TCO

In Karlos news, he's super talkative and laughy lately. When you say "yay!" he claps and laughs. I'm watching him do it right now. The cuteness factor is way off the charts. Videos to follow.

It's been raining a lot lately, which has put a damper on my bike riding. I decided to do some cost comparisons, because science compels me to actually measure, rather than assuming that I'm saving money on a bike. Plus I'm a nerd that way.

So to start off, how much energy is in a gallon of gas? About 31000 Kcals - which we think of as "Calories." I think this is because if they called them KiloCalories, people would feel way fatter.

Now we just need to figure out how efficient I am on a bicycle. After some wikipedia clicking today, I figure I burn about 10-20 extra calories per minute - lets say 1000 calories per hour. At this rate I average maybe 15 mph on a good day. So in order to burn off 31000 Calories I would ride for 31 hours, which is 465 miles per gallon. While this is wayyy better than any car you could buy, it's not apples to apples, because I don't run on unleaded petroleum gasoline with 87% octane hydrocarbons.

Instead I run on milk! As many know, I have an affinity for milk, so it's easy enough to assume this for this thought experiment. At 3$ a gallon, 1% milk contains 110 calories per serving - 16 servings total - or 1760 Calories per gallon. This means there's almost 18 gallons of milk energy in a gallon of gasoline energy. So on an equivalent amount of energy, I'm spending 18 times as much (gas and milk are both about 3$ nowadays).

How does this compare? It turns out, not as well as you would have thought. Since I get 465mpg on a bike, I need to divide that by 17.6, which is 26.42 the equivalent milage a car would need to be more cost effective than me! This is dismal indeed; it's sort of weird to think that this was the last mpg I calculated for the old Echo before it died (I do a lot of city driving to commute). Of course, I don't produce other things like sulfur, mercury, nitrise oxide, or carbon monoxide, and I make about 18 times less carbon emissions, which is really nothing to sneeze at.

The other part of this equation that isn't apples to apples is the capital cost of a car vs a bike, and the opportunity cost of a bike vs a car. I figure that a car costs a minimum of 2000$ a year to own and operate. A bike: maybe 50$ is the minimum - depending on how much the bike cost. I could also expense out a gym membership to make this look even better.

Things become murkier with respect to opportunity costs. Whenever I've interviewed for a job they've asked me about transportation. Also with a bike you have to live closer to work, which could mean paying a lot more for housing - depending on your area. You could easily add 10,000$ a year to the cost of only having a bike given these factors.

Lastly there's days like today, where I bummed a ride home from work due to the rain. While its' unclear from a purely economic perspective if riding a bike is "better" I'm also deriving a psychological benefit, which is priceless.

Fun Facts:

Cutting one pound off of a 15 pound bicycle is the equivalent of getting rid of an aerodynamic drag the size of a pencil.

The "draisine" was invented by Karl Drais. It was the first thing you might consider to look like a bicycle. He was from the same town as Karl Benz, the inventor of the car. The town was called Karlsruhe.

Charlie is another name for Charles, which is an anglicization of Karl. Charlie likes to run alongside us on our bikes for exercise. Karl rides in a trailer.

Fairfax County apparently requires cyclists to have a bell on their bikes!