In regards to the working from home thing, definitely. As long as I am around for the necessary things like seminars, meetings, TAing, etc., it would not matter if I did everything else at home. Some of the faculty don't even live in Merced and end up working from home sometimes.
People do not really use bikes around campus, it is a fairly small campus. Using a bike to commute to campus is somewhat common but if people use anything on the actual campus it is usually a skateboard.