Commute train

I’m curious, does anybody commute to work with at least one other cyclist? Has anybody ever joined or started a spontaneous group ride during a commute?

I’m broke this month so I didn’t buy a train pass. My commute from San Jose, CA to Menlo Park is about 22 miles. This morning, a guy joined me on my commute in Mountain View. By the time we reached downtown Palo Alto, I was pulling a train of a half dozen other bike commuters at 18 to 20 mph.

Is there something like a carpool resource where bike commuters can post their start and destination and meet up at an agreed time? Would something like that be useful for people on the Commute By Bike site? How do you picture something like this working?

As for me, I start at Park & Bird in San Jose at 7 a.m. and ride to Menlo Park through Palo Alto. I’m very flexible on the route — I like going up to Foothill via Homestead best, though today I just shot straight up El Camino Real until I hit Sunnyvale, where I cut over to Evelyn. Here’s another route I often take from Mountain View, past the Googleplex and across East Palo Alto.

I favor “urban” commute bikes for shorter commutes, but for this distance I go light and ride the road bike at an average 17 mph. I don’t mind pulling as long as somebody else is willing to trade off.

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