Hi all, more than a year ago I
posted here about how I started biking to work.
Well, it's now 14 months later and I'm still at it. I’m sharing this in the Badassity forum not merely to brag, but in the hopes that these testimonials will motivate others to get off the Lazy-Boy chair you’re hauling around town in your four-wheeled, 2-ton metal smoginator (i.e. motor vehicle), and
get on your bike!
Some stats:
- 207 round trips of ~6.3 miles each way
- 2,635.25 miles
- $2,135.76 in expenses - bike, pedals, helmet, shoes, shoe booties, tools, repairs, lots of clothes for summer to winter, gloves, winter gloves, jacket, tights, shorts, socks, panniers, DIY maintenance stuff, rack, lights, etc. I know this is a lot and I may have overdone it a bit..
- $3,003.38 - estimated savings including gas, car maintenance, registration, property tax, canceling car insurance (after selling car)
- $867.62 in net savings, and going up approximately $170/month now that my initial expenses are over
Now that I’ve bought most of the gear I need, I expect to save more than $2,000 annually, as long as I can keep this up. I think my total savings, though, are actually quite a bit
more than this thanks to the ripple effects of the list below, which I'm not even including in my savings tally:
- I am bringing my lunch to work far more than I used to; this is because it’s a pain to go out to lunch on the bike and it’s easier to bring the lunch.
- Riding a bike, it’s a lot harder to go shopping after work, so...I don’t. I just ride home. Saves me on impulse or worthless spending.
- I still go to happy hour, but stop at 2 beers...too hard to bike on a buzz. I might save $150+ annually on that.
- I dropped the $40/month gym membership that I hardly used anyway
- Biking and saving money is a daily reminder of why I’m trying to be frugal, and it helps keep me on the path to FI.
Let's be generous and add this up above and put it into the savings column. The $40/month gym membership is $480. Let's say I save $15/week in lunches (I do still eat out occasionally) so that's another $600 annually. And let's say I save another $50/month by reducing stupid spending on who knows what, simply because it's too hard to go shopping and spending on a bike, for another $600 in annual savings. That get's my annual savings up to around
$3,700 if I want to count things more liberally.
All of that above is about saving money. But I'm also saving
time. Here's my daily time spent biking:
+ 28 minute bike in morning
+ 28 minute bike in evening
+ 30 minutes getting ready, packing work clothes, getting bike clothes and gear on and off, locking up bike, etc. (~15 minutes each way)86 minutes total
Now, suppose I drove to work, but also exercise each weekday at a gym or elsewhere (which is what you should do):
+ 25 minute drive in morning (only 5 minutes faster (!) on average than biking, some days better, some worse)
+ 25 minute drive in evening
+ 20 minutes getting into/out of gym, parking, getting dressed, etc.
+ 60 minutes exercising in gym (same time as on bike)130 minutes
So, since I get to multi-task on my bike ride--I'm simultaneously commuting and exercising, rather than doing them separately--I'm actually
saving around 45 minutes a day compared to driving to work and going to the gym (or doing some other sort of exercise). Now, this is just a theoretical savings because I wasn't actually exercising every day when I was driving to work -- it just didn't happen. But when you bike to work, you get in your exercise no matter what. And I'd much rather be outside biking, even on a road with a lot of cars, than being cooped up in a gym.
[As an aside, a gymbot might want to have a more well-rounded exercise and weight training program. I get that. But for me, the reality was that with my car-based commute,
I just wasn't making it to the gym. So, while biking twice a day is inferior to a better fitness regimen
in the abstract fantasy world, it is far better than the no-exercise regimen
that was my real-world reality.]
Everything I’ve written above is purely about saving money and creating more time, but as just about any bike commuter can attest, the non-economic benefits are even greater. I feel healthier, less stressed, and I’m the best shape I’ve been in since I exercised regularly in college 20+ years ago. Even though I ride the same route every day, I still love it. It’s just plain old fun, even in the rain and cold.
What my example shows is that even a sedentary guy in his early 40s, who hadn’t biked 100 miles in the previous 20 years, can do this if you can overcome the excuses and do it.
The crazy thing, my co-workers look at me with a mix of pity and amazement, especially when they see me after biking in on a rainy or sleeting day. But
I feel sorry for
them. After discovering bicycle commuting, I will NEVER go back to driving to work unless I lose my health or something extreme happens. Once, on a vacation day, I had to drive in commuting traffic and I just about wanted to stop my car, get out, and jump off the overpass. I'd much rather be zipping along on my bike, even in rain or heat, than be entombed in a car trapped in miles of bumper to bumper traffic. I’m done with that insanity---biking is freedom and I will not go back.
