[spindritf]

It's crazy inconvenient, not particularly pleasant and offers weak health benefits[1]. If someone likes it, great but for most of us getting sweaty right before classes/work (and likely keep sweating while there), not being able to dress properly and not being able to go out afterwards is a deal breaker.

And you can't even ditch the car and all the maintenance costs and efforts that go with it because you will still need it occasionally.

[1] http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-short-intense-health-l...

[jiggy2011]

There's no reason you can't get short , intense bursts of exercise on your commute especially if there are hills in the way or you time yourself and try to get it down.

Years ago I used to do a 40 mile round trip to work by bike with a few good hills on route , so there was a mixture of hard anaerobic effort and lower intensity pedalling. After about 3 months of that I was probably never thinner and fitter.

Regards sweat, this depends on if you can shower at work I guess and also how sweaty you get. If you wear cycling clothing that can absorb a lot of the sweat and then change and spray some deodorant when you get to work you really don't smell all that bad.

[talkingquickly]

I'm not sure it's fair to say it offers weak health benefits. The linked article shows how something else (short bursts) offers in some respects substantially more health benefits but nothing to suggest that long bursts (e.g. cycling) aren't still dramatically better than sitting in a car/ on a train.