eldan_bike ([info]eldan_bike) wrote,
@ 2006-08-08 20:37:00
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Bicycle mpg
If you look at fuel costs alone, cycling is actually more expensive per mile than driving a typical car: Bicycle mpg with various choices of fuel. Of course, this ignores the maintenance and purchase costs of cars vs bikes....

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[info]thekat03
2006-08-09 03:17 pm UTC (link)
it also doesn't factor in the cost of maintenance of the bike's engine, i.e. the biker d:

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[info]eldan
2006-08-09 03:19 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, but there's a good argument that that cost is negative.

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[info]thekat03
2006-08-09 03:26 pm UTC (link)
yup, that's what i was thinking, though it depends on what the driver does when not driving.

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[info]eldan
2006-08-09 03:45 pm UTC (link)
Well I think if we want to look at cost per mile, then it's just the activity we're comparing that matters. So driving would either have no effect at all on the cost of maintaining the driver, or a negative effect if commutes are sufficiently stressful. You could also argue a negative effect based on the risk of crashes, but that's a more complicated argument than I can be bothered to get into.

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[info]thekat03
2006-08-09 03:58 pm UTC (link)
there's also whether or not you want to look at long-term effects or only short-term, since the exercise of biking will improve cardiac function and help reduce the risk of assorted long-term chronic health problems like diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and so on.

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[info]eldan
2006-08-09 09:39 pm UTC (link)
oh, that's why I regarded cycling as having a negative engine-maintenance cost. In the short term the cost is positive, because there is >0 risk of getting injured, so you have to take a long-term view to see the benefits outweighing the risks.

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(Anonymous)
2006-08-09 11:26 pm UTC (link)
Not everybody fuels their cycling on caffeine. ;)

For some actual discussion about the car vs. bike energy dilemma, over the long term as Kat says...

http://www.terrapass.com/terrablog/posts/000325.html

-Alison (not logging in, hope your journal lets me post!)

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[info]eldan
2006-08-09 11:57 pm UTC (link)
Oh, I guess it's not clear from the chart - Rainier is a brand of beer, and the point of the chart was to show that beer is a much more cost-effective fuel than coffee....

Thanks for that link, it's an interesting step towards considering the whole problem.

[there are no restrictions on who can post here, but thanks for saying who you are - I do appreciate knowing who I'm talking to]

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