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Comment by chrismealy | Hacker News Reader

The car I drive to work is made of around 2,600 pounds of steel, 800 pounds of plastic, and 400 pounds of light metal alloys. The trip from my house to the office is roughly four miles long, all surface streets, which means I travel over some 15,000 tons of concrete each morning.

Bill should get a bike.

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The 4 mile trip in the article would be about 12 minutes by bicycle (once you get fit). It would be less than an hour simply walking briskly.

It's difficult to understand why people drive such tiny distances. I ride close to 20 miles each way to work and it's still much faster than driving and slightly faster than the train. I also get less sweaty than people using the trains due to sensible clothing. It also means I don't need to use the gym and can eat what I want (I burn about 3500 kcal/day)

An hour's walk each way = 2 hours out of your day commuting. For a workaholic billionaire with a prediliction for charity, that's quite a waste of time.

Similarly with riding, it's not just the ride. A car is easy if you've got a parking spot at both ends. Hop in, hop out. Commuting by biking (usually) requires you to change clothing, which really should be included in your commute time.

And some people just enjoy driving, like some people enjoy walking or riding. I haven't met the person who likes being crammed into a sweaty train-crowd yet, though :)

4 miles is 12 minutes if you can sustain 20 mph door-to-door. If Bill's commute brings him into contact with traffic lights or urban traffic, he won't be able to do that.

I commute about five miles by bike in London, and it takes me about 25 minutes. There are maybe 5 minutes of full-speed travel in that time, and about 20 of filtering and waiting.

It's still a lot faster than driving, though!

> It's difficult to understand why people drive such tiny distances.

I agree with a general point about benefits of non-carbon-producing transportation.

I don't want to judge any particular person, however; I simply don't know and it's not my business. Maybe Gates has a lot to carry; maybe he has bad knees; maybe his personal security is an issue; maybe he has allergies this season. Maybe he's simply uncoordinated. Also (and I doubt this applies to Gates), I've lived in places where cars are too dangerous to bicyclers to ride regularly, either because of the drivers, the rules, the lack of bike lanes, etc.

Bill Gates is 58 years old. "Once you get fit" takes on a whole new meaning once you pass 40 -- it gets a lot harder and you run into musculoskeletal and joint problems that seldom affect folks who haven't hit middle age yet.

Cycling's probably not a big deal if the area you live is flat as a pancake, like the Netherlands, but Seattle is anything but flat.

(I speak from 49 years of life experience. Exercise means swimming for me: getting myself run over or requiring titanium knees are not on my to-do list for the next decade.)

The alternative to a van is not a bike. I have four kids. We aren't riding our bikes to soccer practice and church.

Sneering at van owners does not advance the conversation.

The alternative to a van is not a bike.

For a 4-mile trip to the office, it can be. Nothing prevents him from using a van when going to soccer practice with the kids.

Why not? What's wrong with taking your kids to soccer practice with a bike?

Biking even four miles to work isn't feasible in a lot of weather.

That's true in some places, but Seattle weather is very good for biking. It's pretty similar weather to Copenhagen and Amsterdam, where everyone bikes. Two "plus" factors that the three cities share are: it rarely gets particularly hot or cold, and the rain mostly comes in the form of drizzle rather than cataclysmic thunderstorms.

If he's in say, Redmond or Issaquah (especially the latter), where some of the MS campuses are, biking every day all year becomes less viable. There's no way I would ever bike to work in Issaquah even if it was a reasonable distance, because you spend too much of the year getting pounded by rain/snow in cold temperatures, or subject to high winds.

I do agree about Seattle proper, though.

EDIT: For reference, Gates' home is in Medina, WA, near Redmond. It appears to lie pretty close to Lake Washington, so the weather is PROBABLY relatively similar to Seattle, but it might be more unpredictable since it lies further inland...

> EDIT: For reference, Gates' home is in Medina, WA, near Redmond.

You can search "Bill Gate's house" on Bing Maps and it finds it.

http://www.bing.com/maps/?FORM=Z9LH2#Y3A9NDcuNjI1MjEwfi0xMjI...

My personal anecdote will disagree with this: I bike 6x2 miles to work and back every day whether it is +25C or -25C (snow, rain etc.). Median value is probably +10C.

I really really loathe the days when I have to take the car.

Also I am over 40 and only started biking when I was over 35 and quit smoking. I just figured, this was easier than joining a gym. Traffic in my city is not bike friendly either.

On the other hand I do not see myself running this distance daily, that would kill my knees so quick.

Do you perhaps live somewhere fairly arid? Even so, I think it's still all about location.

25C is regarded as very pleasant weather here in the southeast US - a nice early spring or late autumn day. :) Humidity is generally in the 80%-90% range when the weather is warm, and from mid spring to mid fall the temperature is generally ranges from 30-35C and sometimes gets up to even 40C.

In that kind of weather even a brisk walk will leave you drenched in sweat and you wear out very quickly because your body can't cool down, since evaporative cooling doesn't work. The temperature alone isn't bad at all - I've spent time in SoCal when it was ~100F - it's the humidity that gets you. Nobody bikes to work here - you'll sometimes see bicyclists on the road but for recreational purposes. I think it would be a fine thing in winter, but my commute is 35 miles of open highway.

So I end up going to the gym and doing a lot of yardwork. I'd like to include something like biking to work in my routine, but it's just not practical for me right now.

Yes, I thought that there was a big assumption in the fourth paragraph of the OA, just under the video.

"Think of the amazing increase in quality of life that we saw in the United States and other rich countries in the past 100 years. We want most of that miracle to take place for all of humanity over the next 50 years." (my emphasis)

I'm wondering if other countries will separate the quality from the quantity a bit better than the currently rich countries have?

And if for some reason he doesn't wish to partake of the joy of bicycling, he can at least get a LEV.

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