Originally Posted by zzyzzx
At .7 miles, I would be walking to work.
I agree, less than a mile is kind of overkill for even a bike.
Walking would also probably be a good option for many winter days, even in Minne. Probably not when it's -20F, though...
I guess I'm assuming there would be sidewalks, maybe that is not the case here.
When my dad went back to work after a long period of unemployment when I was a kid, our family was left with two working adults and one car for quite a while as money was saved up for another vehicle...mom hated used cars and wanted a new one, so she had to wait.
They couldn't share a ride as mom worked 1st shift while dad was on 2nd, plus they didn't really like being around each other, but mom worked about a mile from our house at the time so she just walked. She never rode a bike in her life as far as I know.
Mom used to come home to cook dinner right after work when dad was home and was sick of that routine, so with more money coming in she decided to take us kids out for dinner most nights.
Without a car, the only real option was a chicken place maybe two blocks from where she worked. For whatever reason, mom chose to not pick up food to bring home on her way from work but would walk home, gather us up to walk to the restaurant, and then escort us back home after we ate. I didn't really like chicken but liked going out to eat, so I was OK with this...fried chicken was more essential to my sister than water so she was in hog heaven at this time.
The odd thing was that all three of us seemed to lose a little weight during this time even with eating greasy fast food for dinner most weeknights...the three of us all had a tendency to be a little chubby, but dad never put on weight no matter what his lifestyle was like. I think he had good discipline from being in the Army in WWII and was also used to skipping dinners from his childhood in the Depression when his widowed mother would make oatmeal most nights...he HATED that stuff, I loved it but rarely got to eat it because he couldn't stand to look at it or smell it.
It's actually kind of pleasant to think back to that little routine, it was fun to take a little trek most nights and it gave the three of us a chance to talk. I started to see how being active could make me look and feel better, so I started riding my bike around the neighborhood pretty obsessively before and after dinner. Our house was never really a happy place, so I think all of us enjoyed being away from it to some extent.
Then winter came, and mom had a car before long....a few really cold mornings and she was done with walking!!