Get Rich With… Bikes

[Bakari]

Someone on the ecomodder.com forum suggested that biking doesn't necessarily save money compared to biking (because of the increased food costs),

Quote:
Originally Posted by ProDarwin View Post
If you look at efficiency in terms of $/mile, a bike is not much more efficient than a car. Less efficient than some in fact.

Still fun and healthy though.

so I cranked some specific numbers:

Lets put some hard numbers on it.

MMM has already done most of the math for us.

Lets say 6 mile commute.  Average sized human, going about 12mph, for 30 min is about 250 calories.  Cycling - Calories Burned Bike Riding
500 calories (in the form of food made from home) should cost about 38 cents
Killing your $1000 Grocery Bill | Mr. Money Mustache

Driving a reasonably efficient car, considering only per mile costs, is about 17 cents per mile The True Cost of Commuting | Mr. Money Mustache
Which is just over a dollar for the 6 miles.

So, that makes biking over 60% cheaper, even if you don't factor in the exercise.  It doesn't take the place of strength training, but it does take the place of aerobic which needs to be done anyway.  If you replace "exercise" with biking to work, there are no additional calories.  If you do neither, you may have to factor in additional medical bills someday

This is also not factoring in any of the fixed costs of buying and insuring a car, assuming you have one sitting in the garage.

So, yeah, actually, I admit that's a much smaller gap than I imagined.  But its still cheaper, and the health benefits and the possibility of going totally carless (or, of having only one car in a household with 2 drivers, instead of a car for each) push it over the top into being very worthwhile looking into it as a good way to get around.

[sol]

Your analysis doesn't account for the factor of 100 difference in cost to acquire the two types of vehicles, or the difference in ongoing maintenance costs.

Saving yourself 40 cents per mile in "fuel" is small potatoes compared to saving yourself $20k on the purchase price, unless you bike a LOT of miles.

[Bakari]

I know I'm not, that was deliberate, and I mentioned it explicitly

This is also not factoring in any of the fixed costs of buying and insuring a car, assuming you have one sitting in the garage.

I left it out because the fact that one rides to work doesn't necessarily mean they won't have a car at all.  Plenty of people who bike for short trips have a vehicle for longer trips (like myself, and the MMM family, for example). 
The number for the car trip does factor in maintenance, while  I didn't calculate bike maintenance, so if anything this analysis is skewed in biking's favor.

[skyrefuge]

To help tilt things further towards biking, I think you shouldn't be looking at the absolute calories burned when biking, but rather, the calorie differential between biking and whatever other activity the person would be doing, since we burn calories even when sleeping.  From the same source, "Police, driving a squad car" burns 141 calories/hour (no mention if that includes donut-eating), so if you ride your bike instead of drive for that half hour, the calorie differential is only 180 calories, not 250 (this is good news for the people trying to save money by biking, but bad news for those trying to lose weight!)  That brings the cost of the extra calories down to 27 cents.

Then, removing the "6 miles" from the numbers to simplify it, we arrive at 4.5 cents/mile for cycling fuel, and 17 cents/mile for driving costs.

For a pure fuel-vs.-fuel cost (removing oil change/tire-replacement costs), using MMM's $3.50/gal@35MPG number, we have 4.5 cents/mile for cycling fuel, 10 cents/mile for driving.

To sol's point, even though it's a >2x difference in fuel costs, it's still pretty hard to justify bike riding as a huge money-saver based on fuel-costs alone.  If you do that 6-mile (round trip) commute every workday, it saves you only $82.50/year in fuel-cost.  I take this more as an indication of how ridiculously, stupidly inexpensive gasoline is (even at its "high" price right now), rather than an indictment of cycling.  The fact that a few thousand pounds of steel can be lugged around for only a little over 2x the cost as the incredibly-efficient human+bicycle combination is just crazy.  Back when gas was $1.50/gal, it probably *was* cheaper than cycling.

My commute is about 13 miles round-trip, and since I attack it more aggressively (and weigh more) than average, the calorie differential for me when riding my bike is 650, or about $1 in "fuel costs", which equates to 7.7 cents/mile.  Just barely beating MMM's 10 cents/mile gasoline cost!  "Luckily", my car isn't as efficient as MMM's example, and it takes premium fuel at about $4.50/gal these days.  The result is that I pay about 17 cents/mile for gas alone, which restores the ~2x differential for my situation.  Yay?

So I can say that I save $1.25 in fuel costs every day that I ride my bike to work rather than driving, which would equate to $300 a year if I rode every day (not gonna happen).  Yeah, every dollar makes a difference, but when I'm already saving over $50,000 of my income every year, and my net worth can jump up or down $3000 on a normal day in the stock markets, it's pretty hard to get a strong motivation from that <$300/year.  So I think we all agree (including Bakari's commenter) that advocating biking based on $/mile alone is probably not that effective.  Luckily there are a ton of other motivations that keep me riding, not least of which is the fact that food, unlike gasoline, tastes awesome when you eat it, so I'm happy to pay a bit for the opportunity to eat more of it without getting fat!

[skyrefuge]

Ok, my last line about eating gasoline got me thinking.

MMM suggests that even though most people spend way more, you can eat pretty fancily on $1 per 667-calorie meal.  If you eat nothing but basmati rice, you can get that down to $0.25 per 667-calorie meal.

But if you could eat gasoline (and convert it to energy as efficiently as you convert rice), at $4/gal, using gasoline's energy content of 31491 calories/gallon, it would cost only $0.085 per 667-calorie meal!

In other words, rice, one of the cheapest foods-per-calorie you can eat, costs three times more than gasoline!

[Bakari]

To help tilt things further towards biking, I think you shouldn't be looking at the absolute calories burned when biking, but rather, the calorie differential between biking and whatever other activity the person would be doing, since we burn calories even when sleeping.  From the same source, "Police, driving a squad car" burns 141 calories/hour (no mention if that includes donut-eating), so if you ride your bike instead of drive for that half hour, the calorie differential is only 180 calories, not 250 (this is good news for the people trying to save money by biking, but bad news for those trying to lose weight!)  That brings the cost of the extra calories down to 27 cents.

doh!  Of course.  Thank you for that.

Even with your deeper analysis, we are still assuming that the biking is an additional activity. 
If we assume that a person is going to get some form of aerobic exercise regardless, and that they substituted biking to work with, say recreational running, then they aren't using any additional calories at all.  Then, compared to the 17 cents a mile, it costs $520 a year to drive, vs $0 to bike (I was thinking 6 miles each way, looks like you calculated 6 miles total) which is reasonable substantial savings.

But, of course, its not just about the money.  I just found it interesting to do the math

[velocistar237]

But if you could eat gasoline

If you eat energy-intensive foods, like food that requires transportation over a long distance, or a high-meat diet, then cycling uses more gasoline indirectly. I suppose it does depend on whether you count the average cost of a calorie or the marginal cost, as in, you eat more rice to support your biking needs.

http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html

[grantmeaname]

cycling uses more gasoline indirectly

No. From your link, "It's no bombshell that cycling uses less fossil energy than driving, no matter what you're eating." The numbers in his post seem to support this, but we don't have all the numbers we need (it's an NYT editorial, not a news article, blog post, book excerpt, or actual journal article).

And as Bakari noted, if you're replacing aerobic exercise with cycling to work, the opportunity cost is nothing.

[velocistar237]

cycling uses more gasoline indirectly

No. From your link, "It's no bombshell that cycling uses less fossil energy than driving, no matter what you're eating." The numbers in his post seem to support this, but we don't have all the numbers we need (it's an NYT editorial, not a news article, blog post, book excerpt, or actual journal article).

If you eat energy-intensive foods, like food that requires transportation over a long distance, or a high-meat diet, then cycling uses more gasoline indirectly.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I meant more than the opposite: eating locally produced and/or vegetarian foods.

And as Bakari noted, if you're replacing aerobic exercise with cycling to work, the opportunity cost is nothing.

Another alternative would be to replace aerobic exercise with cycling to work, while switching to a vegetarian diet, so not nothing for the current meat-eaters.

[grantmeaname]

Oh, I get it. I focused on the wrong clause of the sentence.

[Matt K]

I take this more as an indication of how ridiculously, stupidly inexpensive gasoline is (even at its "high" price right now), rather than an indictment of cycling.  The fact that a few thousand pounds of steel can be lugged around for only a little over 2x the cost as the incredibly-efficient human+bicycle combination is just crazy.  Back when gas was $1.50/gal, it probably *was* cheaper than cycling.

Several years ago I commuted a short commute (13km each way) by both bicycle and Ninja 250 motorcycle. I did the math, and at that time it cost me $0.62 for a day's gas in the motorcycle (26km, 3L/100km, $0.80/L) and it cost me $1.25 to bicycle because I was terrible about bringing food with me so I would buy a muffin at work because I was famished. So, between a very efficient motorycle, low gas prices, and very poor choices spending on food, I did in fact save money by riding my motorcycle a laughably short distance.

[nolajo]

Urbanites should also factor in the cost of parking to start seeing some differences. My commute is short - about 2 miles each way, not burning lots of calories, a little ridiculous to drive regularly - but the parking issues at work alone make it worth it to find a different form of transportation. A year long parking pass (and mind you this is a limited "hunting permit" and there aren't a lot of spaces close to my actual office) is something along the lines of $50/month. That's more than I spend on gas most months! Most of the side-streets have very well monitored two-hour parking limits and the standard parking ticket is between $20-$40. As far as I've seen posted around, at least within the city proper, monthly parking passes tend to be in the $50 range, so I believe those numbers are typical for New Orleans. It might not be as common out West, where there's generally room for parking lots, but at least in the older cities of this country, the parking issues can be a real disincentive for driving.

[Bakari]

Urbanites should also factor in the cost of parking.... It might not be as common out West, where there's generally room for parking lots

In SF, where the majority of people living in my area work, parking garages charge around $5 an hour, or $500 for a monthly pass.

[nolajo]

Urbanites should also factor in the cost of parking.... It might not be as common out West, where there's generally room for parking lots

In SF, where the majority of people living in my area work, parking garages charge around $5 an hour, or $500 for a monthly pass.

That's higher than most non-mustachian people's car note! SF is definitely a bit of a different beast, being so much more compact than most other parts of the west (I grew up mainly in SoCal where I never had to think about parking availability), so at least on the parking front it bears more in common to eastern cities. I suppose I'll stop complaining about the parking rates around here that I refuse to pay anyhow :).

[menorman]

To help tilt things further towards biking, I think you shouldn't be looking at the absolute calories burned when biking, but rather, the calorie differential between biking and whatever other activity the person would be doing, since we burn calories even when sleeping.  From the same source, "Police, driving a squad car" burns 141 calories/hour (no mention if that includes donut-eating), so if you ride your bike instead of drive for that half hour, the calorie differential is only 180 calories, not 250 (this is good news for the people trying to save money by biking, but bad news for those trying to lose weight!)  That brings the cost of the extra calories down to 27 cents.

Then, removing the "6 miles" from the numbers to simplify it, we arrive at 4.5 cents/mile for cycling fuel, and 17 cents/mile for driving costs.

For a pure fuel-vs.-fuel cost (removing oil change/tire-replacement costs), using MMM's $3.50/gal@35MPG number, we have 4.5 cents/mile for cycling fuel, 10 cents/mile for driving.

To sol's point, even though it's a >2x difference in fuel costs, it's still pretty hard to justify bike riding as a huge money-saver based on fuel-costs alone.  If you do that 6-mile (round trip) commute every workday, it saves you only $82.50/year in fuel-cost.  I take this more as an indication of how ridiculously, stupidly inexpensive gasoline is (even at its "high" price right now), rather than an indictment of cycling.  The fact that a few thousand pounds of steel can be lugged around for only a little over 2x the cost as the incredibly-efficient human+bicycle combination is just crazy.  Back when gas was $1.50/gal, it probably *was* cheaper than cycling.

My commute is about 13 miles round-trip, and since I attack it more aggressively (and weigh more) than average, the calorie differential for me when riding my bike is 650, or about $1 in "fuel costs", which equates to 7.7 cents/mile.  Just barely beating MMM's 10 cents/mile gasoline cost!  "Luckily", my car isn't as efficient as MMM's example, and it takes premium fuel at about $4.50/gal these days.  The result is that I pay about 17 cents/mile for gas alone, which restores the ~2x differential for my situation.  Yay?

So I can say that I save $1.25 in fuel costs every day that I ride my bike to work rather than driving, which would equate to $300 a year if I rode every day (not gonna happen).  Yeah, every dollar makes a difference, but when I'm already saving over $50,000 of my income every year, and my net worth can jump up or down $3000 on a normal day in the stock markets, it's pretty hard to get a strong motivation from that <$300/year.  So I think we all agree (including Bakari's commenter) that advocating biking based on $/mile alone is probably not that effective.  Luckily there are a ton of other motivations that keep me riding, not least of which is the fact that food, unlike gasoline, tastes awesome when you eat it, so I'm happy to pay a bit for the opportunity to eat more of it without getting fat!

I'd like to point out that MMM is incredibly generous to the car with that mileage estimate. Out here in the IE of CA at the moment, gas is hovering in the $4.30/gal range for regular and I can assure you that the people driving the short distances who could benefit immensely from a hybrid/diesel/smaller car generally are not driving those. I'd cut the average mpg figure by at least a third, and I don't think cutting it in half would be unrealistic. For someone driving a paltry 6 miles round-trip, the car won't be in a position to get close to the 35 mpg figure and possibly not even on a 6 mile one-way unless it's mostly highway. So using even the higher assumption of 22 mpg, fuel costs are ~$0.20/mile and assuming 18 mpg, they're $0.25. When our gas prices "drop" a full Susan B. Anthony to $3.80 and everyone gives a collective *whew*, that still totals out to $0.17-0.21/mile in fuel costs alone.

[skyrefuge]

I'd like to point out that MMM is incredibly generous to the car with that mileage estimate.

For the fuel mileage number, I agree with MMM's strategy of being generous.  If you can be very generous to the skeptical anti-biking car driver and use his "best-case" numbers, yet STILL show that biking wins, then you have a much stronger and more convincing argument.  If, on the other hand, you only use an 18mpg SUV in your calculations to prove your point, anyone who drives something more efficient will say "oh, sure, of *course* it's more efficient to bike than drive an SUV, but those worst-case numbers doesn't apply to me".  Also, that blog entry was originally directed towards MMM readers, presumably under the assumption that many of them *are* already driving efficient cars efficiently.

For the fuel price, it appears that MMM was using the best number available, the national average price for regular at the time he wrote that blog entry (Oct. 2011), which was $3.50.  Yes, there are places where the price is higher, but then also places where it's lower, so using the average seems reasonable.  After falling some more, then rising, and now falling again, that price is currently $3.70.  I continued to use the $3.50 price in my math because it was close enough, we appear to be heading back there anyway, and I wanted to continue to be "generous" as well.

[Bakari]

I'd like to point out that MMM is incredibly generous to the car with that mileage estimate.

  Also, that blog entry was originally directed towards MMM readers, presumably under the assumption that many of them *are* already driving efficient cars efficiently.

Actually, the blog was originally directed at ecomodder.com readers, who are almost all getting above EPA rating MPGs and most of whom have efficient cars to begin with.  Over there, the numbers we've been using aren't generous enough, and if you don't add in maintenance items, driving actually wins if you look at numbers alone.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/infinity-miles-per-gallon-21827.html