My bike is now my car. Others living the bikelife feel free to join in.

[Arbitrage]

I did it!  Took longer than I anticipated, but I sold my car.  The big delay was first due to a crazy COVID wave, then various fits and starts once I actually started the selling process, but we're not a 1-car family of four.  Not as badass as those doing without, certainly, but the car is my wife's and I just drive it when we're taking the family places.  I've already been doing most of the family errands and all of my personal transportation by e-bike for about 3 years, but couldn't quite get myself to cut the cord. 

I'll be moving this summer to a city that much more bike-friendly from an infrastructure and cultural standpoint, but much less bike-friendly from a weather and terrain (read: hills) standpoint.  I'm nevertheless motivated to make it work in the cold and rain (and occasional snow)!

[cool7hand]

Great that this is working for you!

[zinnie]

Whoo hoo! Good job. That's an awesome step you've taken. We went down to one car a while back and then zero when we moved to the city, and each step has felt so freeing! Even being down one I remember how nice it was not to be responsible for the maintenance/repairs/cost/insurance etc.

[windytrail]

Congrats!! Enjoy the health and financial benefits for decades to come.

I have been car-free since 2012 and have no regrets. And if you are someone who enjoys exercise, hills can make a city more enjoyable on a bike. Lots of resources out there about how to ride in winter weather.

[windytrail]

Bikes are ten times better than electric cars at reducing carbon emissions and 30 times better than fossil fuel cars. (https://theconversation.com/cycling-is-ten-times-more-important-than-electric-cars-for-reaching-net-zero-cities-157163)

Strikingly, people who cycled on a daily basis had 84% lower carbon emissions from all their daily travel than those who didn’t.

We also found that the average person who shifted from car to bike for just one day a week cut their carbon footprint by 3.2kg of CO₂ – equivalent to the emissions from driving a car for 10km, eating a serving of lamb or chocolate, or sending 800 emails.

When we compared the life cycle of each travel mode, taking into account the carbon generated by making the vehicle, fueling it and disposing of it, we found that emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.

[Arbitrage]

Bikes are ten times better than electric cars at reducing carbon emissions and 30 times better than fossil fuel cars. (https://theconversation.com/cycling-is-ten-times-more-important-than-electric-cars-for-reaching-net-zero-cities-157163)

Strikingly, people who cycled on a daily basis had 84% lower carbon emissions from all their daily travel than those who didn’t.

We also found that the average person who shifted from car to bike for just one day a week cut their carbon footprint by 3.2kg of CO₂ – equivalent to the emissions from driving a car for 10km, eating a serving of lamb or chocolate, or sending 800 emails.

When we compared the life cycle of each travel mode, taking into account the carbon generated by making the vehicle, fueling it and disposing of it, we found that emissions from cycling can be more than 30 times lower for each trip than driving a fossil fuel car, and about ten times lower than driving an electric one.

Nice, thanks.  I've been quoting that number myself (mostly in my head, so as not to be emitting too much "smug") based upon some back-of-the-envelope calculations I did, incorporating life cycle and food costs.  E-biking actually comes out very similar or even ahead of meat-biking, depending upon your assumptions - manufacturing emissions are certainly higher, but your day-to-day costs are generally lower.  That can change based upon the carbon-friendliness of your diet and electricity, of course.

[jpdx]

I'm finding that 1 car + 1 e-bike is the perfect place to be for a family. Having both options offers plenty of flexibility, and I can't imagine ever going back to having multiple cars.

[HenryDavid]

Way to go. Smart decision for physical and mental health, finance, and the environment.

When people ask me "why do you bike instead of driving all the time?" (which they sometimes do) I just say: "Well I get paid to bike."
After they stop laughing I quote the average cost of ownership for a medium-size car here in Canada. $11,000.00 last time I checked.
So, I get "paid" damn close to $1000/month in return for having a far better time.

Now compound that . . ..

[ixtap]

We will probably be there by next year, when we move back to the boat. I am working at building my ability to do hills so that this is feasible in our area (just got back from a short ride on a big to me hill a few minutes ago). It will probably be best to increase distance, as well. Even though he is much better at hills, DH's butt gets sore before mine on our flatter, longer rides. And he has bike shorts!

We moved here three years ago for DH to be able to ride to work. We sold his car immediately and soon upgraded my bike because I had a little three geared folding bike and we live in this weird little dip. You must go uphill to leave the house, but if you go more than 1/4 mile you are going downhill again and will have to bike back uphill again to get home. I can only do it going one direction, the others are too steep/long for me. Every time I get close to being able to do it, I start pushing harder, throw my back out and have to start all over again. NOT THIS TIME!

[GuitarStv]

I managed to avoid buying a car until 33 . . . but after my son was born the convenience just couldn't be ignored any more.  Being car-free is pretty awesome, and I hope to get back there in another few years.

[Arbitrage]

Naturally, since I don't have a car, that means I have to buy more bikes!  I believe that's the "N+1" rule.  I don't anticipate going crazy, or ever buying a truly high-performance MTB or road bike, but I do have designs on a reasonable MTB to tackle the local mountains (as I'm moving to a mountain-biking mecca and plan to take it up as a hobby), as well as a second e-bike so that my wife can comfortably join me on rides in our hilly new home.  Okay, let's be honest...the new e-bike is really more for me.

On top of that, new bikes for the kids...yeah, this could be a problem. 

[Dee_the_third]

Ugh, I recently tallied up the cost of depreciation and it's been over 100 dollars a month since 2013 -____-  I blame my new college grad naivete.

I'm contemplating selling our car (a 2013 Accord, about 50k miles) for a used Prius or something, but I'm not sure the savings are worth it at this point. Maybe we should just sell the car? 😬

[Weisass]

Good for you! As a family of six and a one car household powered mainly by bike and public transit, life is so much nicer without the car.

[Freedomin5]

Congrats!  We became a car-free family about 10 years ago when we moved to China. We live walking/biking distance to school, work, and the grocery store. When we need to go farther, we take taxi or public transportation. It’s worked out well for us so far, but we do seem to have a lot of human-powered vehicles (3 bikes and 2 push scooters for a family of three).

[Dee_the_third]

Last time I was in Asia (Hong Kong) I nearly wept with jealousy over the quality of the public transit infrastructure. Fully contained passenger platforms? Trains every 3 minutes? No wonder no one owns a car...

[scottnews]

Grats on concurring the cold and rain!  It just gets better, easier, more amazing as time goes on.   I’ve been 100% bike for 2 years.  We’ve been a 1 car family for 18 months.  The heavy snows aren’t good when things aren’t plowed, but its part a part of my day I look forward to the most.   

Getting the e-bike for the winters gave me no excuses.   Before the e-bike, I would sit and talk myself out of it.

When we google places to retire to, bike friendly areas are always a concern now.

[tawyer]

I managed to avoid buying a car until 33 . . . but after my son was born the convenience just couldn't be ignored any more.  Being car-free is pretty awesome, and I hope to get back there in another few years.

We also bought a car as part of having a child, but have generally found it better to take public transit with him when we couldn't bike.

[GuitarStv]

I managed to avoid buying a car until 33 . . . but after my son was born the convenience just couldn't be ignored any more.  Being car-free is pretty awesome, and I hope to get back there in another few years.

We also bought a car as part of having a child, but have generally found it better to take public transit with him when we couldn't bike.

Depends on how it is set up in your city.  It takes me 30-40 minutes to bike to work, 20-30 to drive, and about an hour and a half via transit.

[tawyer]

I managed to avoid buying a car until 33 . . . but after my son was born the convenience just couldn't be ignored any more.  Being car-free is pretty awesome, and I hope to get back there in another few years.

We also bought a car as part of having a child, but have generally found it better to take public transit with him when we couldn't bike.

Depends on how it is set up in your city.  It takes me 30-40 minutes to bike to work, 20-30 to drive, and about an hour and a half via transit.

Given your war on muscular atrophy, I don't see what your point is about my city.

[windytrail]

Evening ride in the backyard park.....the simple joys of bikelife.

[Arbitrage]

Evening ride in the backyard park.....the simple joys of bikelife.

Nice.  Had a great weekend riding 30 miles or so doing errands.  Electronics recycling, big bags of donations, grocery shopping, Home Depot trips, etc.  These is something truly joyful about accomplishing things efficiently via bike that 99.9+% of people feel the need to hop in their car and sit in traffic to do.

[Weisass]

Beautiful pics, @windytrail . I put a solid 100 miles on my new bike over the last two weeks. Felt reallly good to ditch the car.