As a fellow bike commuter, it blows my mind that other people pay money (in the form of fuel+payments+insurance) to get in worse shape, while we get healthier for effectively “free”.

You are ignoring the amount of time saved from motorized travel

In Portland, Austin, and New York City, I have found it exceptionally rare when friends in a car would arrive at destinations before I would on a bicycle. That only gets flipped when the trips go suburban.

I bike twelve miles a day in Austin (from UT area to Ben White, and back in the afternoon, going along Congress most of the way). 30-40 minutes. Currently I'm borrowing my friend's motorcycle, and when I ride that instead, it's more like 15-20 minutes, taking I-35.

Judging by traffic on the other side of the highway, I'm guess it's because I'm commuting the opposite direction of most people. If you have parking, and traffic isn't terrible where/when you're going, the bicycle is usually slower.

But, on the other hand, riding a bicycle is so much more _fun_ than driving a car. Riding a motorcycle can also be fun, but still always doesn't beat a bicycle for me.

Is it really time saved if you still need to find some other activity during the day to perform to stay in shape?

Not if you only have to bike six miles and you have to park 15 minutes from your office.

Thinking on getting an e-bike. Sounds like a good compromise between getting to the office soaked in sweat and doing some exercise on my way back and forth.

I second this greatly. I have only taken it up recently and am left wondering why I did not do it MUCH earlier.

The most astonishing thing for me was the amount of energy I got from it. I used to be quite apathetic during the day, with intense sleepiness in the early afternoons, and now I feel awake during the day. I cannot overstate how beneficial this is

Seconding this since it's getting short shrift here among all the talk about Rippentoe and Getting Big.

Took a substantial pay cut in large part to avoid the soul killing commute and to be able to bicycle to work (~9 mi one way). Probably the single biggest life event in the last five years (after having kids). Used to do it daily but recently stopped after having to sort out logistics with school drop-offs, so I'm shopping for an ExtraCycle to address that, then back on the wagon!