Carbon nutral cycling...vs. heavy breathing?

Tranced

Just curious.... aside from the substantial amout of "carbon" produced during manufacture of the bike itself, what is my increased contribution to carbon pollution due to increased breathing rate, thereby pumping out ?# times more CO2 than usual.

Has anyone seen related figures measured?

finchy

And if you reduce red meat and fat consumption as part of your cyclist's diet, you could have a very positive effect on the environment.

Sirius631

We breath heavily during exercise, but when are relaxed our respiration rate is lower than unfit people.

Tranced

reduce red meat

Not going to help the environment.... it's the cows f@rting causing most damage....

I'm trying to eat as many of the buggers as I can.

Make the next one double cheese please.......

Tranced

There's a quote in a book I recently read about a particular cyclist's heart recyling his entire blood volume 8 times per minute when at max HR.
That's a lot of O2 & CO2 conversion.....

It would be really interesting to see some real figures of CO2 expiration cyclist vs. ave car.
There must be figures available from every time a pro does a VO2 type test. Surely CO2 release must be measured as well & calculated....

BTW.... must not mix up car giving off CO (monoxide) vs. person CO2 (dioxide)...
Each of these has 1 C molocule, but e.g.

166 gpk (grams per kilometer)

cannot be compared as CO2 is heavier than CO.
I specifically want to compare "Carbon" given off.

Hmmm?

finchy

Tranced wrote:

reduce red meat

Not going to help the environment.... it's the cows f@rting causing most damage....

I'm trying to eat as many of the buggers as I can.

Make the next one double cheese please.......

Nice twisted logic there. BTW, did you know that a cow can halve its methane emissions by switching from a grass diet to a grain diet?

Although that causes a whole load more problems. Sigh, it's difficult being alive... :roll:

nwallace

CO2 emissions is one of the things tested in the MOT, I probably have an old pass sheet somewhere.

It's also one of the things you use to set the mixture efficiently on older cars.

pbt150

1 gallon of petrol is ~ 30,000 kcal. Say you burn 40 kcal per mile, this is ~750 miles per gallon, or about 9g CO2 per kilometre, assuming you're burning fat. Compare with the most efficient cars on the market today that can just about bet 80 miles per gallon, and you shouldn't feel too guilty about going for a ride.

benvickery

Or another way of working this out...

on my last ride of 30.1 miles at 17 mph my Cateye Velo 8 said I burnt 1111 kcal. That equates to about 292g of glucose (C6H12O6). Using the respiration formula

C6H12O6 + 6O2 --> 6CO2 + 6H2O

this works out to be 428g of CO2 or 8.9g of CO2 per km. Pretty close to pbt150's answer!!

This is about 5.5% of the CO2 output of my 1.9 diesel.

el_presidente

The carbon in CO2 expelled by breath has, in effect, been sequestered from the atmosphere fairly recently by the plant material you either eat directly or the plants eaten by the meat you've eaten.

The carbon in CO2 expelled by a car was sequesterd from the atmosphere millions of years ago by prehistoric plants.

Thus calculating the percentages is pointless, the only net impact on current atmospheric CO2 is from the fossil fuels.

Nuggs

nwallace wrote:

CO2 emissions is one of the things tested in the MOT

Although my TVR which has no cats/pre-cats and straight-though pipes passes no problem every year... :shock:

nwallace

Nuggs wrote:

nwallace wrote:

CO2 emissions is one of the things tested in the MOT

Although my TVR which has no cats/pre-cats and straight-though pipes passes no problem every year... :shock:

Correct

Only vehicles built after 1991 and fitted with Fuel Injection require to have a catalytic converter, even if the cat was missing in a vehicle that requires one it could pass the emissions tests but would fail on the missing Cat.

If for some reason your pre-1991 vehicle is struggling with the Emissions tests which were applicable in the year of build all you do is weaken the fuel mix.

This used to happen with new vehicles as well.
SAAB used to send all their cars to the US underpowered to get through California import and sale rules, then after sale would be tuned to normal spec.

MOT tuning for a 99 has the CO2 reading 5, on return from MOT you would put them back up to 8.

My car has rear seat belts, they don't have to be there as it was built in 1983, they dont' get tested in the MOT and occupants don't have to wear them.