Good question OP! I think after a while you accumalate all the biking needs and the savings over auto-commute become more noticeable. My commute cost by car, is approx $5 to $7 per day. My teaching contract calls for 187 days of work. Lets say $6 times 150 days; since I realistically don't ride every single day to school; works out to be a total of $900. Thats approx $1000 dollars I can spend on upgrades and apparel fo cycling! If I could do this for 10 years we are talking $10,000 dollars in savings plus the added benefit of a healthy life style that renders an unknown variable in medical expense savings!