gosmsgo

I doubt you bonked riding 100 miles per week.

Maybe at 100 miles in a day etc. But you would have to be terribly out of shape to bonk at mile 15 for example.

Also, eating pure sugar is the best way to avoid bonking. Exactly the reason why racers eat things like cookie dough etc. Its about keeping your blood sugar levels stable and to do that on a long ride you need sugar.

Not the time to eat a salad.

lyeinyoureye

I was working at an LTL (Watkins) at the time, so it was bike to school, bike to work, move thousands of pounds of freight by hand and cram some of it on top of pallets in already loaded trailers. Once I nabbed a car that got decent mileage, the financial incentive for biking wasn't there, so I dropped to ~20-40 miles per week. Now that I've moved to BFE I'm lucky to see 10-20 miles per week, and my health's made that reduction obvious. I really should cycle more, even if I can't combine it w/ something constructive like errands, but where I am is pretty depressing and I spend way too much time bickering online. As you saw.

Roody

In my case, most of the energy I need for cycling comes from fat--my own belly fat. YMMV.

JusticeZero

Try adding up all your car bills. ALL of them, not just fuel. Depreciation, parking, repairs, tires, maintenance, insurance, registration. You'll find that an automobile is agonizingly expensive even if gasoline was free.

cerewa

I don't think it's reasonable to cycle on vegetable oil, nor on food that is as cheap (per-calorie) as veggie oil.

I'm a frugal vegetarian, so bicycle's fuel is often rice, beans, flour tortillas, and veggie oil. The cost per mile remains extremely low. Assuming I do not charge myself for the time I spend preparing food, my grocery-store-bought food costs about $2 per day/36 miles round trip, maximum, above what I would spend if I sat on my butt instead of biking.

I'm entirely unconvinced that cars are as cheap on a per-mile basis as bicycles. Many cyclists, me included, can ride a bike a couple thousand miles on a $100 budget, depreciation of the bike included. Very-old cars can be cheap for people who do their own repairs. But even then, an old $2000 used car depreciates to a $100 piece of scrap metal in some ten years ($200/year depreciation?), consuming hundreds of dollars in replacement parts, $10+ a week in gas=$500+ a year in gas, and a couple hundred a year in insurance.

If you budget for gas but not repairs, depreciation, and insurance, your budget is hugely unrealistic.

gosmsgo

I dont get you guys.

I had a $3000.00 truck and I was spending another $600.00 per year or so just watching it sitting in the driveway.

I think those of you "biking is as expensive" as cars are running away from reality as quickly as you can.

gosmsgo

Oh and $2.00 for 36 miles is about 10 dollars cheaper than you could drive a car for that distance.

fat_bike_nut

Oh, if only...

I still managed to bonk on one of my rides, even though I was almost 60 lbs. overweight at the time, with a lot of fat in the belly.

bmclaughlin807

It's a matter of how fast you're using energy compared to how fast you can convert it... I've been in situations where I've bonked even though I was eating lots... your body can burn energy faster than it can absorb it from food or convert it from 'other' sources...

If you sustain your effort at a level faster than you're taking it in or converting it, you're going to bonk... I've had to stop during a ride and take a 20 minute nap on the side of the road before! (Actually twice.. both over 100 miles into a brevet)

lyeinyoureye

I have some'a'that!
Ja ja meng. Total cost for everything semi-permanent thus far is ~$600-650 IIRC and going down! That includes the cost of two cars, new starter (llt), battery (8 year prorated), solenoid switch for the gps, replacement bearings, 6 port solenoid, fuel injection line, four brand new tires with 45k mile tread life warranty, free flat repair and free replacement if repair is not possible, etc... Insurance, which covers me whether I'm on bike, foot, or car in any accident involving another vehicle is $300/year and reg is ~$35/year. Fuel is ~$0-3/gal depending on source and $1.50/gal delivered. Items like oil changes/air filters, etc... are around $60/year. About 80% of use is two or more people. It comes down to about 4 cents per personal mile, plus the cost of the vehicle, which may be positive or negative by the time I'm done with it. If I went and pushed the entire thing off a cliff right now it would be at 10 cents/mile. Otoh, if I sold it the cost per mile would likely be around -3-10 cents per mile. Yes, that's a negative. I'm not a sucker who buys depreciating assets in this arena. They either stay the same or increase.

I figure by the time I'm done cost will be at ~3 cents per mile assuming I keep it and use it for a good amount of time. Course, I use that thing between my ears, so the average driver and/or person probably isn't able to even consider something like this, let alone do it. Most have so much $$$ they don't fret about where it goes, whatever is easiest and alla that.

That's like 5 cents/mile in fuel costs alone, not counting the cost of the bike! You would save quite a bit of money w/ a DIY electric bike conversion. Besides, why would I buy a $2000 car if all it's gonna do is depreciate? Yer cherry picking meng. Even after getting beat on for hundreds of thousands of miles most cars aren't worth just $100 unless the owner is lazy. That being said, I wasn't talking about the average person, I was talking about what someone could do. The variance in cycling costs are very little due to food. Otoh, the variance in car costs are way more, and can be brought down around cycling costs if the individual is willing to put in the time. But... most people are lazy, so most people don't. Not that a car could ever touch an electric bicycle, but food's expensive meng.

cerewa

lyeinyoureye, i have not seen a single other person who claims that a person's daily-driver car can realistically appreciate. My comment about a $2000 car was very realistic... you can't expect most cars driven daily that are worth $2000 now to still have enough value to be worth repairing, ten years from now. That's depreciation. Now maybe you're the type to buy a $400 broken car and fix it, run it for a few years, and then sell it as a $400 working car, but that's a difficult feat and if you're that good at car repair then your time spent on car repair could have gotten you a fair bit of money if you weren't "using up" your car repairs.

*compared to my $100/year bicycle budget

lyeinyoureye

No, yes, yes, and no.
No to your comment about the $2000 car. It wasn't very realistic because I was talking about what I can do/have done, and stating that most people could do it too, with the condition that they want to do it. Which, is a pretty big if because most don't want to have to get up to change the channel if ya know what I mean. Yes, a $2000 used car can hold it's value if the individual buying it chooses wisely and is handy or at least willing to learn. Yes one can buy a $400 car w/ something wrong w/ it, fix it and sell it for $400 later. They can even buy a $400 car, fix it, and sell it for more than $400 if they use their noggin'. If you say I'm that good I'm thankful... But, I disagree because I can't find a job for the life of me fixing cars. If I maybe had some official training/certs, or knew someone, or somethin' else, I could. But... I don't, and can't find work in that respect. Same goes for computer stuff... I can't go in a bidness and say omgz I'm gud hire me. They won't, even if I was that good. First off, they have no reason to believe me, and second, in general people who are too good (in both senses) aren't liked either if ya know what I mean... (continued via anecdote in PM)

cerewa

Where I live, a small number of diesel-engine owners hit up the deep-frying restaurants for free waste oil. I'm driving a gasoline car to work on days I don't bike, (will have an e-bike up and running in a few weeks so I can stop driving) and everybody who wants gasoline has to go to the gas station and pay $2.70/gallon for it.

Traffic being what it is around here, the best you can expect to do on fuel costs with a small, inexpensive car is about $.10/mile, far worse than my estimated $.05/mile in fuel for bicycling.

A bicycle is hands-down cheaper in repair/insurance/depreciation as well.

If you can make your car appreciate, more power to ya, but the more people that try to invest in used cars that will appreciate, the more difficult it will be to make them appreciate (free market being what it is, and all)

gosmsgo

Bonking has to do with your blood sugar and nothing to do with how fat you are.

Roody

I don't know how to fix a car. How long would it take me to learn? How much would I have to pay somebody to teach me? How much time would I spend or waste trying to do even "simple" jobs like changing brakes, or even changing the oil? Your idea that fixer-uppers are practical for the average motorist is absurd.

I bought $400 cars for years, drove them until something major went wrong and then sold them for $25 to the junk yard. I believe that's by far the cheapest form of auto transit available to the average person. The problem was, most of those cars couldn't be trusted for a trip out of town. If the car's only reliable for in-town trips, why not just ride a bike? Furthermore, I think that the plan of driving a $400 car into the grave is still far more expensive than my current plan of driving a $150 bike into the grave. (A $400 car will usually last about 6-10 months, in my experience. A $150 bike will last several years. And, of course, I don't need to insure my bike.)

Cycling takes about 40 calories per mile, or about one large bite of food. Maybe that will help people to put the "fuel" costs into perspective.

Roody

In the normal course of cycling, bonking is a pretty rare occurrence. Most people on BF who say they "bonked" are really saying that they rode a lot further/faster than their physical condition would allow, and they got very tired. It's usually only racers who truly bonk, along with people like you who are doing brevets and other "extreme" rides.

As I'm sure you know, people need to use proper training techniques to avoid getting over-tired. These techniques can easily be incorporated into a carfree cycling lifestyle.

Six jours

So driving a car might be really expensive for you. It may even be really expensive for the "average motorist", although I don't pretend to know what that actually is. The point, though, is that blanket statements about how much it costs to drive a car are out of line. Just because AAA says it costs 50 cents a mile doesn't mean that Jay Leno and Cletus the slack-jawed yokel are both spending $10,000 a year on cars.

IOW, claims that driving has to cost more than cycling are incorrect.

Roody

At first I thought lyeinyoureye's fuel theory made sense. Maybe it does, for some people. But I rode 35 miles yesterday, and 25 today, and I didn't eat more than I do when my only ride is the 8 mile commute. I do feel a little skinnier, but no hungrier.

Roody

I agree that in some rather weird circumstances it might be cheaper to drive than ride.

As for "average" just look around you. The average motorist buys a new car every 5 or 6 years, or leases a new one even more frequently. IOW, on average, people are making a car payment every month of their lives, and the average payment is probably more than $200. Most drivers don't even wash their own cars, let alone do major repairs or change the oil. The average cost of insurance is also higher than that reported by the car lovers on the carfree forum. AAA knows that, even if they don't.

Six jours

My glib side is telling me to ask you for a cite. It really doesn't matter what the "average" is, though. It's what one can do that's important, and if it's really important for people to save money, they can drive quite inexpensively. IMO, the "Car-free will save you millions!" argument is just another rationalization for what amounts to a personal lifestyle choice. I don't have any problem with folks who choose to be car-free for whatever reason, but some of the more militant arguments can be fairly amusing.

Roody

I'm glad we keep you amused. But what practical steps could the "average" person take to make car ownership as cheap as being carfree?

Six jours

In my poorest days, I drove an old pick-up that I got for $1,000. I did my own maintenance including fluid changes, brakes, etc. Anyone who can work on their own bike can work on their own car, and I did all the work on the street in front of the house where I was renting a room. Registration for an older vehicle with a low value is next to nothing; I think it was $150 a year. Insurance can also be quite cheap if you shop around and go for liability only. I'm sure it was less than $1,000 a year. Gas was no big deal as I wasn't driving more than one or two hundred miles per week. The bottom line was that I was living, at times, on less than $500 dollars a month, so the idea that a car has to cost $10,000 per year is demonstrably false.

Again, I have zero problems with people who choose to go car-free, but what's wrong with just saying "This is the choice I've made for myself" rather than coming up with all this stuff about how owning a car will cost you millions and destroy the planet?

Six jours

FWIW, life has been pretty kind to me; I could sink a lot of money into cars these days if that was my thing. But I'm not much of a car guy, so I buy nice used cars and run them until they become unreliable. That means I can spend $7500 on a car with maybe 50,000 miles on it, take it to the shop for maybe $1000 worth of initial service, and then another $250 every year at the shop, because I'm lazy. I still only carry liability insurance because replacing a $7500 car isn't going to kill me, and registration is maybe $200 per year. Gas isn't a big deal because I only drive about 100 miles per week. Even at today's prices -- and a car that likes premium -- I'm looking at about $50 a month. And I'll keep a car for 5 years at an absolute minimum.

So let's see...

Car plus initial service: $8500.
Yearly service by the shop: $250.
Yearly registration and insurance: $1000.
Yearly gas: $600
Multiplying the yearly expenses by five years gets me to $9250, and adding the initial cost brings me to $17,750. Divided by five, looks like my yearly cost is $3550 -- assuming that when I sell the car I get $0.

That's less than I spent on bicycle stuff this year...

Platy

Then your average cost of car ownership is 68 cents per mile.

Six jours

I'm no genius with arithmetic, but I think it's more than that. Isn't it dollars per year divided by miles per year? I think the actual total would be almost 74 cents per mile. Of course, if I drove twice as much and paid twice as much for mainenance and gas, that'd be about 46 cents per mile. So the cost per mile is slightly misleading, as driving more looks like it costs you less, which is obviously silly.