It is really great to hear that you and your wife have been able to use your bikes for utility purposes, save money, and be healthy. Indeed, there are a lot of advantages to utility cycling! Thanks for the comment.

Thanks for the great comment. Indeed, we did miss the health category, which, as you point out, is quite separate from sport or recreation. Using the bicycle for health purposes is indeed very common for recovery from a whole range of illnesses and injuries. Thanks for the idea, and we will be sure to discuss that category further in the future.

After a heart attack, people need to exercise. A bicycle covers a lot more ground, with a lot less pounding, than walking or jogging. While it’s possible to attain the same improvements in health using a treadmill or a stationary bike, everyone agrees that they’re boring. A real bicycle is not, and that’s the appeal.

This isn’t really recreational biking, because it’s done for health reasons than for fun. It isn’t sport biking because your speed is like that of a turtle with arthritis. After a while, range increases, too, and it becomes practical to ride the bike to visit friends, pick up groceries, and do many things for which a car had been used. As people start to use their bicycles as a tool, this becomes utility biking.

Your website is a good idea, and an excellent jumping-off point to showcase a new idea about the use of bicycles.

It’s great to hear that you have been able to make the transition to commuting and utility cycling, despite the challenges. Sometimes, the best thing to do is lead by example, so perhaps you can convince your wife and kids that cycling is fun and utilitarian by taking them out on a family ride! Thanks for reading, and we hope to hear from you again.

Last year when gas hit 4.07 I decided to ride a bike the 6 miles to work. My truck only gets14 mpg. I rediscovered the fun and joy of biking, I bought a free radical attachment from the folks at Xtracycle.

Since then the truck has gone from being MY TRUCK to being the truck. When it was MY TRUCK I would not let anyone else drive it,now I leave the keys in it in case my wife or kids need to use it.

Any errands that I need to do, I do by bike now.
I guess that makes me a Commuter/utility cyclist.
I am loving it,wouldn’t have it any other way.

I would sell the truck but my wife won’t let me.

Thanks for the great comment! We are really looking forward to beginning a great dialogue on this site, and we appreciate that you were the first to start it!

We are definitely planning on looking into bike sharing, but I think you are right that it deserves a line of it’s own. Also, family biking is another great subcategory, which we will look into as well.

Also, I really like your thoughts on the best word or sentiment to define utility cycling, as I did struggle quite a bit in trying to think about what makes utility cycling separate from the other categories. Perhaps goal-oriented is not an appropriate way to define it, because as a racer, I too, have goals set down for each training ride. However, utility cycling is not always purely simple either, because some utility cycling practices – for example, a search and rescue operation – may be quite complex. Nonetheless, goals and simplicity are certainly both important aspects of utility cycling, so perhaps, there is not one perfect word to define the whole concept, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.

While all three categories of cycling certainly blend together, our main intention with this site is to make the idea of utility cycling more concrete in order to draw out the elements that make it what it is. Although I have argued that utility cycling is separate from sport and recreation, I realize that the lines that distinguish the categories blurr together, and I am glad of it! The last thing I would want to do is start some sort of unnecessary “border-war” between the so-called different kinds of cyclists. Because, as far as I can tell, we all love the ride, the machine, and the good vibes of riding, no matter what type of cycling we are doing at a given time.

But I suppose our main goal here really is to talk about the ways in which utility cycling is different from sport or recreational cycling, without forgetting that there are many important similarities as well.

We look forward to hearing from you again! Thanks for helping us think more carefully about our definition of utility cycling and encouraging us to help the definition evolve.

Ride on!

Another category that might fit under Community Building is Family Outings. While a family outing may be a ’social gathering,’ it’s unique because it implies kids are involved. With all the Burley’s and Tag-a-Long’s on the market, it isn’t that far out of the question to bring out the kids and the bikes for some family time. In this subcategory, the purpose of the outing determines whether or not it’s for utility or recreation.

On a more general note, I have a hard time separating utility, recreation, and sport as three separate forms of cycling. I engage in all three forms of cycling: I race mountain bikes professionaly, commute by bike, and always ride for the pure joy of it.

I’d argue my training or ’sport’ cycling is very goal-oriented with each ride having a specific purpose. My bike commutes are not always the most efficient because there’s an element of recreation that I can’t let go. I also like to think that my ’sport’ cycling aids my ‘utility’ cycling–because fitness aids bike utility. Right?

If I had to choose a single word to define utility cycling and its appeal I’d pick simplicity. But this is beautifully said, “…it is about the simple, practical desire to get things done efficiently, economically, and gracefully.”