Originally Posted by
baron von trail
Livestrong claims it's closer to 50 calories to pedal a bike a mile at over 15 mph. I suspect it's less, but lets pick a number and say it's 30 calories per mile. How much money is that? Gotta be at least 10 cents....which is about what my car needs in gas.
lol...pedaling a bike and driving a car is a wash, dollar per mile, energy wise.
Well, you don't quit burning calories just because you drive. Sitting burns about 75 calories per hour. Reading about 100. Driving is probably somewhere in between. Depends on your muscle mass too.
There's a pretty good article that discusses
energy consumption of cars vs bikes. Considering where most of us get our food and current agricultural practices, cyclists get the equivalent of 70 to 130 mpg.
Lard has about 2000 calories per dollar. You could ride all day for a buck or two. Let's see a car do that.
Of course, many (most?) Americans consume far more calories than they need so the fuel cost of cycling is essentially zero for things like going to work unless it's a long distance. Imagine a car that had a gas tank that constantly expanded. That's us. Yikes...