infant was able to do the 3 km school run by bike 80% of the time between November and May.

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for last week work commute 22km round trip Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: perfect
Comment: Excellent week for commuting, warm, dry, no wind
Wet: 10/112= 9%
Nice: 102/112= 91%
Deadly: 0/112= 0%

sonandheir

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Anyone any idea of how much wetter Galway is compared to Dublin? Assuming 30% wetter (pure guess) the figure goes to 22.3 days of cycling to work in the rain.

I'm currently running @ 9% wet commutes. I didn't differentiate between morning and evening commutes. The stats above show Dublin @ 11%. I think the 10% mark would be about right in Irish weather long term, which would be 1 trip a week if you commute 5 days back & forth.

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for this week work commute 22km round trip Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: fair
Comment: nice summer weather, 2 wet commutes during the week though.
Wet: 12/122= 10%
Nice: 110/122= 90%
Too Dangerous: 0/122= 0%

what_traffic

01-07-2014
Trip: Work Commutte @ 09h00
Distance: 11 km.
Mode: Cycle.
Weather: Light westerly Wind, overcast and warm
Comment: Pleasant cycle. Traffic was light for the whole trip.

First day using a pannier bag (that can also convert to a backpack.)
http://www.bikebagshop.com/vaude-cycle-28-backpack-rear-pannier-p-3144.html

Need to adjust for the side weight on the carrier - but more pleasant than using a backpack in this warm weather which has been my main mode for transporting a change of clothes for 8 years now. Much easier to look behind one as well when not wearing a backpack.

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for this week work commute 22km round trip Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: OK
Comment: few wet commutes during the week, Mon Tues were nice other days hit and miss.
Watch your bikes, heard of a theft from front of a house in rahoon during the week.
Wet: 15/132= 11%
Nice: 117/132= 89%
Too Dangerous: 0/132= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for this week work commute 22km round trip Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: nice
Comment: nice week for it, only one commute which was slightly wet.
Didn't cycle Mon, went out for my first 50 km 'leisure' cycle last Sun and was wrecked Mon morning.
Wet: 16/140= 11%
Nice: 124/140= 89%
Too Dangerous: 0/140= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for last week work commute 22km round trip Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: OK
Comment: got wet on one commute, drove a few days this week had to run errands.
Wet: 17/144= 11%
Nice: 127/144= 89%
Too Dangerous: 0/144= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for this week work commute 22km round trip Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: humid
Comment: warm summer weather, humid and heavy commutes during the week.
Wet: 12/132= 9%
Nice: 120/132= 91%
Too Dangerous: 0/132= 0%

sonandheir

Trip: my stats for past few weeks at work commute 22km round trip Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri.
Mode: cycle.
Weather: lovely
Comment: haven't updated in a few weeks. been a great spell of weather for cycling.
Wet: 15/184= 8%
Nice: 169/184= 92%
Too Dangerous: 0/184= 0%