For me, a bike was the fastest way to get around campus, and practically cost me nothing as a broke student 😅
From there I ended up going on progressively longer rides for leisure, getting to know how long I can ride before running out of steam. Now I’m pretty comfortable commuting by bike - for longer distances though I tend to take public transport
For me it was because of our national car sharing company stopping the free float service during Covid (free float means cars are everywhere on normal parking spaces and you can leave them anywhere else in the city).
I used that when working night shifts in order to get back home cause there’s no more public transport at that time.
After they stopped, I started using rental bikes, then bought a cheap one, then bought a better one. Now I own 4 different bikes and do everything by bike…