What is it practical to do by bike? On Friday I rode my bike from my home (near campus) to Costco and Wegman’s to do some shopping. I want to share the experience with you to see what you think. Does this seem practical to you?
Some stats
Home to Costco
Distance 4.44 miles
Time 23.6 minutes
Calories 166
Costco-Wegmans
Distance .4 miles
Time 3 minutes
Calories 18
Wegman’s–Home
Distance 4.62 miles
Time 27.3 minutes
Calories 200
My Haul–66 pounds of stuff!
Let’s do some analysis. My car is a 2015 Honda-CRV, which weighs about 3500 pounds. I weigh about 150 pounds and my bike weighs about 30. So if I had driven my car, I would have moved 3710 pounds of stuff to move the essential 210 pounds. Riding a bike involved moving 240 pounds of stuff to move the essential 210 pounds. Let’s say my Honda get 24 mpg on a trip like this. A gallon of gas has 31,000 calories. How many calories would this trip have expended if taken by car? By my calculations, the normal routes I would have driven to Costco and Wegman’s would be been 8.8 miles. That would mean my car would have expended 11,400 calories. (Versus 384 expended by biking) For CO2 emissions, using a total life cycle analysis, driving emits 271 grams of CO2 per km, while biking emits 21 grams of CO2 per km.
Energy Cost
Driving 11,410 calories. BIking 384 calories
Carbon Cost
Driving 3821 gm. Biking 296 gm
What do we imagine the financial cost differences are?
One estimate is that the average cost per mile to drive is 60 cents. Therefore, it would have cost a little more than $5 to drive my car.
In addition, it took me 13 minutes to get from my house to Whole Foods by bike and 15 minutes to get home. (roughly 2.4 miles)
Map
Google Maps estimates that it would take me 8 minutes by car.
Questions:
Does this seem safe/low stress to you?
Does it seem like a reasonable use of your time?
Does it seem practical?
Does it seem enjoyable?
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions.
Is there something that could change to make you see this more positively?