This may be a bit contrarian, but I definitely believe that you should count the cost of calories if you are commuting by bike
to save $.
Doing otherwise is like commuting by car but ignoring the cost of gas in your cost calculation.
This website shows what 200 calories cost depending on what you eat:
http://www.mymoneyblog.com/what-does-200-calories-cost-the-economics-of-obesity.htmlAccording to the internet, an average biker will burn approximately 0.14 calories per minute per KG of weight going at a rate of 14 MPH. For a biker like me, this equates to about 600 calories for my commute.
Those 600 calories can cost as little as 0.21$ if I drink canola oil or as much as 2.43$ if I eat mixed nuts. Homemade granola is probably on the lower end.
For me, that comes in at about
5 cents per mile. By comparison, my car costs about
15 cents per mile in gas doing city.
Biking wins hands down, but it is not what I would call a negligible cost compared to the cost of gas for a car.
FWIW, I have a spreasheet that calculates the cost of biking per mile counting
only maintenance items (chains, lube, cassette, brakes, tires, tubes, chainrings) and
food. My cost per mile is about 13 cents!
Cheaper than a car, but still not magically free.