Fuel Poverty

pastryboy

That's true - not a single day off sick in two years of commuting by bike. Probably averaged about one every six months prior to that.

ndru

TailWindHome wrote:

ndru wrote:

Sorry for flooding.
To the OP - I do 8 miles there and 8 miles back every day on a heavy yet comfortable and bombproof pashley. I wear my normal clothes and hardly sweat. If you think about it there is little difference if you exercise moderately for 45 minutes or hard for 20. The calorie loss is more or less the same. What you get in return is the bicycle becomes not a form of training, but normal transport, which you then start using for shopping, errands etc - and it's easy because you don't have to do the superman thing (phone booth, ripping shirt on the chest) every time you want to use it. Wouldn't you be reluctant to use a car if every time you had to don a flameproof suit special boots and what have you? Keep it simple and make it normal - you will also get more respect from other road users. It's not worth it for your 11km commute.
Oh and don't worry about not being fast - it's really not a race and what you save in time on your commute you will then loose under the shower.

You make a lot of sense there.

Sometimes people forget cycling to work is just that, it doesn't need to be complicated, you don't need an expensive bike, just one that's in reasonable shape.

You don't need special clothing, so long as your 'office' dress code is reasonably casual you'll be fine. However nothing looks as stupid as a grown man riding a bicycle while wearing a suit.

Two other points

1 Is a Pashley not a very expensive bike just for riding to work?
2 Are you not going have a shower anyway?

About the suit - it depends what bicycle he's on. I think an upright bike goes very well with a suit. Suit + helmet + cycling gloves and trousers in socks - this does look a bit less serious, but still not as bad as a full spandex suit on a stocky man.

To answer your other concerns - yes Pashley is an expensive bike to buy, but a very cheap bike to run. I have to do no maintenance except for tensioning the cables every now and then because it has internal everything, the rims are really strong, I have dynamo lights and so on. In the long run I have spent more money on my cheap decathlon road bike (bike+maintenance) which I started with,over 4 months, than I have spent on the whole Pashley. I am not against expensive bikes - if what you pay for is quality - I also own a Bakfiets Cargobike Long and it's not cheap either.
2) I have a shower at home, not when I come to work - I don't need it.

jonginge

Drysuitdiver wrote:

JonGinge wrote:

Drysuitdiver wrote:

didn't restart cycling due to anything other than time . the time door to desk using pubic (sic) transport was horrendous. cycling I can do it in 20- 30 minutes.

saved money - no as work covered the fares , i do however claim the 20p permile from HMRC fior my commuting miles.

also working nights would mean a long walk home or a long long wait for the fright bus.


as for "proper" cycling clothing , well you can spend a fortune on specific stuff or not . I do a lot of outdoor pursuits so have wicking base layers , fleece layers wind/waterproof layers. it just took a few days to sort out what i could wear. now that spring is here i will be getting some zip off waking trousers so i can ride into work with shorts as its warm in the afternoon and long trousers for the ride home when its a bit nippy in the air at 3 to 4 am.

in the winter i wore a lined walking trouser from Craghopper to keep legs warm . all stuff I had or can be obtained fairly cheaply from outdoor shops.

I will be looking at some proper cycling shorts later this year as I am getting out on the roadbike a bit more at weekends. 50 miles in walking trousers in the saddle isn't brilliant

Surely you mean cycling miles on company business

nope they are commuting miles as my fixed place of work is the head office in Woking. therefore travel to site iin the morning is commuting but still business miles . if i am on the same site for more than 2 years it becomes fixed place of work and i can't claim . thats never happened yet though.

P87d and its guide sheet are 2 great bits of paperwork

Yep, knew that, which is why I queried it.

dhope

ndru wrote:

If you think about it there is little difference if you exercise moderately for 45 minutes or hard for 20. The calorie loss is more or less the same.

Sorry to cherrypick but this is complete rubbish. Calorie loss is a tiny part of exercise and there's a wealth of evidence to show that short, hard, exercise has a number of benefits over long lazy exercise :roll:
I'm at about 8% body fat, last thing I need is more weight loss but there are plenty of other things I have to work on. If its simply transferring one mode of transport for another then by all means pootle the whole time but if fitness is a goal too then you can't dismiss the idea of cycling quickly as beneficial.

rolf_f

I reckon my 10,000 miles last year cost about £200. Running a new car would be more like £4000 (AA figures). Don't count extra food fuel though; that is a by product of the physical exercise thing (eg also caused by going to the gym lots).

@dhope - you big fat bloaty fat b******d! (says I at 6% body fat )

As others have said, the Lidl and Aldi kit is highly functional and costs buttons. In the long run, I think it they are effectively free anyway; you could cycle to work in shirt and trousers but the chances are, you'll replace them more often because of it. I only wear my nice shirts and trousers whilst sat in the office or in town at lunchtime. I think they last longer for being worn for 7 or 8 sedentary hours than all day including the commute.

dhope

jimmypippa

I think the savings depend on whether the bike allows you to replace a car or not. For me it does.

For me, we have one car, which my wife uses. I cycle to work, and if I managed to get a car with 10-miles to the litre, would cost me about £15 per week in petrol alone, but which would depend on the car fairies giving me a car for free and taxing it and insuring it, otherwise it would cost more.

If I used public transport, it would cost me about £25 per week by bus or £40 by train, but with no other added costs.

My bike cost me about just over £30 per month, via cycle to work, so the savings were immediate.

I do wear running or cycling clothing but that is mostly quite cheap except for my eVent waterproof, but it makes cycling in the rain a lot more comfortable. I wear the kit that I do because I don't want to spend too long commuting - at the moment the bike is a little slower than the car, but more reliable*, and significantly faster than either of the public transport options, which would also involve walking an additional mile or two, depending on whether it is bus or train. The bike commute is a 25-miles round trip, by car it is 26-miles.

*It is faster by bike about twice a quarter, I'd guess.

So for me cycling is the most economic, but it is also a practical way of getting some exercise, but I wouldn't like to wear normal clothes for my commute.

itboffin

Badly titled thread fella, there are lots of people and more by the day who can't afford to heat their homes, having the same stupid tax on heating oil as motor vehicles just doesnt compare.

Heating oil has increased by 62% in one year, as a yokel/Londoner i'm somewhat confused and distressed by this

Drysuitdiver

daviesee wrote:

As we are off topic diver, I assume you are self employed?

In which case you can also, buy a company bike (instead of 20p/mile and doesn't run out after 24 months), provide a breakfast for all employees cycling to work (under a tenner, no reciept required ) and provide all safety gear for people using the company bike - reflective jackets, safety glasses, helmets, lights etc, etc.

Just saying 8)

nope PAYE . and work have "given" me gloves viz jacket etc . HMRC have no problems with it either.

daviesee

Drysuitdiver wrote:

nope PAYE . and work have "given" me gloves viz jacket etc . HMRC have no problems with it either.

In which case you have a VERY accomodating boss. Fortunately my "company director" always has the same thoughts as me

Edit:- It is possible to be PAYE and self employed. I should know.

The Rookie

itboffin wrote:

, having the same stupid tax on heating oil as motor vehicles just doesnt compare.

Which is fine as it's clearly absolutely nowhere near the same.

Simon