Originally Posted by Bizikleto
Well, trains are there for moving people from one place to another. And the passengers they all eat! Then your statement would be like «humans take ~three times more fossil fuel energy by eating than rail trains by moving». The increase of food intake when the cyclist cycles compared to when they don't is negligible.
Well... You can start tossing on other social confounds if you like, but then you start having too many variables with unknown relationships and everything is futzed up. For instance, by bicycling a person will increase their lifespan by say ~10-20 years, and their energy consumption will increase, to the point where any gain by cycling instead of driving is wiped out. Otoh, we can say that cyclists are more likely to use less energy intensive devices.. But how much more likely? Personally, I've seen vegans eat some expensive isht, which is definitely not fossil fuel friendly food, so to speak. There are studies that investigate how many calories of fossil fuel energy go into food, but none that investigate whether cyclists actually use less energy, etc. The more variables, the more relationships, that probably haven't been investigated. That being said, eating is separate from cycling. I can eat precisely what I need, or I can overeat, but that doesn't change the fact that cycling has a significant fossil fuel penalty. Exercise is great, and if a person wants to exercise by biking ~10 miles a day instead of doing something else, sure, why not? But claiming that cycling is a viable form of transportation because it doesn't use fossil fuels, even if you do, is just silly. But, this is what a lot of car free advocates do... Nuts.
Originally Posted by Bizikleto
So, taking aside the human-transportation factor (transporting eating humans makes the train's energy effectiveness plummet, and no eating human to be transported means no train), and taking into account that trains or planes have to be full of passengers ALL the time they move to be that effective, and considering that if we got to gather some 200 people to cycle together on a "cyclotrain", the cycling effectiveness would dramatically increase, it seems that transportation alone is more effective on the bike.
They don't have to completely full ALL the time to be effective. If a cyclist is using three times more fossil fuel energy by way of food, a train at a third capacity consistently is just as efficient, and still goes ~175kph faster. That being said, there are cycling arrangements that can be effective high speed transport, I've bounced
them around the car free forums, but as you can see some car free members care more about image than efficiency...
Originally Posted by wheel
I just got out of a cage a couple years ago I rather live close to everything instead.
Quite a few car free advocate/s don't care much for reasonable alternatives. They just want to spout off about how they're environmental saviors because they're car free.... etc. Even if their food source is based on significant fossil fuel inputs. This is also why I advocate electric bikes with wind/solar charging... After the devices pay back their fossil fuel energy inputs, they're essentially providing fossil fuel free energy, and on the velomobile scale, all one needs is a single panel.
Originally Posted by Bizikleto
Because of enthropy, balance of energy and thermodynamical interaction, everything on Earth takes its toll of environmental burden: stones, flowers, our very breathing (let alone eating and moving). The question is that, come to the point we are at present, we should make what we can to make that burden the lightest possible.
Do you mean enthalpy or entropy? I think we have consistent cyclical ecological systems that change slowly over time for the most part. As of today we're taking huge chunks out of these loops, so they're going to start changing rapidly if they haven't already, which isn't exactly in our (as a species) best interests.
Originally Posted by CdCf
One can always argue that cycling requires food energy and that that food energy has a fossil energy cost that is much greater. But very few people eat so little and ride so much that they have to increase their food intake to be able to ride. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if most active cyclists eat less than many couch potatoes...
Yep yep. But very few people cycle that much in the first place. Don't you think that's a bit disingenuous? As I've said before, might as well exercise and do something constructive. But many car free advocates insist on nothing but bikes, which is silly, since we only need ~10 miles per day for exercise, and after that we're using a bike for transportation, which does have the huge fossil fuel penalty. Personally, when I was knocking down ~15-20 miles per day, I had to increase my caloric intake and eat healthier. YMMV, but it's not like everyone overeats so much that they can replace their car with a bicycle. There's some more in my first reply to Bizikleto.