mondaycurse

Well my car is a cheap, reliable, fuel-efficient, and paid-off Nissan, so my savings are probably minimum.
I pay for the entertainment.

ItsJustMe

I don't bother with any of this stuff, because I don't ride for any kind of monetary reasons. To me calculating how much it costs to ride would be like calculating how much it costs to breathe per day; I could put a number on it I guess, but it doesn't really matter since I'm not interested in exploring the alternative.

Anyway, to just try to come up with some numbers... I ride a $300 bike that I've put two $90 wheels on, and between tires, chains, brakes, etc, I'm guessing I've put another $500 into, so say $900 to round it up. I'm at 21200 miles, so that's 4.2 cents per mile, and just under a buck a day (23 miles per day).

That should drop continually for a while; a big chunk of that $500 in add-ons has been two sets of studded tires at about $100 per pair, which should still last me a number of years, and I've been putting tires on in pairs and wearing out only the rears for 5 years now, so I've got a heap of decent used tires that I think will probably hold me for another couple of years. And I have chains and brake pads to last me 2 more years at least. So I don't expect to have to buy anything new except maybe another tube (I have two but usually one will dry rot before I get to use it more than once) until about 2012 or even 2013.

By then I should be at about 30,000 miles, that would put me at 3 cents a mile, 69 cents a day.

I've test ridden other bikes, I could easily afford them, but I really like my bike and the "nicer" bikes never seem "right" to me. Also any bike I've tried that weighs less than 20 pounds or so seems like it's about to fall apart or wobbles like a noodle. I keep looking for the fabled $50 craigslist 1970's steel touring bike, but they don't seem to exist around here.

My car's pretty cheap to run these days too. I paid $18000 for it new, it's now 13 years old, and I've only put a total of about $1500 in it including tires, etc (excluding gas and insurance). I don't plan to get rid of it until it's not feasible to keep it moving around anymore (like, if the engine is unrepairable or the body collapses).

bhop

I think I fall in with the "Who cares? It's fun!" crowd.

But.. I guess i'll mention that I used to spend around $200 bucks a month on gas for my car. Now I only spend around $25 a month for gas, plus i'm in the best shape i've been in since my early 20's. My car is paid off, I still pay insurance, around $125/mo.

My bike was around $1500 if you count all the extras i've bought (brooks saddle, pump, saddle bag, etc.) and I probably average around 100-120 miles/wk. After two years, I think it's paid for itself and then some..

prathmann

My figures come to about 10 cents per mile with most of that spent on fuel. Gas for my car is cheaper per mile than my extra food costs.

Seattle Forrest

I have to get up a bit earlier to bike in, too. And I do it for the same reason ... there's actually joy in going to work, when you do it on two wheels. ( And then all the more joy escaping at the end of the day! )

bhop

I'm lucky I guess... I get up at the same time regardless if I drive or ride. Because of L.A. traffic, my commute takes around the same amount of time either way.

edit: Actually, that's not entirely true. Sometimes the bike's faster in the morning, and almost always in the afternoon.

MNBikeguy

That is amazing!
Bypassing that degree of bottleneck should produce massive amounts of commuters. Do you see many bikes on your way?

sauerwald

You don't understand the mindset of the typical Los Angelino - in their mind, traffic is a bonus, they revel in their cars, and love to sit in them. There is no better way to be admired than to be sitting in your pretty car for hours and hours - traffic is just the excuse that it required for this. These same drivers will watch a cyclist roll past them and think "poor slob, he can't afford to be sitting on corinthian leather seats listening to a 24 speaker sound system"

It works for all of us that they retain this delusion, don't wake them from their dreams!

bhop

I have been seeing more now that the weather is warming up, as little as one, but sometimes as many as 10, but what sauerwald says is kind of true.

neil

Cost per mile isn't my chosen comparison. I do cost per month and from there work out an ROI. But I use the bus as the baseline, since driving is highly impractical (I own a car, but the additional cost of driving to work is $200/month in parking alone...I live 16 blocks from work, that would be stupid). Based on my goals (6 months 100% bike, 3 month 3-days per week, and 3 months 100% bus) - which I significantly beat last year - and a 10-year life of the bike, I figured that the bike saves me $22/month, roughly a 30% annual return on investment.

neil

Oh, don't get me wrong. The riding doesn't require justification. It was the new bike and all the accessories that made me want to justify it financially.

colleen c

Yes, leaving work in a bicycle is also a big plus for me. The freeway at my work is guarantee congested everyday past 2pm. I used to hate leaving work knowing the first thing I"ll be doing is sit and wait I'm traffic. Bicycling took this on a new level of enjoying leaving work. No traffic plus I get to sleep for 1/2 hour while on the train.

tarwheel 

I've probably put $1,500 into my touring bike that I bought last year for commuting, and I've ridden it 4028 miles so far. That works out to 2.7 cents/mile. I've had to replace one rear tire and several tubes, plus I had the cables replaced and a general "tune-up" by my mechanic during that time.

I've actually cycled about 6,000 more miles than I've driven since I started bike commuting 3 years ago. I've cut my driving from about 10,000 miles/year to 5,000/year while cycling about 7,000 miles/year. That's resulted in lower maintenance costs for my truck because I only have to get the oil changed once a year rather than twice, and I'm still driving on tires that would have needed replacing by now if I had driven my normal mileage. However, I'm still racking up costs on my truck, such as $350 to replace the radiator recently, $600 on a brake job and other maintenance.

My truck averages about 20 miles per gallon, so I've saved about 515 gallons of gasoline since I've started commuting. At the current price of $2.85/gallon, that works out to $1,468 in gasoline saving alone. At the federal mileage reimbursement rate of 50 cents/mile, I've saved $5,150 since I started bike commuting. I figure that's probably about right.

thdave

You're comparing apples to oranges, JP, and I don't care how senior you are I'm certain you can tell the difference.

The bike is an exercise tool as well. For example--I spend 1 hour 10 minutes a day on the bike. This saves me gym time and $$$ and keeps me fit. No gym membership for me. So, I save some money over the car for commutes, but that blossoms into real savings in terms of fitness expenses. Plus, this benefits my wasteline, which I always struggle with. There's another important factor I'll ignore for now.

For some, the appeal and joy of nice new bikes overwhelms their frugalness. These folks don't come ahead in the comparison of the car vs. bike trade, or it's marginal like it is for you. But, when you add the exercise/diet benefits and reduced gym expenses, it's always a net savings.

Perhaps more importanly, for me, is that it's a hobby that I love. I can't measure that benefit.

amckimmey

If you try to Calculate the Cost Per Mile of your car, why don't you add in the oil spill, and all the other mayhem from that, and other oil problems

I mean the reason I started biking was to decrees my driving and gas, sense then it became more Money, Gas, Health, Enjoyment, Helping other people, Also I beleave Cycling is probably the best Traffic calming device, more cars see you, more they realize they should slow down, making more people get out on the road, (I just hope this is how it works,)

I just believe there are way more benefits to cycling over cars.

I hope I don't get any stupid comments about my oil spill thing.

colleen c

Your oil comment is a good point. Just look at the cost it would take to clean up that mess in the Gulf. This is the first time in my life that I welcome a high gas tax to help clean and prevent thing like the BP incident. Maybe then will we get more folks out of their cars.