I dunno - “bike gas” aka “food” prices are soaring around these parts too…
Cycling adds between 250-1000 extra calories per hour, though it varies by speed and weight.
My historicals show I burn ~500/hour on my longtail with my kid on the commute, and an hour of commuting time would be 25 kms travelled. 500 cal is about 500 grams of beans, so 500g of beans per/100 km. For comparison the car I have is 7L/100km.
I can buy 1kg of beans for 5$, and 1L of gas for $1.70. So by bike is $2.50/100km. By car is $11.9/100km. If I fueled solely on sirloin steak (2cal/g) that would be $13/100km.
Now, I happen to fucking love beans and cooking them many ways. But these costs are also ONLY fuel, ignoring all the other costs and benifits associated with both methods of transportation.
For example, I always travel 25kph by bike. In the city the trip average speed by gar is 35kph, so not a big difference. If I’m travelling outside the city, the trip average will be closer of 90 or 100kph by car, and still 25kph by bike.
My bike also costs $0 in insurance and very little in maintenance or repairs. I also get to scrap as much cardio time from my workouts as I put into cycling; either giving me more time in the day, or letting me focus on another activity.
Before you posted I had done similar calculations based on my former commute. Its only theoretical as I’m FT WHF now, but my commute was ~45mi per day round trip and at my weight, and intensity the calculator I found estimated a shocking 2500-3000 calories. That’s 125-150% of my regular caloric intake just for the commute.
Doubling my food costs would far outstrip my gas costs for the commute.
3000 calories additional for 72km? I think there is an error woth your calculator, or it may include BMR in the estimate.
Tour de france riders consude about 5000 calories per stage. Though they are obviously optimized for it.
No clue how long a TdF stage is but I’m sure my fat ass burns more calories than theirs to go an equal distance.
150-200 km. So 2-3x the length of that commute.
Fuck yeah: Beans!
I don’t know about you but I eat food whether or not I use my bike.
You probably eat more if you are exerting more energy, though. Still better and cheaper than gas.
I do, but not the same amount if I’m commuting on my bike.
Riding your bike consumes more calories and thus requires more food.
Cycling burns energy.
It obviously varies by build and how hard you ride, but it’s something around 25kcal/km (40Cal/mi) on a bicycle. A rough estimate is that you can go 10km (6.2mi) on a candy bar or a McDonalds Cheeseburger - which are ~300kcal, though if you are heavy and riding hard, it might be even up to three.
Time to start growing your own food? If you have space, potatoes are pretty easy.
If you don’t have space, even a little hydroponic garden and window planters can yield a surprising amount of food and fresh herbs are way better than the dehydrated stuff. We’ve also got this little cube thing that grows edible sprouts in about a week: They’re great on sandwiches as a lettuce replacement and are super healthy.
staple crops like rice and potatoes would have to quintuple in cost to be particularly noticeable unless you’re already so poor that driving is a pipe dream for you
Electric Prices: $0.01/mile
Ye. I’m saving on bus money. I love my ebike. Omg just had the thought about saving that money to buy a new and better ebike.
Open a savings account 🙂
That might be a little high actually lol, guess it depends on the bike, speed, and how much it’s hauling. You could also buy a solar charger, then it’s free after the cost of the charger and you don’t have to worry about power outages.
Electric energy is a fungible good though. And one you can sell easily.
Funny if they also offered free water bottle refills (capped at gallon/day/cyclist, I imagine, making it still profitable as a loss leader)
I’ve been just loving this. My order of transpo is:
<2 miles? E-scooter Transit (bus/rail) EV (single car household now)
I know prices for shipping items in general is going up, but feel no pain day to day. People should realize how utterly dependent they are on this extremely volatile liquid they burn every day. There are alternatives, they just might have to leave their comfort zone a bit.
