Who cares? It's fun.

In my opinion a bicycle will only save money if you stop driving and stop buying new bike parts and accessories. My commute to work is 6 miles there and back and I ride leisurely so no extra food/fuel consumption as opposed to riding bus which costs $2 round trip.

You know, I got connections with the mods around here and I could have you banned for blasphemy.

I do not want to save money. My spending is propping up the state of colorado. :p

BF Blasphemy is to stop posting questions about, comparisons of, data about, praise/derision of, and/or sources/lack of sources of the latest and greatest bike parts and accessories.

durned tootin. Ya know I used to actually spend very little money on my bikes until I joined BF (aka, Bling-of-the-month-club). :D

I sold my car and now I can afford international vacations with my girlfriend. I like to bike to work every day and I love to ride home every day. If I need a car, I borrow or rent, and I still come out way ahead compared to full-time cage ownership.

To figure out how much money you save, or make back by commuting by bike vs by car you need to first figure out how much per mile it is costing you to drive your car to and from work. I don't mean just the cost per mile for gas. You also need to include everything else. Like oil, radiator coolant flush/fill, transmission service, brakes, tires, wipers, even the windshield wiper fluid, etc. All of this contributes to the cost of driving a car. There is a way to break down the cost per mile even though you don't replace some of these things every year. Tires for example. You may go through a set of tires in 4 years time considering you drive an average of 12,000 miles a year. It also depends on the mileage of the tires, etc. For a lot of it you need to use averages.

When I figured up what I spend for each mile I drive for 2009 I came up with about $0.09 a mile.

I figure I make that amount per mile back every time I commute or run errand on my bike instead of with my Jeep. I take the amount per trip I make and put it against what I have spent to be able to commute or run errands on my bike. For example last year I had to buy a new head light and Specialized tights among other things. I take the amount I earn by commuting/running errands by bicycle against the amount I spent. At one time last year I had borken even and even had a profit showing. Then I had to buy some more things and now I am in the red again, but slowly reducing it with every mile I commute or run errands on my bike.

What he said...

For me, it was never about saving money, but seeing the town wake up and the beautiful sights and sounds from 15mph.

Stop focusing on what you're saving. Start focusing on what you're gaining.

I know people who make little over $10/hour and their lives have been LIBERATED because of the money they have saved up since selling their car and just using a bicycle+public transportation.

Yeah. If you need to change your brake on a bike, it's like $20 bucks. If you need to change the brakes on your car, it will run hundreds of dollars including labor.

When your bike needs maintenance, you go to the bike shop and they will usually be able to tune your bike while you wait a half hour or something and pay $5-30 bucks tops depending on the job.

When your car needs maintenance, you go to the mechanic and your entire day is killed and you're getting charged $60+/hr for labor + parts!!! :eek:

I haven't seen mention of the money saved on anger management.

LMAO!! Great coment. That just really sums it all up!!

saving money is for wussy

I agree. At what point does commuting save $$?..... NEVER! In fact, it costs me. If I spent the extra hour at work I would make 10X what I save in gasoline. Bike commute for the fun and enjoyment.

LMAO!! Great coment. That just really sums it all up!!

I was saving money and getting in better shape by commuting. Then it happened I thought why not by a road bike and start club riding. I am in even better shape but it will take a lot of commuting to to fund my road bike. I will need to commute to a second job before long.

The bike will always be cheaper than the car. But at some point your time will be more valuable to you. At some point a commute takes up too much of your day. For most people that happens at about an hour each way. Once it gets much more than that you want your time back!

If your bike commute takes you one and a half to two hours each way, the car will look pretty attractive.

hmmm... so I dump the 2nd car. I don't buy another one to replace it. Buy a few trinkets for the bike and I pig out till I burst while getting tons of exercise and peace of mind and somehow this is more expensive than driving/owning a car? have you priced cars, gas, upkeep, and insurance lately? I can buy an awful lot ot knick knacks as someone pointed out for a bike and never come close to the expense of a car. nah this is a no brainer.

I save both time and money commuting on my bike. Here is some of the breakdown of my big savings:
$ 300 per year savings by dropping health club membership
$ 125 per year savings by re-classiying my car to be driven less than 7500 miles per year and not to work
$1000 yearly savings from riding 3000 miles vs driving. The car costs about $.35 per mile to operate.
$ 560 yearly savins from not driving to the club twice weekly (16 miles each time * twice a week * 52 weeks * $.35 per mile)
That gives me a total of right about $2000

Expenses for my cycling last year:
$1500 New road bike
$ 250 SPD shoes, pedals for road bike and hybrid
$ 100 new winter tires
$ 75 new summer tires on hybrid
$ 200 misc parts chains, cassette, bottem bracket, cleaning supplies, and what ever else I've forgotten
$ 200 additional riding cloths for the Winter
My expenses this year: $2325

I nearly broke even this year and that incudes buying a $1500 bike!

This past year I was able to avoid having to do anything other than one oil change. As I am coming up to 100,000 miles, I am going to have to do some maintenance on the car this up coming year:
$375 brakes (rotors, pads) I'll do the labor myself
$ 25 Flush the brakes with high quality fluid
$100 Flush the transmission
$ 25 Air filter
$ 25 Cabin air filter
$ 25 Spark plugs
That will be about $525 in maintenance... if nothing unexpected need fixing. Cars are not cheap to keep of maintain, but I still need a car too often that we can't quite go down to 1 car. Even so, by cycling I am saving money i

For next year my bike costs will be a lot lower:
I expect to spend about $500 on a lighter/better venting Summer helmet, some additional shirts, and what ever other parts that I need/desire. So next year I'll actually start seeing major savings.

Happy riding,
André

i dont see it as a problem. i buy lots of expensive bike **** becuase i love cycling. i use my bikes mostly for fun so as i see it, my commuting is free becuase i had the bikes stuff already.

if i had to do anymore than say 30miles commute to work, i probably would just get the train there and ride home, as i dont want to knacker myself out before ive even started working.

The cost savings are immediate, but the benefits are beyond price.

I eat and do laundry, anyway. I have a large family so laundry is almost a continuous process. An extra couple of bike shorts don't generate additional loads of laundry. As for food, I probably eat more, but only a little more, and not enough to register. I do, however gain the satisfaction of being able to eat and not feel guilty about it.

Knick-knacks and cycling gear: This is controllable expense. You don't "need" to keep spending money on this stuff, but there are things early on that will improve the utility of your bike, or your own comfort. Some of these things will wear out and need replacing over time, but consider this. In the US, we are obsessed with vehicles and we spend a lot of money "improving" them. If I wasn't spending money on my commuter bike or my bike gear, I'd probably be spending it on my car.

Furthermore, bike stuff only seems expensive when you consider your bike to be a toy. When you treat it like transportation, it's a steal. I just changed the oil in our minivan the other day and spent over $60 in supplies before I hit the garage. And I still need to have someone flush and fill the radiator and replace the transmission fluid, and I need a specialist to inspect the brakes because I don't have a micrometer, nor any way to measure "runout" on the discs. And this is scheduled maintenance!

If I wasn't biking to work, I would need some other form of exercise. This could mean gym membership, or it could just mean additional road biking outside of commuting. Either of these would require more money and more of my time with no return benefit of transportation. If I didn't exercise, I could expect to visit the doctor more often and to experience more serious health concerns, or to eventually become dependent on full time health care at an earlier age. How much does that cost?

When I bike to work, I am a happier and more productive person. What dollar value do we assign to that?

This morning in the soft light of early dawn, I saw three deer run across the road ahead of me, leap over a fence, and take off across a freshly mown field of hay. It was beautiful. What price, that?

I have a $60 monthly train ticket to go four stations, otherwise my r/t would be over 32 miles.

The expense I'm finding here in my first week of commuting is GROCERIES! I'm hungry always now.

I wonder if this will taper off, and my body become more efficient, but boy am I hungry!

Here is a link http://motofoto.cc/MotovsCarMaint.xls to a small psreadsheet to help you look are car costs (the purpose of the link was to see the payback time for riding a motorcycle; but, you can out in bicycle numbers and run it that way).

If you are driving a jeep then there is no way you are rolling at .09 per mile.
Here is what I cam up with on my motorcycle, then I will adjust it for jeep estimates and will use your numbers where you have given them.

Yamaha V-Star 650
Item Service life Cost $/mi
Tires 10000 200 .02
Oil 3000 10 .003
fuel 50 mpg 2.25est .045
dep see notes .06
maint see notes .02

Cost / mi = 14.8 cents

note:
cost / mile does not include safety gear specific to motorcycles (my riding suit is about 500 and my helmet is about 250, the gloves are about 100 for two pair, reflecting different riding conditions, the boots I would own anyways), experience shows this equipment lasts about 4 - 7 years.

Depreciation assumes initial price of $5,500, a service life of 75,000 and a salvage value of $1,000

maintenance generally = tires, cars that use expensive tires use more maintenance, this is based on nothing but a lifetime of experience

Now for a jeep
Item Service life Cost $/mi
Tires 50,000 400 .008 (I used your number for tire life and put in 400 for a set, we both know that a set costs more; but, I really an guessing on most of the jeep numbers)
Oil 3000 15 .005 (I increased your oil by 2 quarts and assume you still change it yourself)
fuel 22 mpg 2.25est .10 (jeep owners seem to report 20 - 24 mpg for the Cherokee, the CJ/wranglers are lower)
dep see notes .06 (I decided to treat your jeep as a used farmers jeep and left the numbers here the same)
maint see notes .008

I am at 18.1 cents, twice your estimate.


For several years in the 90's my father ran paper route (after he retired) and kept exact records. The only way he was ever able to get a car below 10 cents a mile was with a geo. Further, as I recall, he still had to not account for depreciation in order to get the numbers that low. Even the used diesel rabbit would not go that low due to maintenance.

My goal is to reduce car usage, improved health & fitness and to save a little money.

I spent about $2000 on the full set-up last year, including two new bikes, clothing and safety gear. My costs this year will be less than $250.

The car usage is down about 1/2. If my car lasts 8 years instead of 5, I'll save about $1000/year for the next two years and $5000/year for the following 2 years. Having a car without any car payments is a major savings, 2 more years to go until then.

But it’s more about fun and fitness. I would keep riding without any financial incentive.

Michael