How much does it cost a mile to cycle

rbrettell

Here is my logic:

buy a cheap £150 cast iron bike ride it once round the block for 5miles then leave it in the shed = £30 per mile

Buy a swanky carbon fibre bike for £2500 and ride 850 miles on it (last yr) = £2.94 per mile
- add wiggle spending and its nearer £3.50

So who has the cheapest / dearest bike

freehub

I don't know how to calculate it.

3200 miles, paid £900, had it since march I think.

rbrettell

3200 blimey !!

thats a mere 28p

richk

I don't keep enough records to calculate a total cost of ownership for my bike(s).

However, if you really want to scare yourself then work out the total cost of ownership for your car in £/mile including everything. (Obviously, only if you have a car).

daviesee

RichK wrote:

I don't keep enough records to calculate a total cost of ownership for my bike(s).

However, if you really want to scare yourself then work out the total cost of ownership for your car in £/mile including everything. (Obviously, only if you have a car).

I did that once. Scared the bejesus out of myself. I could have got taxis everywhere.
The really concerning part is now that I am cycle commuting my car mileage is dropping so the cost is even higher :evil:

Currently bike and gear (you have to account for all gear to be accurate) in the past 1.5 years £2500; miles - a convenient 2500 so £1/mile but that drops with every mile :P
My sister got a bike 15 years ago. A heavy weight £100 and has so far done a total of 10 miles, so for her it is £10/mile and I am quids in

musttriharder

My 2 year old Focus Cayo has done a little over 5,000 miles, it cost ~600 through cycle to work so about 12p a mile if you ignore all the extra gear.

STEFANOS4784

Dunno but my red bikes already paid for itself and the black one and all my gear probably a couple of times over(saved bus fare etc) 8)
Black one about 31p per mile (very rough guess as i don't keep records) But it also has loads of life left in it

nick hanson

Does anyone really care?
most people on here ride because it's a life choice,not because its cheaper per mile than the bus/train/car

Le Commentateur

My accountant would know. There's some rate that you can claim as a per mile travel expense against income tax.

pneumatic

I use a formula based on car cost per mile to justify spending lots of money on bikes:

Add up all the miles you do where the bike is an alternative to the car (e.g. commuting, holidays, day trips etc..)

Multiply that by the per mile cost of using the car instead (even just the fuel cost is probably enough).

Keep a record of the money "saved".

Spend it on bikes.

On this basis my first bike paid for itself in 2 years, my second (more expensive) in 5 and I have nearly ridden off the cost of the luxury bike after about 3 years thanks to increased fuel costs. Hmm, time to start planning the next purchase!

STEFANOS4784

nick hanson wrote:

Does anyone really care?
most people on here ride because it's a life choice,not because its cheaper per mile than the bus/train/car

Good point, but it adds some nice justification to the expenditure

bompington

musttriharder wrote:

if you ignore all the extra gear.

If...

My old Raleigh cost £120 second hand, so far it's done 8,000 miles, that's 1.5p/mile.

In that time it's also had money spent on new accessories, replacement parts and consumables: rear mech, cassettes, chainset, cranks, chains, BB, brakes, wheels, tyres, tubes, lube, lights, batteries, computer, bottle cages, saddle, tools, there's bound to be stuff I've forgotten.
All that comes to around £580; and clothing comes to another £100, not including stuff replaced by an insurance payout.

So that comes to a nice convenient £800 (the estimates are reasonably close), which makes it 10p per mile so far. Most of the running gear has been replaced this year so I'm hoping it'll do another few thousand miles as a winter bike, hopefully 2 winters before needing any more major replacements, so the cost/mile will come down.

So in this case that's a lot more than just the purchase cost of the bike, I'll let you know in a couple of years how the new bike (£1K) compares.

But here's one comparison at least - I had a Mazda from 1994 to 2003 that covered 160,000 miles without anything going wrong, just routine servicing and replacement costs; I worked out that it cost me about 25p/mile - i can't really imagine you can run a car much cheaper than that.

Of course we'll not go into how much extra food cycling entitles me to eat...

bobtbuilder

I have only ridden 25 miles so far on my new £3,500 Orbea Orca. That's a whopping £140 per mile! :shock:

Once it's returned from the LBS the cost per mile is going to plummet!

GiantMike

With all these calculations don't forget to add the residual value of the bike otherwise you're assuming 100% depreciation.

For example, 100 miles on a £100 bike looks like £1 per mile, but if the bike is still worth £100 it's actually free.

I built a winter bike for £300 using second hand parts. Next year I could sell those parts for around £250, so the actual cost is only £50 for all the time I use it (plus any replacement costs for components etc).

daviesee

Le Commentateur wrote:

My accountant would know. There's some rate that you can claim as a per mile travel expense against income tax.

Off the top of my head it is 20p/mile, if you qualify.

pneumatic

daviesee wrote:

Le Commentateur wrote:

My accountant would know. There's some rate that you can claim as a per mile travel expense against income tax.

Off the top of my head it is 20p/mile, if you qualify.

I got this approved at my last place of work as part of the green travel plan.

Trouble is, being a small town on the edge of nowhere, the longest business journey you could reasonably make was about 1 mile (the length of the town). For anything else, you needed panniers and a bar bag!

Anonymous

I think I might start going into triggers broom territory if I start to add it all up.........

Vino2007

I think everyone should ride to decrease their cost per mile. Its a bigger incentive for a tight b****** like myself than trying to get fit, Do cateye have this function on their computers??

rbrettell

nick hanson wrote:

Does anyone really care?
most people on here ride because it's a life choice,not because its cheaper per mile than the bus/train/car

The thread is just a bit of fun and an amusing justification to get stuff

edindevon

I always aim to get below 10p per mile for each bike I own. I don't take into account residual value (partly because I've freecycled three recent bikes) and I count all replacement components etc. I've managed to achieve this on all but one of my bikes, but I have my work cut out on my new best bike, as this cost £1250.

Edindevon

geoff_ss

We've done 150 miles on our new tandem since we got it 6 days ago. That's £2700/150 = £18 per mile. But is that down to £9 each since there were two of us on it the whole distance

I used to commute 5000 miles/year on my Mercian as well as using for cycling holidays and weekend touring/audaxes so I guess that ended up quite cheap/mile. However I've never worked out how much most bikes I've owned actually cost except the few we bought as ready built. My theory is that I'll soon learn if I can't afford it so why bother?

Geoff

nick hanson

rbrettell wrote:

nick hanson wrote:

Does anyone really care?
most people on here ride because it's a life choice,not because its cheaper per mile than the bus/train/car

The thread is just a bit of fun and an amusing justification to get stuff

Yep,fair comment.Wasn't having a good day,note to self...stop being a miserable s*d

swagman

Well the courts reckon cycling worth 8.5p a mile, thats what they paid me for my jury service expense.

pinkbikini

daviesee wrote:

Le Commentateur wrote:

My accountant would know. There's some rate that you can claim as a per mile travel expense against income tax.

Off the top of my head it is 20p/mile, if you qualify.

That's correct - 20p per mile. Mine works out as £18 per week claimed against tax. Not bad really - keeps me in brake blocks, tyres, inners, clothing that wears out, chain oil, cleaning products, lights, batteries, upgrades to groupsets, new frames and wheels, other impulse purchases ... oh, hang on...
Expensive lark, this cycling.

Porgy

A quick calculation in my head reveals that it costs me about 5p a mile - and going down.

Although if I also include the costs of extra food and water, and repair costs etc. that probably doubles the cost at least to 10p a mile.

rhext

...actually when you think about it, you have to pedal a lot of miles to justify the costs. I reckon I've done about 10,000 miles on my commuter bike since I bought it (7.5p per mile). But then there's lights (£200), rack/panniers/mudguards (£200) repairs and maintenance (£250), clothing (£500, although admittedly some of this was stuff I'd have bought anyway) plus sundry other bits and pieces. Probably adds up to about 20p per mile.

Still substantially cheaper than using the car, however. And the marginal cost of each additional mile is tiny, maybe 2-3p for maintenance spares and worn-out clothing. So I don't begrudge it!

bompington

My inner geek compels me to finish the job...

As a rough guess I'm estimating that I use about 50 cals/mile.

Tesco value rice: 73p for 1kg, 350cals/100g => 60 miles/kg => 1.24p/mile
Powerbar Performace: £1.35 per bar, 240 calories => 4 miles/bar => 34p/mile

So it depends what fuel you put in...

bompington

My inner geek is not finished...

Saffron is pretty much the most expensive foodstuff I can think of*, it works out at £7200 / kg; it has 310 cals/100g.
So if you cycled on a diet of saffron, it would cost you £120/mile


*Yes, it really is more expensive than powerbars

rhext

bompington wrote:

My inner geek is not finished...

Saffron is pretty much the most expensive foodstuff I can think of*, it works out at £7200 / kg; it has 310 cals/100g.
So if you cycled on a diet of saffron, it would cost you £120/mile


*Yes, it really is more expensive than powerbars

Hmmm, when you put it like that....where's the carkeys? And why do motorists whine so much about the price of petrol?

Porgy

bompington wrote:

Saffron is pretty much the most expensive foodstuff I can think of*, it works out at £7200 / kg; it has 310 cals/100g.
So if you cycled on a diet of saffron, it would cost you £120/mile

You wouldn;t be cycling for long I reckon :?

bompington

Porgy wrote:

bompington wrote:

Saffron is pretty much the most expensive foodstuff I can think of*, it works out at £7200 / kg; it has 310 cals/100g.
So if you cycled on a diet of saffron, it would cost you £120/mile

You wouldn;t be cycling for long I reckon :?

Yeah, I'd be skint before I got halfway home