Northeast - What Is the Carbon Saddleprint of Cyclists? Are We Good for the Environment??

On Monday, I found this calculator for the number of calories a cyclist burns depending on weight, speed and number of minutes riding.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_burned.asp

This is good information for people who want to lose weight, but it got me to thinking (which is always a dangerous thing).

If I'm riding for 4 hours, at speeds less than 10 mph (try going faster on an 82 pound Huffy cast-iron bike) and I weigh 125 pounds, I will burn 942 calories.

So, what's the carbon saddleprint of these calories? Surely, carbon dioxide must be one of the byproducts of my internal combustion engine. What other gases am I producing? I know that I've been leaving a foul smelling brown cloud of gases as I ride up some of the hills in the Bronx.

Could I be doing the environment greater harm by riding my bike than riding my 5000 pound Hummer?

If I were a vegetarian or vegan would I have cleaner tailpipe emissions?

http://i.eprci.net/picard-facepalm

http://i.eprci.net/picard-facepalm

I second that!

I hate you.

I hate you.

While Mr. Bacciagalupe and gearhead.ny added almost nothing to the substance of this thread, try not to hate them.

While Mr. Bacciagalupe and gearhead.ny added almost nothing to the substance of this thread, try not to hate them.

:lol::roflmao::roflmao::lol::roflmao::roflmao::lol:

damn I did it again. sorry everyone

Please tell me you can't seriously believe that:

• you have an "internal combustion engine" that produces greenhouse gases
• that you, operating a bicycle, use up nearly as many resources as a 6,600 pound SUV
• that building and shipping a 20- or 25 pound bicycle uses up anything but a tiny fraction of the same resources as a 6,600 SUV

If you are even remotely serious, one gallon of gasoline provides about 31,000 calories. If you do the conversion, apparently a typical cyclist gets about 900 MPG. This should be excruciatingly obvious.

Now do you see why you get the Picard Face Palm? ;)

This thread really belongs in the Road forum :rolleyes:

On Monday, I found this calculator for the number of calories a cyclist burns depending on weight, speed and number of minutes riding.

http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_burned.asp

This is good information for people who want to lose weight, but it got me to thinking (which is always a dangerous thing).

If I'm riding for 4 hours, at speeds less than 10 mph (try going faster on an 82 pound Huffy cast-iron bike) and I weigh 125 pounds, I will burn 942 calories.

So, what's the carbon saddleprint of these calories? Surely, carbon dioxide must be one of the byproducts of my internal combustion engine. What other gases am I producing? I know that I've been leaving a foul smelling brown cloud of gases as I ride up some of the hills in the Bronx.

Could I be doing the environment greater harm by riding my bike than riding my 5000 pound Hummer?

If I were a vegetarian or vegan would I have cleaner tailpipe emissions?

The output is quite significant and a little known threat to the environment, but the cycling lobby spends millions of dollars suppressing this fact. Mongolian scientists are suggesting that the exercise culture we see in the west should be eliminated and people should instead sit in their homes doing nothing.

This thread really belongs in the Road forum :rolleyes:

incorrect

incorrect
No? When have we ever had Capt. Picard in the Northeast forum?
Next it'll be Tammy Thomas.

The output is quite significant and a little known threat to the environment, but the cycling lobby spends millions of dollars suppressing this fact. Mongolian scientists are suggesting that the exercise culture we see in the west should be eliminated and people should instead sit in their homes doing nothing.

At last, someone willing to speak up against the vast cycling-lyecra industrial complex, who are responsible for pushing up the price of a barrel of oil to the point where people would be willing to spend their money on overpriced bikes and synthetic garments.

No? When have we ever had Capt. Picard in the Northeast forum?
Next it'll be Tammy Thomas.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e134/popzeus71/20080327-TammyThomas.jpg

you rang?

At last, someone willing to speak up against the vast cycling-lyecra industrial complex, who are responsible for pushing up the price of a barrel of oil to the point where people would be willing to spend their money on overpriced bikes and synthetic garments.

Yes, it is nice that there is the glimmer of hope in the battle against synthetic apparel and over priced bicycles. This theme will hopefully spread throughout the road cycling world and we abandon these light, expensive bicycles and go back to the days of 30lb steel bikes (we'll ignore the carbon footprint of producing steel frames for now). Now any racer who can ride up the Alp D'Huez on a hefty bike is the real athlete. 15Lb bikes that improve cycling efficiency...pffft.

http://www.calfeedesign.com/images/bamboo.jpg

Huffys probably leave thrice the carbon footprint of one of these bamboo bikes.

http://www.calfeedesign.com/images/bamboo.jpg

Huffys probably leave thrice the carbon footprint of one of these bamboo bikes.

:thumb:

Obviously, we must get scientists involved in a Manhattan Project-style effort to sequester CO2, in the form of carbon-fiber bike frames! :D

Kevin

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e134/popzeus71/20080327-TammyThomas.jpg

you rang?

:thumb:

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I think man made global warming is total hogwash. The average global temperature hasn't increased in 8 years, and New York has had the coolest July in 58 years, I believe.

That aside, if one looks into the energy consumption of an automobile versus a bike, one must take into account all things. Clearly a cyclist on a bike directly consumes much less energy than an automobile directly consumes. However, one must also look at the energy it takes to produce the energy used for each. Let's say a bike rider burns 1000 calories on a ride. How much energy was consumed by the farm equipment used to produce the food that the cyclist ate which provided the 1000 calories? Farming is a rather energy-intensive activity. I'm betting it takes less energy to produce a given unit of energy of petroleum as compared to a given unit of energy of food. This is because petroleum is much more energy-dense than food. In other words, one pound of gasoline contains a heck of a lot more potential energy than one pound of pizza. It would be my guess, then, that a vehicle that consumed a pound of gasoline in a given ride would ultimately be more energy efficient than a vehicle that consumed a pound of pizza, when you count all of the energy used down the line of production.

A good analogous situation to this is the question about which has a greater carbon footprint, a car that uses gas or one that is purely electric. Most people would immediately say the gas car does. However, if you take into account the fact that most electricity is produced by burning coal, the answer is no longer so obvious.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I think man made global warming is total hogwash. The average global temperature hasn't increased in 8 years, and New York has had the coolest July in 58 years, I believe.

That aside, if one looks into the energy consumption of an automobile versus a bike, one must take into account all things. Clearly a cyclist on a bike directly consumes much less energy than an automobile directly consumes. However, one must also look at the energy it takes to produce the energy used for each. Let's say a bike rider burns 1000 calories on a ride. How much energy was consumed by the farm equipment used to produce the food that the cyclist ate which provided the 1000 calories? Farming is a rather energy-intensive activity. I'm betting it takes less energy to produce a given unit of energy of petroleum as compared to a given unit of energy of food. This is because petroleum is much more energy-dense than food. In other words, one pound of gasoline contains a heck of a lot more potential energy than one pound of pizza. It would be my guess, then, that a vehicle that consumed a pound of gasoline in a given ride would ultimately be more energy efficient than a vehicle that consumed a pound of pizza, when you count all of the energy used down the line of production.


Thank you for your very thoughtful analysis of the energy requirements of cars and cyclists.

Have you done any research comparing the emissions of cars and bikes. I believe that the Federal Governments standards for limiting the levels of the gases in automobile exhaust should be immediately applied to cyclists whose weight & speed paramaters result in their burning more that 800 calories per hour. I've been looking around New York City for a gas station with emissions testing equipment that would be willing to let me ride my bike under test conditions on their dynameter with their exhaust hose placed right near by tail pipe. I would like to get a readout of my carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide levels, sulphur dioxide levels and then consult with my gastroentrologist to see if we can get these levels down to the emission standards of California.

I ride so that I can eat steak and not be fat.

If you really want to be green you could be a vegetarian but I like steak and other meats to much and your only live once.

You could be very green and kill your self, that would reduce your carbon foot print to zero.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I think man made global warming is total hogwash.

RIGHT ON! Like I've been telling everyone I know, it's THE MARTIANS!

Discussions of the validity of global warming don't belong here, so...



That aside, if one looks into the energy consumption of an automobile versus a bike, one must take into account all things....
By any possible standard, a cyclist uses fewer resources than a car.

• Manufacturing a bicycle requires a tiny fraction of the resources to manufacture a car.
• Apparently, close to 1/3 of the carbon footprint of an auto is in just the manufacturing phase.
• Transporting a bicycle to the retailer requires a tiny fraction of the resources to transport a bike to the dealer.
• Growing and transporting food is more efficient and less damaging to the environment, generally speaking, than finding, pumping, refining and transporting fuel. (Not to mention that the food has other benefits and utility for the consumer).
• Bicycles require a tiny fraction of the resources to maintain and operate a car.
• Bicycles do not produce greenhouse gases, do not pollute the atmosphere, and do not cause smog.

The idea that any car has a greater carbon footprint than a bicycle is rather amusing.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I think man made global warming is total hogwash. The average global temperature hasn't increased in 8 years, and New York has had the coolest July in 58 years, I believe.

I can't say I'm a fan of the alarmists who run around telling everyone the sky is falling but it doesn't take a scientist to figure out putting harmful pollutants into the environment is going to have negative effects on the planet, especially in developing nations that have lax or non existent environmental laws. Petroleum is a finite resource which has been the cause of human conflict in trying to secure it, to find an alternative which minimizes pollution and is available to all to produce doesn't seem like a bad thing to research. Climate change has been a part of earth's history, something no one is debating but given all of the issues around our current form of energy consumption and the effects of industrialized society on our planet I can't imagine why we wouldn't pool our knowledge to reduce our impact as a whole; no easy task of course but certainly worth while.

Discussions of the validity of global warming don't belong here, so...



By any possible standard, a cyclist uses fewer resources than a car.

• Manufacturing a bicycle requires a tiny fraction of the resources to manufacture a car.
• Apparently, close to 1/3 of the carbon footprint of an auto is in just the manufacturing phase.
• Transporting a bicycle to the retailer requires a tiny fraction of the resources to transport a bike to the dealer.
• Growing and transporting food is more efficient and less damaging to the environment, generally speaking, than finding, pumping, refining and transporting fuel. (Not to mention that the food has other benefits and utility for the consumer).
• Bicycles require a tiny fraction of the resources to maintain and operate a car.
• Bicycles do not produce greenhouse gases, do not pollute the atmosphere, and do not cause smog.

The idea that any car has a greater carbon footprint than a bicycle is rather amusing.

I will concede that the manufacture and shipping of cars consumes much more energy than it does for bicycles. I was just focusing on the energy consumed down the line of riding a bike versus driving a car. Again, the poster doesn't respond to my point by saying that "bicycles do not produce greenhouse gases..." Al Gore himself has said that one of the biggest causes of greenhouses gases is cattle. Indeed an earlier poster correctly pointed out that if you truly believe in global warming you should become a vegetarian. If your bicycle's engine (i.e. - YOU) is fueled with meat, than it does indeed have a substantial carbon footprint. The fact remains that petroleum is a much more efficient storer of energy than any type of food. This means that per unit energy, one has to transport the weight of a lot less petroleum than food, which must be taken into account. And indeed, fuel also has other "benefits and utility to the consumer". Without fuel, there would be no food (at least, not nearly enough to feed all of the population), which is the main point of my response. There wouldn't be much of anything at all.

I also don't concede that growing food is less damaging to the environment than drilling for oil. The "footprint" of modern drills is fairly small (I recall this from the debates about drilling in ANWR), whereas producing food uses quite a lot of land and requires a lot of water. Consider this. Cost is a rough indicator of how difficult a commodity is to produce (there are other factors involved in cost as well, of course). A gallon of milk currently costs more than a gallon of gasoline, at least where I live.

If your bicycle's engine (i.e. - YOU) is fueled with meat, than it does indeed have a substantial carbon footprint. The fact remains that petroleum is a much more efficient storer of energy than any type of food.
Yes, gasoline is a very dense source of energy, and doesn't spoil. But riding a bicyle requires a minimal amount of energy, since you only need to move a 20-30 pound vehicle at speeds ranging from 10-25mph. In comparison, cars weigh 2000+ pounds, will travel up to 80 mph, and often run either a heating or A/C unit.

So as I cited earlier, a typical cyclist gets the equivalent of 900 mpg. I.e. cycling is roughly 30 to 60 times more efficient than driving a car, truck or SUV (while weighing 1/10 as much). Plus, riding an hour uses maybe an extra 300 calories; I doubt that bike commuters and casual cyclists consume any extra calories to fuel their cycling.

So let's say you cycle 5000 miles in a given year; that's a little more than 5 gallons of gas. How many car owners do you know that only use 5 gallons of gas a year?

Clearly motor vehicles have capabilities that a bike can't match. But it's obvious that bicycles are far, far more energy efficient.



I also don't concede that growing food is less damaging to the environment than drilling for oil.
You should. :D

Drilling is a fraction of the process; the oil needs to be refined, stored, transported and burned. Each of those processes is detrimental for the environment, not including the occasional massive oil spill. (The idea that drilling in ANWR would leave everything surrounding an individual oil rig in a pristine state is rather fantastical -- e.g. you have to build all kinds of infrastructure to support the rigs and transport the oil.) When it's used, the car produces all sorts of pollutants and waste products; even if you don't buy the global warming argument, cars still produce a great deal of particulates and generate smog. Ever wonder why every surface in NYC gets coated in black crud, or why asthma rates are high in NYC? Hint: it's not from bicycle "exhaust."

Farming is also far more sustainable than oil production. Once you've emptied an oil well, you're done; once you've harvested a crop, you can replant it or let it lie fallow.

The major detriment to the environment from food production is the use of inorganic/nitrogen as a form of fertilizer and from pesticides, both of which are mitigated when buying organic foods. It's unlikely that even non-organic factory farming is anywhere near as bad for the environment as gasoline production. (It's arguable whether buying locally grown produce actually turns out to be more efficient, by the way.)



Cost is a rough indicator of how difficult a commodity is to produce (there are other factors involved in cost as well, of course). A gallon of milk currently costs more than a gallon of gasoline, at least where I live.
Price is a terrible indicator of the "difficulty" to produce a commodity, and an even worse indicator of either its impact on the environment or a reflection of non-sustainable resources required to produce it. Price is a function of supply and demand, and is affected by things like tariffs, subsidies, commodity trading, futures trading, marketing, storage, longevity, and in some cases can be rather arbitrary. This is, of course, aside from the fact that milk is only one food commodity out of hundreds, all of whose price and resource and delivery methods vary.

Sorry, but pretty much no matter how you slice it, automobiles may be more useful than a bicycle in many circumstances, but a bike is clearly more efficient.