Commuters who choose to bike

On a weekday, 8:30am is a hectic time in Tim Stevens’ house. The kids are about to hop in the car that will be driven by his wife and he is about to strap on his helmet and bike to work.

Stevens works at Wintec and he bikes 13km from his home in Tamahere into the city campus. The ride takes about 40 minutes. In the car it can take anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

Stevens and his family moved to New Zealand from Britain 12 years ago and he has been cycling to work ever since.

He commutes on a high-vis-yellow Specialized Crosstrail. He has two other bikes, a red and black Giant OCR, which he rides on the roads around Hamilton and a Merida Matts 100 that he takes to the Redwoods mountain bike park in Rotorua.

The only times he doesn’t ride to work is when it’s wet or if he has to take the kids to their out of school commitments. So on average Tim rides to work three times a week.

That’s 78km.

Stevens has had a couple of punctures on his way to work. Luckily he always carries a spare inner-tube and basic maintenance equipment. It takes him about 15 minutes to change the tube.

He says that the painted cycling lanes on the road are a collection point for debris and rubbish.

“If there’s been a traffic accident all of the rubbish gets brushed to the side of the road – the cycle lane.”

There has been one incident that has put Stevens off his bike when a car driver didn’t see him and turned across his path. After flying over the bonnet of the vehicle Stevens hit the ground and broke his collarbone. He got three days off work and had to wear a sling for four to five weeks.

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Fellow cyclist Jeremy Smith also knows what it’s like to be swiped by a car. In ’96 Smith got hit by a car turning where it wasn’t supposed to. Since that incident he tries to stay off the road as much as he can, especially on the bridges.

“Claudelands [bridge] has a bit more space than the other ones. Sometimes I walk across, though.”

Smith also works at Wintec, and commutes by cycle.  His bike is a blue, white and black Giant Boulder that has a big basket on the back that he puts his bag and laptop into.

“It’s a $300 Trademe special,” Smith says with a wry smile.

“It warms you up in the morning.” – Jeremy Smith

Smith bikes to Wintec from Hamilton East and it takes him about 20 minutes. His route winds up the river path to the Cobham Bridge. He crosses the bridge and rides along the wide paths back towards the city and leaves the river at the rowing club below Bridge Street.

Smith grew up on a farm near Hanmer Springs in Canterbury. He used to bike a mile to the bus stop. “We used to leave our bikes on the corner, nobody stole them.”

He biked to work when he moved to Christchurch and is still doing it 30 years down the track.

The best things Smith likes about biking to work are that you can choose your route and the exercise that you get from it. “It warms you up in the morning.”

The Hamilton City Council says it wants the city to be easy and safe to cycle around. It conducted a survey in 2014 about cycling in Hamilton. Of the 672 responses 56% of the cyclists cycled to work. Eighty-nine percent of the cyclists used footpaths or shared paths because they didn’t want the added risk of riding in or next to traffic.

The survey concludes that there should be more focus on cycle friendly paths and infrastructure to cater to cyclists, for example, maintenance areas and maps that highlight certain routes.

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Someone you might find using these routes is Waikato Times journalist Libby Wilson. She might be off to work in the morning, out for a ride in the weekend, or if she has her backpack on her back she is probably off to the veggie shop down the road. She applauds the city’s newer cycleways.

Wilson says that cycling is like a mental time-out before and after work. She bikes to work about four times a week in the summer. She doesn’t bother taking spare clothes. “I guess it’s kind of lazy but that makes things all a bit too complicated.”

It takes Wilson 25 minutes to bike to her work in Te Rapa from her home in Claudelands. One of the things that she doesn’t like about biking is that the commute takes considerably longer than by car.

“My time at home in the morning and evening is shorter and if you get stuck late at work you still have to bike home.”

“My workmates seem to think I’m mad to cycle.” – Libby Wilson

Come winter, Wilson opts for the car. She also says that she has difficulty finding the right gear for biking and working. The lure of fewer expenses is a drawcard for hopping on the bike, along with the exercise.

Libby’s workmates ask her how she gets on with all of the drivers. “My workmates seem to think I’m mad to cycle. There seems to be the view that it’s quite dangerous.”

She says that there haven’t been any issues so far and that car drivers are pretty good. She does, however, think more cycling space is needed along the bridges.

“I don’t feel safe going on the road across the bridge so I end up biking on the footpath or walking my bike along the footpath.”

Dangerous or not, Wilson rides a retro-style bike that she can’t even name. You can hook a basket onto it and her dad gave it a custom paint job. It only has three gears though.

“Even though Hamilton’s fairly flat, I feel the hills.”