I haven't seen a thread like this before, and it would be interesting to see how much use the average bike really gets put under in its life, and the miles-per-dollar ratio.

Personally, my Sportsworld old roadie, has done 660miles since the start of the summer holidays. ...

For a US40 dollar bike (from ebay) = (14MILES:1DOLLAR)

Right now since I got my road bike about 2.5 dollars per mile... but that figure is going down all the time...

(Have 1100 miles on the bike since new.)

Well, I bought mine used so I don't know how accurate this is but what the heck:
Cost of bike: $500 + about $150 in misc. stuff that I added
2004 miles: 1866
2005 miles so far: 950

(1866 + 950) / (500 + 150) = 4.3 miles : 1 dollar

So far, anyway. I have no plans to buy another one, and a goal of 5000 miles for 2005 which, if successful, will bring me to 10.5 miles to the dollar. I'm on pace to do a lot better than that

The original owner put probably 3000 on it. No idea how much he paid for it originally.

I have 15 bikes, the three I ride the most have 6,000 5,300 and 7500.showing now.

The bike with 7500 on it I have about $800 into. If it was exactly $750 in it then it would be a penny a mile but it's down to less than a penny ( 0.9375 of a cent.)
I don't feel like I spend to much on bikes anymore.

The 6000 miles bike was $6,000 A dollar a mile
The 5,300 bike was about $200 so far. 0.37735849056603773584905660377358 of a penny per mile.

COOL !! I never did this before.

The 7,500 mile bike 500 miles ago in the spring

15 road bikes that vary in mileage between 640 and 5300 miles. The cost/mile ratios range from 37 cents/mile to $6.42/mile. Ages range from 7 years down to less than 1 year.

~US$0.30/mi on my current bike.

My new bike yielded a divide-by-zero error

No clue, stopped keeping track of miles a year ago.

This is a very clever and amusing thread. My 1999 Schwinn Supersport which was wrecked 11 months ago was retired at 23,000 miles and cost me US$0.036 per mile. My 2004 Mondonico Futura Leggero has about 2,500 miles on it at a current cost of US$1.34 and decreasing.

Is this a covert method to see how much we paid for our bikes?

It's a clever answer when someone complains about you spending too much money on bikes.
Or at least I hope it turns out to be.

My Miele put back on the road in Mid August last year has 1100 KM in 3 month of riding and cost me 210 CND so 5.24 KM/$CND. Don't know how many KMs the bike had on it before me but the tires where worn out with the threads showing so I would say a few.

Great thread, me around $2500 for 4000kms so far in 12 months. My wife about $1500 over 1200kms. She noted recently that I have spent double what she has on our bikes. With this line of thinking, I can point out that my cycling has cost us 0.625c per km against her $1.25 per km. So her spend per km is double mine!!
Cool.

$15.38 per mile right now on my 2005 Trek Equinox 7. I've owned it less than a month and have 104 miles on it so far.

69 km on my odo, but i reset it every year, and i've only been out for a couple of rides so far.

my road bike has about 25,000 km on her since 2001. would have been closer to 35,000 except for two things:

1. i do a lot of riding in spring and fall on my cyclo-cross bike.
2. i had a really bad road season last year.

so i guess that's about C$0.12/km.

My old Raleigh has done about 75,000 km (46,600 miles), and cost me $2000 AUS,
which, at the time, would've been about $1300 US.

I figure I've got my money's worth.

I reset the ODO and change the battery every Jan 1st, so the ODO says: 3588km

My 2001 Trek 5200 was $2500. As of today it has 14,562 miles on it.

2500/14562 = $0.17/mile. That's 5.825 miles per US dollar.

75,000 KM !!! Thats amazing!!!
PS - Now if you can clock up another 100,000km, you can honestly say, that your bike has had a longer life than most cars.
For a 2000 dollar bike, you must have invested at least double that over the years, e.g. at least 50 tubes, 10 sets of tires, 5 new chains, ... am I right?

Hmmm ... let's see (these are all estimates because I've never kept track of mileage per bicycle)

20 year old Venture - 16,000 miles
20 year old Maruishi - 15,000 miles
30 year old Gitane tandem - no idea
5 year old Mongoose mtn bike - 12,000 miles
4 year old Giant - 6000 miles
2 year old Marinoni - 12,000 miles

I have a bike that stays pretty clean and I have 7500 miles on the drive train including the chain and rear cassette. It is a shimano RSX group vintage 1998..It makes me wonder...

Have you run drive train parts (chains, cogs, chain rings.) for many thousands of miles (or years)? As opposed to changing chains etc. at a set mileage (or time)? Do you notice that fenders keep the drive train clean a lot longer, Enough to make parts last longer?

I guy I worked with thinks he may have close to 30,000 miles on a chain and cogs. I am begining to believe him. On a good quality road bike.

I've never changed my cogs or chain rings or other drivetrain parts on any of my bicycles. Those are all original. My chains last roughly 5000 miles, maybe a bit more.

I've only got fenders on my Marinoni, so I don't know that they make much of a difference. But I do make a point of cleaning my bicycles regularly.

Thanks, very interesting.
I think the cleaning helps everything last longer too, I do that too
Do you repack the wheels hubs at a set time or miles?

Ummmm ... I don't do much of anything to my bicycles. For one thing I'm not particularly mechanically inclined, and for another thing, it's never been a huge priority to me ... although I am trying to be more diligent. The last couple years, I've taken my Marinoni and my Mongoose into the shop once a year for a tune-up. They are about due for one again.

About the hub though, when I was in Tasmania in November, about half way through my cycling tour in Australia, all of a sudden my rear freehub (is there a front one?) failed. Fortunately the failure occurred in the driveway of a friend in Hobart, so we were able to get it fixed and I was back on the road again the next day. The insides of the hub had rusted to bits. That's something I'm going to insist the shop guys check before my next major event.

My friend in Hobart also changed out some of my cables while I was there, which was probably a good thing. The ones I had were the originals.

Thanks Machka.

No problem ... but I'm not recommending just leaving your bicycles to fall apart!! (Don't do what I do!) I really need to learn how to do more repairs, and should probably pay more attention to things before I run into trouble. Even today, I was riding my Mongoose mtn bike and noticed an odd knocking noise and a strange bumpy feeling. I couldn't see anything wrong, but I really should check it before I start commuting with that bicycle.

Yowza!! I haven't thought of that.

But those are basically running costs, no matter what car you have, you still need fuel to move, and no matter what bike you have you would've still needed that 4000 to keep it on the road over the years, so don't think of it in a bad way.