More Stats - costs & numbers

CiB

No, not miles. Was just looking at the spreadsheet I started doing in Jan this year as an exercise in correlating costs & savings from biking in rather than driving. For various reasons the MPG is known & the distance doesn't alter so it's all quite straightforward to come up with a cost per car journey that follows pump prices, and to note additional buying - sandwiches, kit-kats, stuff...

Anyway. It's a masssoooof disappointment to see:

69 commutes (1, maybe 2 more to follow before NYE). Is that all? It ought to be a lot more.

Saved £402

Spent £57

So for a year of getting up early, braving the elements & the PF, the ribbing at work for cycling in that distance, and the hassle of winter layers & lights, I'm up by about £345. Pffft. If it wasn't the most humongous amount of fun doing it I'd wonder if there was any point. Good job there is then.

Anyone else a bit too OCD about costs etc? Or is it just me [again]?

bails87

So it's fun and saves money.....

I don't see the problem.

spasypaddy

i dread to think about my costs this year...

look 695...

rolf_f

CiB wrote:

Anyone else a bit too OCD about costs etc? Or is it just me [again]?

I keep thinking about getting another Raleigh Record Ace (don't ask.....) and questioning if I can justify going much over £100. And then I put £60 into the Saabs fuel tank just to get me to my parents and back. In that respect, the bike seems absurdly good value.

BTW - fuel isn't your only car cost. Official reckoning is about 46p per mile last time I looked assuming your car is fairly modern and therefore subject to
a) huge servicing costs
b) huge depreciation
c) huge initial purchase costs
so don't understate the cars costs.

CiB

I just went for fuel costs v additional food buying tbh. As soon as I had to fit a new DPF + luridly expensive fluid to go with it (~£800 bill) I was down anyway. Anyway the OCD level would be off the radar to go that trouble. I'll factor it in next year.

rolf_f

Wouldn't be too hard - you know your mileage so it's a case of just multiplying the miles by the rate. If your car isn't very new, maybe knock the rate down to 30p and see what you get.

DPF - dual panty flaps?

mtb-idle

how come you only managed 69 commutes? I did 148.

But it's not about the money is it? It's the fun and the fitness that you gain.

ToeKnee

CiB wrote:

69 commutes

40+ miles each way and that's not bad ... any less and it's a bit pants to be fair.

Anyone setting any targets for next year? Mine's 4,500 miles commuting.

CiB

MTB-Idle wrote:

how come you only managed 69 commutes? I did 148.

Can only do 2 per week now that t'wife has been found out to be good at what she does ('teaching of some description') and her cosy part-time hours & days have steadily increased leaving me to do the school run most days.

Most car costs are there anyway; depreciation is barely altered by me driving / not driving it to work, it's not an option to not have a car (tried that) so in the end it boils down to how much fuel it saves cycling in, offset v the additional costs. In the end, each bike commute = 1 bottle of nice red. It's good though and is why I do it, even if I am looking out now onto a steady drizzle and wet roads. Looks like a soaking is on the cards in half an hour when it's time to pack up.

DPF - scourge of modern diesel cars. Planned obsolescence / additional bill way beyond normal end-of-life maintenance.

optimisticbiker

I'm just as OCD... in fact not recording the ride is almost as bad as not riding in the first place!

But my savings against PT costs are more reasonable - over £1100 at £8 per commute (and rising - I didn't buy a season ticket when I used to commute by PT because I'm often not in the office and a season ticket only works if you're in the office 4.5 days out of 5 on average and I never use PT at weekends). In fact I've done more mileage on the bikes this year than I did in my car!

Target next year is 6500 miles (to include a L2P hopefully and some 100+ sportives)

suzyb

ToeKnee wrote:

CiB wrote:

69 commutes

40+ miles each way and that's not bad ... any less and it's a bit pants to be fair.

Anyone setting any targets for next year? Mine's 4,500 miles commuting.

40 mile each way commute :shock: That's further than I drive. How long does that take.

CiB

It's not, it's 20 EW but it looked good so I let the belief continue...



Happy Christmas all.

Aidy

I'm possibly even more OCD.

Everything bought for commuting goes in a spreadsheet, as does the number of days commuted.
Then average daily price of a weekly* season ticket is used to work out how much commuting costs/saves me.

This year, commuting bike "stuff" comes to £1370.83, and train fares come to £2686.05.
So I'm up £1315.22 for the year. For 211.5 days commuting (drove halfway to drop my car off for its MOT one day).

* Yes, I know longer periods are cheaper - but I never bought them that way. It's also not exactly a fair calculation, as if I work from home one day then that doesn't go towards my commuting days tally, but I'd still save on the price of the weekly ticket.

UndercoverElephant

I reckon I commuted about 225 days this year, naturally, to compare against PT, I would use the highest logical fare (peak time day return on the train, £7.80, plus two single bus tickets, £1.30 each) - meaning that I saved £2,340 last year.

I should buy a new bike with that.

gbsahne001

spent approximately £1k this year on maintenance, new frame, replacement clothes etc but according to my spreadsheet it would have cost me closer to £4k for driving, a net saving of £3k.

Fat-Boy-Roubaix

I wish I had not checked, two bikes, two shoes, summer clothing, winter clothing, tyres, tubes, lights and servicing not much change from 3k+ proper commuting 4000 @ Say .35 per mile £1330. Hopefully the next 12 months will give me 8k miles saving £2660 + this years from June £1330 = 4k and time for another Bike :-)

BUT the pleasure, even in horrible weather and the health benefits are quite literally priceless..

On a serious note maybe one pair padded shorts and onemore top and I do not need any more kit, nor bikes.

rolf_f

gbsahne wrote:

spent approximately £1k this year on maintenance, new frame, replacement clothes etc but according to my spreadsheet it would have cost me closer to £4k for driving, a net saving of £3k.

But how much of that 1k was actually, really needed? (ie rather than semi hobby purchase?). I get nowhere near that (probably 10% of the cost for half the mileage).

And the frame can be offset against however many years you expect the frame to last.

rolf_f

CiB wrote:

69 commutes (1, maybe 2 more to follow before NYE). Is that all? It ought to be a lot more.

Thanks for the filtered download function - exactly 400 commutes for the year. How anal of me!

optimisticbiker

Rolf F wrote:

CiB wrote:

69 commutes (1, maybe 2 more to follow before NYE). Is that all? It ought to be a lot more.

Thanks for the filtered download function - exactly 400 commutes for the year. How anal of me!

Ooohh hadn't seen that function

135 round-trip commutes totalling 4028 miles over 302 days averages 3.13 rides/week, but didnt commute in Jan or most of Feb.

Expect 2012 average should be nearer 4.x rides/week

CiB

Rolf F wrote:

CiB wrote:

69 commutes (1, maybe 2 more to follow before NYE). Is that all? It ought to be a lot more.

Thanks for the filtered download function - exactly 400 commutes for the year. How anal of me!

400 commutes in a 365 day year eh? Sounds like we're mixing up descriptions. My 69 commutes = 69 days when I've biked it, which = 138 commuting rides so far this year.

optimisticbiker

CiB wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

CiB wrote:

69 commutes (1, maybe 2 more to follow before NYE). Is that all? It ought to be a lot more.

Thanks for the filtered download function - exactly 400 commutes for the year. How anal of me!

400 commutes in a 365 day year eh? Sounds like we're mixing up descriptions. My 69 commutes = 69 days when I've biked it, which = 138 commuting rides so far this year.

To me a commute is a round trip to work and back... OK some (rare) days I've gone by bike but PT'd home and the next day PT'd in and ridden home... but I still pair the outward and back journeys as 1 commute, so my 135 commutes is in line with your 69!

cjcp

I don't calculate these things. If I don't calculate, I don't know. If I don't know, I can't tell big, fat fibs to Mrs CJ.

rolf_f

There is a particular kind of SCStats lowlife (eg, you know who you are Asprilla!) who post their return commute before they have actually done it! I know, hard to believe; these bally Terry Thomas types are scoundrels of the worst order and should be discouraged if not shot.

Note - a days commute consists of two separate rides. An outward commute might be as low as 6.5 miles (in my case), a return commute might be as high as 35 miles. They cannot be lumped

PS - Optimistic Biker, CiB - however you describe it, one a day or two, you've still both managed a pitifully low number of cycle commutes this year :twisted:

veronese68

I think my spending on my commuting bike is less than £100. I sold a motorbike so didn't have to tax or insure that. I'm well up on the year.
Unfortunately an irresistable offer on a nearly new mountain bike added a little to cycling costs and building the frankenbike up for my son added a fraction more.
But total spent on cycling stuff this year is still below £500 with 2 new to the household bikes.
I've saved a lot more than that, but haven't worked it out.
The EPO still thinks I spend a lot of money on cycling.
I'm the opposite of CJCP, I should have calculated.

optimisticbiker

Rolf F wrote:

There is a particular kind of SCStats lowlife (eg, you know who you are Asprilla!) who post their return commute before they have actually done it! I know, hard to believe; these bally Terry Thomas types are scoundrels of the worst order and should be discouraged if not shot.

Note - a days commute consists of two separate rides. An outward commute might be as low as 6.5 miles (in my case), a return commute might be as high as 35 miles. They cannot be lumped

PS - Optimistic Biker, CiB - however you describe it, one a day or two, you've still both managed a pitifully low number of cycle commutes this year :twisted:

Hmmm... 260 working days in the year, less bank holidays and hols and sickness is 220 effective days. I work at home approx 1 day/week = 176 commuting days, less business trips outside London, approx 1 per month @ 2days = 152 possible commutes... I managed to bike 88% of those.... I'm happy... maybe you need to get a life

gert_lush

Looks like i did 197 days commuting this year which was 3100 miles, so at the 30p a mile someone used earlier for the car thats a saving of £930 and I spend around £300 on replacement clothing and parts that had worn out, so i'm up £600 yippee
(for the record I got rained on 53 times so about 17.5% of the time...how interesting...not!)

UndercoverElephant

Rolf F wrote:

There is a particular kind of SCStats lowlife (eg, you know who you are Asprilla!) who post their return commute before they have actually done it! I know, hard to believe; these bally Terry Thomas types are scoundrels of the worst order and should be discouraged if not shot.

Note - a days commute consists of two separate rides. An outward commute might be as low as 6.5 miles (in my case), a return commute might be as high as 35 miles. They cannot be lumped

PS - Optimistic Biker, CiB - however you describe it, one a day or two, you've still both managed a pitifully low number of cycle commutes this year :twisted:

I disagree, my commute is 12.5 miles in and 12.5 miles out. It rarely differs, as such I generally pop a block 25 miles in each morning I commute. I did this 216 times last year. I'm chuffed with that.

rolf_f

UndercoverElephant wrote:

I disagree, my commute is 12.5 miles in and 12.5 miles out. It rarely differs, as such I generally pop a block 25 miles in each morning I commute. I did this 216 times last year. I'm chuffed with that.

Scurrilous - claiming miles you haven't yet done! What if you got completely flattened by a tram and the year finished with you one mile you hadn't done ahead of someone else eh? Scurrilous

216 commutes? You can barely have missed a day! I actually didn't miss any - the 20 day shortfall is down to working away from home but I reckon there are some trips on the folding bike to add.

Edit - I think another 6 trips that counts as so

406 commutes, 203 days. So about 17 days lost to overnights etc. Still sounds more than I'd expect.....

gbsahne001

Rolf F wrote:

But how much of that 1k was actually, really needed? (ie rather than semi hobby purchase?). I get nowhere near that (probably 10% of the cost for half the mileage).

And the frame can be offset against however many years you expect the frame to last.

I agree the Frame, forks, tape, cables, brakes etc could be offset and written off over the next 5 years, it probably came to £350 from memory (spreadsheet on a different PC).

I would think that from the remaining £650, about £500 is maintenance and the rest is upgrades e.g. switching from cantis to Vs on the commuter, replacing the rear mech etc.

Therefore my saving's even greater... now what can I spend it on?

Agent57

I think I more or less break even, just on fuel costs.

I work about 65 miles from home, which is 650 miles per week by car. So that'd be roughly £75 per week in diesel (assuming 55mpg and £1.40 per litre). A weekly train ticket costs me £70, so it's pretty much equivalent. Bike + train has some advantages over a private car though (such as being able to read on the journey); it also has some downsides, of course.

The biggest cost saving, however, is the fact that I don't have to buy a car.

The Rookie

I keep a spreadsheet, since I started commuting by bike in 2009 I have spent a total of £381.25 on the bikes (built one, used it for a bit with some improvemnets, then built a new one and split and sold off the first one) and parts (less what I sold on superceeded parts for) and commuted 2088.9 miles for an estimated saving on the cost of running the car (noting I make a small allowance as my wife then uses my car rather than hers which is dearer to run) of £643.13 so am up £261.88 but that is obviously improving quite quickly as the commuter is paid for and not costing much to run.

Simon