Darth Lefty 

I-Like-To-Bike

I didn't forget in my accounting as I had no injuries self caused or otherwise during the reported timeframe. I did have one visit to an emergency ward in Philadelphia back in the early 70's when a piece of wood got stuck in my spokes and I flipped over the handlebars. Result was a cracked elbow. Either my car or health insurance picked up 100% of the tab. One other collision in Philadelphia in the early 70's from a car that sideswiped and knocked me down on Broad Street and resulted in a bruised hip, but no medical or bicycle repair costs.

HerrKaLeun

It is pretty clear that a cheap 3x8 hybrid ridden many miles will have the lowest cost per mile and an expensive race type bike ridden only a few miles be the most expensive. Doh!

the way I see it:
- the miles commuted offset a car (over 50ct/mile)
- the miles recreationally ridden offsets some other potentially costly hobby (even watching TV will cost electricity)
- the potential injury cost is offset by less likelihood of being unhealthy otherwise
- the upgraditis cost (things bought without an actual NEED) is offset by other s#$t I would have bought for no reason.
- an expensive mid-life crisis bike is offset by alternative useless purchases (boat, motorcycle, convertible car) and in most cases still much cheaper.
- Many people pay for gym membership, riding is nearly free after you have your bike equipped.

kingston 

I was thinking about this today while I was riding my bike and realized that some miles are a lot more expensive than others. I did the pre-ride for a 1,200k earlier this year and volunteered on the actual event. When I add up registration, hotels, transportation and food for both events it was over a thousand dollars, not including any wear-and-tear on my equipment. All-in I was probably close to a buck-fifty a mile for that ride, so it turns out that very long rides can be much more expensive per mile than very frequent shorter rides.

RubeRad

I hear that! I love food. Food is delicious. It's my favorite thing to eat

acidfast7

I think we're seeing a range of values from under one cent/mi to around 50 cents/mi with probably a Gaussian distribution with a mean around 25 cents/mi. I'm waiting for the OP to tabulate the data in Excel and show us the distribution

subgrade

I have owned this bike since early January this year (bought used), and have done 5259 km on it so far. Converting to $/mi it is 0.075 $/mi. Had to replace the fork due to a crash, otherwise it would be even lower

jgwilliams

Never sat down and worked it out but mine's actually a negative cost. If I don't cycle I have to take the train and every return journey into London costs me £12.60. So every cycle commute is actually costing me -£12.60 + any expenses. That means that I've saved around £1,045 this year, less the cost of any parts bought. I've bought a new jersey, bib tights, a tyre and some inner tubes - oh, and some new shoe laces. Let's say £150. So every mile commuted has saved me around 30 pence.

However, the figure you're looking for is the actual cost per mile, so that's around 5p. I bought the bike in 1993 and most of the parts on it are old enough that they are written off, so I'm not including that. However, I will be starting the new year with a new bike at a cost of £1,200, so that's going to take me a couple of years to pay off, I guess.

noglider 

I don't think cost or risk of injury from collisions should figure in, because I'm not convinced cycling has more injury risk than riding in a car.

Leebo

Do you eat stuff besides food?

pdlamb

My cardiologist told me the only reason I'm alive today is all the bicycling I did before my heart attack. In your bookkeeping, how do I account being alive today for those miles?

RubeRad

I eat at Taco Bell once in a while

RubeRad

Yes, I will get there. In a perfect world, I could quit my job, and write a python script to scrape this page, apply just enough language recognition to pull all the relevant numbers out and automatically poop out a histogram of cost/mile values (as well as a scatterplot of cost vs mile).

I think we have collected enough numbers by this point though to start to see a distribution in a graph. I'll try to get a first draft graph out there, and come up with a workable workflow for refreshing it, maybe weekly. (If I was smart, I would have started this thread as a poll, with suitably-chosen histogram buckets)

Since there are a good number of sub-cent entries (not a literal 0 yet that I can recall though), I think the scatterplot will have to be in logarithmic scale.

RubeRad

Frankly, while that is wonderful, that is a benefit of cycling, not a cost. I didn't want this thread to be about the benefits, because we all prioritize them differently, and they are not all financially quantifiable.

acidfast7

Do another one; it is free.

RubeRad

Actually, the reason I didn't do that initially is it wouldn't allow people to submit more than one entry (like my 3).

I-Like-To-Bike

Your bookkeeper might tell you that the costs of your still being alive continue to add up even if you never ride another mile. And your heirs can blame that on your previous bicycling activities and your cardiologist!

pdlamb

Right, the canard about the best way to reduce health care costs is for everyone to die ASAP.

Well, if you're worried about the cost of injuries, you really should consider the (negative) cost of increased health from cycling. Just because it's hard to quantify doesn't mean the benefit should be ignored.

RubeRad

I'm just sayin, I am interested in a narrower scope of more directly cycling-related costs, and I made a thread and did my best to specify 'the rules'. Any forum member is free to post any comment on any thread they want, and get responded to or ignored, or start a different thread with different 'rules' to discuss a topic with a different focus.

mjd420nova

After 20 years riding a DiamondBack Topanga, it finally gave up and seized the crank. It had at least 100K miles. I rode it for exercize, enjoyment and to and from work. Replaced it with a DiamondBack Wildwood model, a 19 inch frame. Put Mr. Tuffy in both tires and have 10K up to now and NO flats. Insurance against a flat tire is my goal with the MR. Tuffy, a wise $20. investment for the piece of mind that I won't have to walk home. Figures that it is less than a tenth of a cent per mile, only thing needed is periodic air in the tires and some Wd-40 after a wet ride to stop the rust.

Petros98223

interesting discussion. I have not kept detailed records of my bicycling expenses, I know about what they are and about how much I ride, and know it is not as cheap as it may seem (and in fact, I do not really want to know). But I have kept track of automobile expenses and find that driving a reliable and economic automobile is actually less per mile than riding my bicycle, particularly if you include the cost of "fuel", the extra calories you must consume necessary for extensive bike riding. Of the various small cars I have owned total life cycle operating costs have been between 0.21 to .42 USD per mile. This included purchase, fuel and maintenance as well as registration and insurance, plus what ever salvage value it will have when I am done with it (usually not much since I drive my cars until they have little to no useful life and end up as scrap metal). the Honda Civics, Toyota Tercels and corollas, and other similar cars I have owned have been all very reliable and low maintenance vehicles to own. I just count my out of pocket expenses since I mostly do all of my own maintenance on both cars and bicycles, paying for maintenance may change the picture a bit, but not as much as one might think, you go many many more miles between car maintenance than you do for your bicycle.

Do not be surprised at this BTW, I saw an expense analysis of a family taking a hiking vaction vs. a driving one (camping along the way), figuring wear and tear on walking shoes, clothing, extra food to account for calories burned, it was found it is cheaper to drive the family to distant locations than to walk there.

So do not be fooled into thinking you are actually saving money by riding your bike, it is a false economy. You have to figure in all of the costs associated with it. And the impact to the environment is directly related to the costs, since the measure of the resources consumed is mostly determined by the cost. That being said, I ride my bikes because I enjoy the activity and can use the exercise, (that is reason enough to do it), but I do not fool myself into thinking it saves money or saves the environment. The only way to save resources (and money) is to stay home and listen to the radio.

I find there seems to be a self righteous and arrogant attitude among many bicycling enthusiasts that they are better than those that choose not to ride bikes because they do not consume as many resources and are somehow doing their part to "save the planet" by riding their bikes. I find this ignorant arrogance and self delusion a big turn off. I just enjoy ridging and do not want to hear about it. I have done the calculations and know better.

RubeRad

As has been noted above, this is very situational. For those who ride competitvely, this marginal fuel cost might be significant. For those who ride to lose weight, and therefore combine cycling with less food consumption, delta_fuel costs are negative or unrelated (is negative delta_fuel cost negative because of cycling? or in addition to cycling?). I choose option (c) unrelated.

There certainly are self righteous and arrogant people around here. Good to know you're not one of them.

Darth Lefty 

scicc

Do you subtract the cost of resale? Seems appropriate.
2 bikes
1) Orbea road bike $1700 invested, plan to sell for around $800: Total cost = 900
5500 miles
$0.16/mile

2) Kona Jake the Snake cyclocross $2250 invested, plan to sell for $500: Total cost -= $1750
Total 8500 miles since 2014
$.20/ mile

Costs of cycling clothes, computers, shoes etc could add around $0.10/mile

RubeRad

Yes, for bikes that served for a fixed time interval and then were sold, their sale price would be deducted from the cost, and their cost/mile 'closed out'. Although "plan to sell" is a little different, I get your drift.