BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

My girlfriend jokes that, although I save about $3 a day on gas every time I bike to work, at the same time I also eat an extra $3.50 worth of food. I think the real savings show up for the folks who are fortunate enough to live in an area where they can get rid of a car, or for couples who can use biking to drop down to one car. For me it's just a way to take a small dent out of the cost of the hobby. Still, I prefer using bike commuting as a way to divert my money away from oil companies, even if the same amount, or more, gets spent at the grocery store or the LBS.

yes to this; "for couples who can use biking to drop down to one car". I'd be in a pickle from time to time if my boyfriend didn't have a big truck to haul stuff around, but i was able to get rid of my car years ago. I haven't kept track of it, but I'd bet i wouldn't be able to buy so many comic books, records, and fancy foods if i still had to pay for gas, insurance, and car repairs.

I saw those stats a few days ago and was most amazed by the 2 BILLION gallons of gas saved in a year if everyone took one four mile bike ride a week instead of driving.

its way more fun to spend money on food than gas.

We've been one car for about 8 years, and that's with 3 kids. Have also downsized from a Toyota Highlander to a Honda Fit. We're in the east side, so that helps. Would definitely be a different story in the suburbs.

Traffic becomes irrelevant more often than not. I live 8.5 miles away by car and my car averages 23mpg on the way to work, 20mpg on the way home. Trip into work is 14-16 minutes, trip home is almost always 30-35 minutes. Cycling in is 25-30, cycling home is 30-35. I care less about my time lost to work but there is no time lost on the way home and if there is a big hold up my time is not changed. I can see some folks who leave work later than I do saving time. If I worked 9-5 I would save almost an hour by bike. Just time... That is before cost savings is factored in. It does not limit the fact that my wife and I will always have 2 vehicles but it will change how much they are driven.

So far, I've spent more on my commuter bike and commuter-worthy bike clothing than I have on gasoline all of last year.

/doing-it-wrong

I save $10 if I bike to work: $6 for parking, maybe $3.50 in fuel for the 16 mile round trip and maybe 50 cents in wear and tear. It adds up.

I've seen more than a few people who, as a practical matter, live near poverty to afford to drive as much as they do. It's an unfortunate sight for me to see, quite frankly.

While it may be fun to think about time/money saved by bicycle commuting, the real benefit to me is that I get to exercise and ride a bike for an hour day that I would otherwise be riding a bus or driving a car. That's a huge quality of life bonus for me day-to-day.

That my wife and I are able to have just one car, that I'm saving the planet, etc, are just side benefits.

While it may be fun to think about time/money saved by bicycle commuting, the real benefit to me is that I get to exercise and ride a bike for an hour day that I would otherwise be riding a bus or driving a car. That's a huge quality of life bonus for me day-to-day.

This.

^+1

Just in gas and parking, bike commuting 3 days a week from Forest Hills to Oakland saves me about $1300 per year. Forget wear and tear.

We do own two cars, but the way things work right now, if one of those cars has to go into the shop it's not a CRISIS; we aren't scrambling around to figure out how to get from points A, B, and C to points D, E, and F with "only" one car.

@JamesK

Yes, I am not sure we would get rid of both cars. Having a back up is too important. I have a few bikes, we have 2 cars. If something happens we are OK.

There's the time spent on the bike, which is good, and the excuse for biking, which is also good. I would never spend 2 hours a day riding recreationally, but on a commute it makes sense, sort of. And with me commuting my wife and I can really get by with one car, relying on Zipcar on days I don't ride for one reason or another and she really needs to drive.

As the car wears out I've been thinking about not replacing it -- not having to pay for the car or insurance would be a pretty big benefit, even counting in a certain number of Zipcar hours per month.

I guess it's OK for newby bike transport people to set cars as the standard to compare expenses to, but it still sets me on edge.

Bikes don't save me a penny!

But the extra money I spend on bikes is somewhat offset by the time I save over walking.

PS I get no extra exercise on a bike either.

^What simon.huntley said. I'm not really saving any money yet, since I could be using my Pitt ID bus privileges for most of my trips.

...But I was pretty sure that the workload and stress of my first year of grad school was going to make me stop working out and gain a kajillion pounds, but instead I unintentionally lost 15-20 pounds this past year despite having absolutely no free time for working out or for anything else and despite otherwise abusing my body with overconsumption of cheese and underconsumption of sleep. Oops? Even when I was running all the time I could never lose weight, but bike commuting seems to be magical. (Unfortunately, that does mean that in addition to bike-related costs I also have smaller-pants-related costs. Meh.)

@pearmask: so theres undergraduate 'freshman 15', is this the graduate 'freshman -15'?

Hah, yeah, I guess. I should totally write a book to market this extremely healthy "bikes + cheese - sleep" weight loss method that I have discovered.

For me I have a 15 year old truck with 230K miles on it and biking more prevents the wear and tear of short city trips on my truck. I feel biking has let me kick the can down the road on having a car payment and repair costs. For me I would estimate I offset costs by $800 a year. Or equal to all money I invested in my bike and acc. Not a bad To get my return in one year. I am also healthier too.

In addition to everything else, I'd add savings in medical costs. Bike commute exercise helps that way! (Although currently I'm biking for errands, and walking for my commute - same idea, though.)

One downside of commuting and repairing your own bicycle at say a place like Kraynicks is that Spaks is just a few doors down so you're likely to encounter unexpected vegan pizza roll expenses

Hah, yeah, I guess. I should totally write a book to market this extremely healthy "bikes + cheese - sleep" weight loss method that I have discovered.

It would go good next to the "work so much that by the time you get home you're too tired to eat" method that I found.

"Spaks is just a few doors down so you're likely to encounter unexpected vegan pizza roll expenses" +1

the more expansive my work/commute route becomes, the more tasty places i feel the need to make a pit stop at. while i'm probably spending more money on food, i value good food over spare cash. i usually plan my routes around where i can stop for snacks. had i done that while i had a car, i'd be a major fatty, in a bad way.

My commute is 28 miles and 2 hours round trip...yea, I am a slow rider. I started this year for the exercise and the 1 hour of freedom to and from work. I have spent a bit on clothing and bike accessories, but no where near what my Explorer drinks.

10.5 miles each way for me. With stop & go traffic, lights, etc, I estimate 1 gallon of gas each way saved by riding. Plus I can make it into work faster by bike (35 minutes) than by car (45-60 minutes) and I get good exercise going up and over Mt. Washington each way. Although I recognize an economic impact, I just feel better on the days I ride in than on the days I drive.

I did the math and I save about $90 a month riding a bike in. In the grand scheme that is not a whole lot but in terms of bikes and gear it paid for a fair amount of my accessories and clothes for biking.

ajbooth: Do you normally commute in a Ferrari?

I've saved at least $100K since moving to my current residence in 1991 by jettisoning three of my four cars and choosing transit instead.

But with my son having the bus pass and money very tight (i.e., no 2nd bus pass at $130/month), I've been riding the bike a lot more. I've saved at least $70 in May by biking, over using the bus, and the bus was already saving me $10/day in transpo costs.

I really don't know where people have all the money to drive cars to work every day.

Stu, how much were you paying a day in transportation if you saved $10 a day using the bus and then more using a bike over the bus?

@stu I really don't know where people have all the money to drive cars to work every day.

There are many people who struggle intensely to be able to keep their cars running. There are others who could drive a simple car without any strain, but feel obligated to spend extra money they can't afford to have a "cool" car.

That might help explain some of the hostility to bikers. "A normal adult pays for a car. This guy thinks he's clever slacking off."

It's pretty easy to spend $10/day on a car, most people just fool themselves that it costs less than that. Actually, it's pretty easy to spend $10/day in depreciation before you even add in the operating costs.

For a 20 mile round trip commute in a $40k car, $20/day is probably close to reality.

@RiceRocket - the gas mileage ajbooth mentioned does not surprise me given the amount of traffic coming into the city on Route 19. Also, any vehicle's fuel injection system will add extra fuel to the mix until the engine gets up to full operating temperature. Thus short trips burn a lot of fuel mile for mile. So, bottom line, 10-11 mpg in stop and go traffic with a cold engine is not surprising, even with a reasonably efficient vehicle.

My car would cost me $29 a day to account for car payment, insurance, gas, and tires. Those are the only costs I pay, maintenance is free for the first 36k. This assumes 15k miles a year at $4/gallon (premium) and 22mpg average. I also factored in the tires I use (~$1200 for ~50k miles) into the overall cost per year assuming 15k miles a year.

ETA: The wifes car costs us $22 a day. She won't commute on bike though. I need to get some better numbers to see what my actual cost is on my car. I know it will not be under $15 a day.

My back of the envelope calculation on commute costs is around $20 per day I do my 50 mile round trip commute by car, factoring in fuel, insurance, maintenance and repair, and depreciation.

I rode the bicycle today, but with the distance involved it's not practical to do that every day. I generally drive 3-4 days per week, with one day working from home.

@RiceRocket - no Ferrari here, just a small SUV. My route into work is Route 19 from Mt Lebanon, through the Tubes, and through town to the Strip District. More stop than go. I'm pretty confident that I do burn a gallon of gas each way.

I only count the gas and parking becuase most of the other expenses I'd pay anyway because I need a car. The cheapest parking place in Oakland (unless parking in Schenley) is $4.00 and I ride 30 miles RT. So I save abou $6 a day (Prius). The earlier post about eating more food made me laugh. I once took a 40 mile ride in humid weather and ran out of water. It would have cost less to drive the route than what I spent in water at the convenience store. My biggest benefit is peace of mind and lost weight (down 30#'s since March!)

Eating more food is a benefit of riding so much. I like to eat.

Plus if you buy and eat local instead of spending on gasoline, you are multiplying your beneficial impacts. Ripples.

i propose this formula for cost of ownership:

( purchase - resale + insurance + registration + inspections + fuel + parking + maintenance + incidentals ) / ownership period

lowballing using this very simplified model for a honda civic bought new in 2007 and sold today (5 years later), with minimal insurance ($200 for 6mo), assuming the only maintenance is 2 oil changes a year, used strictly for 10 mile round trip commuting to work, including the cheapest rate for a parking pass at cmu, and eyeballing some gas price graphs for the past 5 years for an average of $3/gal gets us:

fuel: $3/gal, 29mi/gal, 10mi/day, 5days/wk, 50wk/yr = $258/yr

total: ( 16000 - 10000 + 5*2*200 + 5*36 + 5*20 + 5*258 + 5*12*82 + 5*2*30 + 0 ) / (5*365) =~ $8.10/day

this is a super low estimate since the chosen car holds its value well and gets good mileage, and im not including trips for fun or sitting in traffic or accessories or accidents or other wear & tear. obviously in non-ideal situations, tax, interest, and inflation add even more... so real ownership costs can far exceed this, but ymmv

Throwing another odd tidbit in there, I like to measure fuel usage in Miles Per Dollar. For my car, it's about 4.5 mp$. For the motorcycle, it's more like 14. By bike, I have zero operating costs, but quite a bit of ancillary expenses like acquiring blinkies, tool bags, tools to put in each bag, various repairs and parts, etc. It's not so much the total cost as the frequency that I'm dropping a $5 to $20 here and there.

OTOH, the car costs $50/week in fuel alone for the rest of the family, and zero of that can be done by bicycle.

Just last year, my first year of owning a road bike, had me at 13 mp$ accounting for all dedicated road gear, lights, lycra, shoes, and pedals.

my example above has less than 0.85mi/$ . maybe its a bad model, but im only assuming 12,500 miles total over 5 years. that is pretty damn low in practice, which means the fuel costs get trumped by the overhead of non-fuel costs. in the limit (as mileage increases), this thought experiment would approach 9.66mi/$ based just on gas price and mpg. maintenance costs would definitely contribute to this bottom line, but im not sure how to effectively calculate that. id guess the cost of maintenance per mile goes up significantly as the car ages (thus pushing the mi/$ down). more distance travelled will also reduce the resale value, but that will wash out in the limit.

While I think it gets obvious when you can ditch your car all together, even commuting half my (once and no longer) 10 mile one-way commutes by bike produced a tangible effect on the wallet. I was unable to remember the price of gas from fill up to fill up anymore. I liked not using space in my head for the price of gas.

sigh. Due to older-vehicle and car mechanic related shenanigans, my suburban household is currently and for the next 5 days, car-free. We've been functioning on one car for three weeks (due to similar shenanigans).

My husband is convinced he can't ride the 7 miles to his kungfu studio, and would rather borrow his mom's car (which is an extra hour of driving for him and two for her, per loan) than ride the bus (which is an extra hour for him per round trip).

I'm working from home, and have errands to run, likely by bike or by foot and pretty happily so - groceries, hardware store, bike shop.

If we had kids, I have no idea what we'd do.

Just found it interesting that I'm totally ok with suddenly being car-free, hubby is seriously struggling, and I can imagine very easily obligations that would cause us to rent one immediately without question.

It's one thing to plan on relying on the bicycle, it's another to suddenly find there are few or no other options. I associate that with the cost of vehicle ownership, but most car-dependent people associate that with the cost of LOSS of a car - their baseline budget assumes a car is in there.

It's incredibly profound how knowing you can bike across a city or a country changes your entire outlook. If my car needs to be inspected or worked on, I put a bike on the back, take it to the shop, and ride home. I can be at home drinking coffee before the rest of the family wakes up, and my wife will ask me "don't you need to get your car inspected today?". R. - yes. "Do you need me to pick you up?" R. - it's there already.

(crickets)

She's smart but not quick.

To add more statistics...

In 2011 my expenditures on all things bicycle related was approximately $514.28

A low ball estimate of 3360 miles was traveled

If we assume you had a car that got 15mpg and gas was $3.5 the whole year, that's $784 in gas

edmonds - what I struggle with is not assuming then that my incredibly capable and more athletic husband is thus ALSO able to bike across the city if necessary.

Defining "able" is tricky - it's a continuum and nobody's ever in the place I (or they) think they are (myself included).

@ejwme - Remember this post? Your first on the board, IIRC. You had already come a long way before you found us, and a long way since. The average suburbanite doesn't "get it" (including both our spouses).

I biked from McCandless to Verona, then from Verona to Downtown one time. It's not *that* difficult (barring side-of-road flats to remove a 60 mm chunk of metal), but does require overcoming a mindset of some sort. And I still don't know how to do that.

awe, look how cute I was, all hopeful and eager! thanks for the blast from the past.

mindset seems to be the bulk of our household arguments, and the frustrations with the outside world that we share. sigh.