mtbkanata

Okay, this is just something that I think is really cool, it's not an advert for my ride log.

Anyway, in March this year, I started a ride log on my website. I wanted it to track my own commutes and it sort of grew into something that members of my site could use to log their rides and progress. Although there are ony a few riders on the log, here are some interesting stats, and amazing savings.

Riders: 34
Number of ride Logs: 500
Total km logged: 14,029

So, let's look at that. 14,000 km... at an standard 10L/100km, and 90 cents/L of fuel only, that's $1260! Not to mention that would be 3 oil changes at about $45/each and misc wear and tear of at least another hundred bucks. So almost $1500 in savings over the 35 people, which is not too bad at all considering some oh those people have ridden less than 100km.

So there you have it. All the health, fitness and environment aside, here is some real-world numbers to show just how commuting savings add up!

Link: https://www.mtbkanata.com/commute_log/

Cyclaholic

Couldn't agree more

My new commuter bike paid for itself in 2 months. That's $50 per week on train & bus plus another $30 per week on fuel to get to/from station my commute would have cost if I didn't ride it..... come to think of it you could even factor in the gym membership that I didn't pay for because of all the exercise I got commuting, tho maybe that cancels out with all the extra food I eat

mtbkanata

Extra food... NO KIDDING! I found that I've become ravenous!

Here is my personal savings:

1 Truck payment, insurance, gas, maintanence = $700/month
1 Bus pass = $78/month
1 Gym membership = $40/month

So as you can see over $800/month.. so my bike was paid for in two weeks!

Sure I don't have my truck anymore, but really for a vehicle I only use a few days a month, it's just not worth it.

ps: My financeé just started commuting yesterday too! So now we both are riding

DerekU2

Did you write the logger yourself or are you using a package? Do you mind if I register and poker around (and perhaps use)? If it's just for friends, that's fine. I'm just curious!

mtbkanata

I wrote it myself and it's free to use for anyone...

I have to clean up a lot of the code, but it's pretty usable right now..

moxfyre

I agree completely!

One thing I would like to add is that a lot of people don't realize just how expensive the "wearing out" part of running a car is. If you have a $15,000 car and expect it to last 150,000 miles, that's $0.10/mile, which is probably HIGHER than the amount you pay for gas (assuming you drive a small car that gets 25 mpg+ on your commute). And that's ignoring all the maintenance you'll have to do to keep it going (tires, brakes, oil changes).

So you're probably WAY underestimating the miscellaneous wear and tear costs, which are likely to be equal to gas costs or greater.

oboeguy

Yes! For some reason, many drivers bone-headedly ignore this as a cost of owning the car (you've simplified it a bit, BTW, because of opportunity costs, inflation, etc but that's not the point). I guess they have trouble getting over the "not having a car" bit, so they don't understand that it's NOT a fundamental cost of living (like food, for example).

moxfyre

Very true. Even if you own a car, but don't use it for commuting, you'll still recoup these costs (with the caveats you mentioned). If you drive your car only half as much because you commute on your bike, well your car is gonna last longer and you'll spend less on new cars. That leaves more money for bikes

oboeguy

While I'm at it, friends who live outside of NYC ask "how do you pay those crazy rents?" -- well duh, we don't own a single car (whereas they own/lease 2+). A rough guesstimate of the cost of owning a car around here is about $5K/year. That makes-up for a good $400 rent per year (Edit: per car!). (of course I'm not including cost of subway transpo... it's not cheap but if you bike commute you don't use it much)

caloso

If all I count is parking fees, I'm up $1975 a year. Or, one Ultegra-equipped bike a year.

filtersweep

I have to eat more extra food than I'd spend on gas for my 4o mile round trip commute. That's about an extra 1500 calories/day...

JugglerDave

Depends on what you eat! Cheep generic pasta at $0.60 / pound, that's 1600 calories right there.
"Energy" bars, at $0.99 for 230 calories, that's about $6.50

I found after doing lots of spare-time calculation stuff, that it's virtually impossible to justify cost savings of a bike over a car on a *per mile* basis. The only way it saves money is if you can fully replace a car. Even the "car lasts longer" argument fell through, because if I keep a car for 8 years instead of 7 years, or have a "trade in" value increase due to lower miles, the cost still is much higher on a "per mile" basis on a bike once you factor in everything (clothing, food, maintenance, parts, actual cost of the bike).

filtersweep

If I compare car ownership and a health club membership- or even simply driving (assuming I'd have a car and bikes)- biking still wins. 40 miles is a long enough drive to actually use some gas- and it takes roughly an hour extra to drive round trip (half hour longer each way) while giving me a better work out than in the gym (meaning that I actually save time)- or I don't need to take a bike ride after work. Time is also money. And I ride a bike that I made from spare parts.

slooney

Hey Dave- Can you break it out? Show me the numbers, please.

jnbacon

So, I think you are saying that, if you keep your car and still have loan payments and maintenance costs, the only cost reductions are from lower fuel use.

Assuming $2.50 a gallon, 20 gallons per mile, and 1250 miles a month, that would be $156.25 per month saved, or $1875 per year.

The total cost of my bike, with lights, extra parts and such, was around $1400. I eat maybe $25 a month extra food, or $300 a year. I probably replace certain pieces of clothing once a year, so call that $150. Bike maintenance and parts, say around $250, if I didn't do anything myself. That's $2100 in the first year, so that I am still $225 in the hole

The next year, I would spend $700 more, since I don't have to buy a new bike. At $58.33, by the fourth month of the second year of bike commuting, I should be seeing savings.

There are a lot of assumptions in the above, esp. in the prices, and I didn't factor in things like increased trade-in values, the value of the health benefits or gym costs. But it would seem like, even without getting rid of or not purchasing a car for commuting, bike commuting would pay for itself.

[edit:] BTW, in my case, the bike purchase replaced the car purchase. But JugDave's scenario didn't include that.

mtbkanata

Good point on the parking! Where I work, (Downtown Ottawa), parking is $180/month!!! That's less than the one chain, tubes and lube I buy every few months..

If anyone is interested in gas only, check this out.., I had a Ford Ranger 4x4 in 2001... gas alone costs me $0.13/km ...that's not counting the cost of the payments!

You know, there are is very little I really need a car for. Groceries, I can walk to the Loblaws here... I mean unless I am buying lumber or something wierd, usually I can walk things home. And when you really need it.. the $15 you spend on a cab doesn't add up to all that much when compared to a monthly car payment..

Ahh yes... FREEDOM! True Freedom!

bkrownd

I hope you mean Canadian dollars.

If I drove my car to work it would have died 3-5 years ago, but instead it still has a few years left to go. A bike is a car's best friend.

mtbkanata

Oh yeah.. anytime I use this symbol -> $ ... I mean Canadian dollars. I guess you can get a $20 oil change at Walmart, but I wouldn't trust them with a bike, let alone a car.. all those moving parts... that would confuse the kid making $3/hour...

JohnBrooking

Incentive to get my odometer working again!

bkrownd

$25 (US$) is a typical rate for an oil & filter change anywhere I've lived. Walmart would probably only charge $12.95.

oboeguy

That reminds me of something I read on a page linked around here somewhere. Bike commuting to work, assuming it takes roughly the same amount of time as getting to work without the bike means you are travelling faster than light! How? Well, the riding commute time is your exercise time, so your actual commute time can be considred to be zero, which means your commute is infinitely fast. Neat accounting trick, IMO.

sbhikes

Whatever the calculations come out to I do know for a fact that I have more cash on hand because of commuting by bike rather than by car. Cash on hand is better than cash on paper if you ask me.

mtbkanata

Here are my times... Barrhaven to Downtown Ottawa during rush hours:

Car: 29 Minutes
Bus: 47 Minutes

Bike: 35 Minutes

So the car is faster.. but not by much! My commute is 21 km each way, and I can pass cars in Barrhaven, and they don't pass me until Carleton University, which is 15km into my trip.. so for the first 2/3rd's of my trip, Bike is faster.

Nuts eh?

JugglerDave

I was afraid someone would ask that I threw out all the paper with the calcs maybe 2 months ago. There's enough 'play' and variables to twist things to savings or not. But here's hopefully a "light" version of my reasonings.

STEP 1: here's the car calculations, and why it's open to so much interpretation and play.

My Personal Assumption: $25,000 car, expect to last 8 years or 100,000 miles whichever comes first, then "trade in" for the next one, at 12,000 miles driven per year. Let's say $5,000 trade in value (it's a Toyota Camry) after 8 years
That's $20K / 100K miles = $0.20 per mile.

Other costs Gas ($2.25/gallon / 25 mpg = $0.09/mile)

Maintenance (following the 'dealer' price, there's $250 at 15K, 30K, 45K, 60K, 75K, 90K, and just $30 oil changes and stuff at other 5K intervals, and for things breaking I use an increasing number ($100*years-3) after 3 year warranty = $100+$200+$300+$400+$500.
Total maint for 100K miles or 8 years = $1500 + $1920 = $0.034/mile

Tires: One set at 40K and 80K, $600 each, so $1200/100K = $0.012/mile

TOTAL "VARIABLE" COST PER MILE DRIVEN = $0.20 + $0.09 + $0.034 + $0.012 = $0.336 / mile.
Does not include insurance, parking, registration fees, health club, etc.
Assuming 12K mlies / year driven.

OK, the above is the EASY part.

STEP 2: The basic question if you're NOT replacing a car entirely is, what is the amount of money SAVED per mile not driven?

It's easy to save the maintenance + gas costs of about 14 cents per mile.
But what about the car depreciation? Let's try two different scenarios:

1) We trade in the car after the 8 years, but we've driven 10K miles less. Doing some examples on Kelly Blue Book and Edmunds, for an 8 year old Camry the difference in value between a 90K and 100K car is only about $500. That's a 5 cent per mile savings.

2) We keep the car LONGER until we reach 100K miles, then trade it in. This is where it gets tricky. Let's say you bike instead of driving 2K / year. So after 8 years, you've 'saved' 16K miles, which means the car lasts you another 1 1/2 years or so. Guess what? The trade in value of the car has DROPPED by $500-1000, and the money you've saved is basically the interest on not spending your $25K on a new car for 1 1/2 years. At 3% interest that's $1125. So depending on how you look at it, it's either a wash (no savings), or up to 5 cents per mile savings.
2A) If you live long enough, you'll buy one less car in your lifetime by keeping each car 2 years longer.

SUMMARY: A mile NOT driven is about 19 cents per mile saved.


STEP 3:
Quick and dirty bike costs for ME:
$500 bike + $200 accessories every 5 years, $200 clothes every 3 years, $50 maint and parts / year
= $260 / year (divided by 2000 miles) = $0.13/mile
Food (for me): 2 energy bar + banana for my 32 mile commute home = $2.50 = 8 cents/mile
TOTAL cost biking / mile = $0.21


OK, that's enough. There are enough assumptions and variables to change things either way -- the above are for MY lifestyle (having a new car every 8 years). Actually I only ride 1000 miles/year right now.

filtersweep

I spent next to nothing on building three commuter bikes- two for me and one for my wife. Old lugged steel... "vintage" (obsolete) wheels are dirt cheap, etc... and nobody messes with this. We save the good road bikes for fair weather riding.

I picked up a Steelman frameset with three campy wheels and enough spare parts to convert it for $150 delivered. since it was a mystery-bike repaint, it was a steal. I barter for bike parts with friends- and built a SS commuter for my wife at $40 for the frameset (decent Tange 2 tubing). I like one extreme or the other- either racing on my Look, or recycling something a bit long in tooth to commute on. Of course, a good lighting system cost more than the bike!