Originally Posted by prathmann
For my most-used bike the initial capital cost per mile is about one quarter of a cent. Maintenance items (mainly tires, chains, and cassettes) increase that by about 2 cents. But the main cost is for fuel which I estimate to be about 5 cents/mile based on current grocery prices.
Originally Posted by
wphamilton
I actually just got done calculating and posting the food cost myself, but erased it because I wasn't that confident of a couple of my estimations. I came to around 6 or 7 cents. But what do I eat *extra* for those calories, vs just an apportionment of what I eat total, not necessarily the same thing. More junk food and snacks I expect.
Interesting, I hadn't considered the cost of fuel. This is problematic, because as wphamilton notes, it's the marginal cost of fuel that makes more sense, and for clydes, they often have 0 or negative marginal cost, because fuel burned by cycling is a beneficial contribution to a goal of weight loss -- vs maybe a competitive cyclist (or any cyclist not needing/wanting to lose weight) who would need to eat more to support the calories burned.