Cycling makes me richer

mr_eddy

So we all know cycling is good for you both physically and fiscally but I did the maths for my commute and these are the numbers:

Car = £2.20 a day in fuel / 1 hour travel time TOTAL £44 a month plus cost of insurance/tax/tyres etc

Bus = £3.60 a day in ticket costs / 2 hour travel time TOTAL £72 a month plus higher % of getting stabbed / robbed

Bike = £0.0 a day in travel costs / 40 min travel time / Maybe £5 a month on a tube

I have worked for my company for 4 years, by my calculations if I bought a £2k bike when I started I would still be in profit compared to just the cost of bus tickets now,

By this logic I can convince myself its ok to buy another bike next month !

What are your numbers ?

MountainMonster

You are failing to forget that if you are going to be riding the bus more than twice a week it is much cheaper to buy a monthly or weekly pass. Here in Cambridge a weekly pass puts you around 2.00 a day if you ride it 7 days a week.

But, bikes are MUCH better

alihisgreat

You forgot to add the cost of fuelling yourself when you cycle.

AchillesLeftKnee

As one who works from home 98% of the time and therefore has a commute of somewhere in the region of 15 metres, I don't really have any commute costs.

As far as other transport costs work out, I've no journeys I could usefully use the bike for because they either require showing up dressed for business, are to long to be practical, involve carrying to much stuff to be practical, or can be done on foot with ease.

Cycling makes me worse off by, erm, the amount I spend on it.

mr_eddy

Bus pass is no good for me, where I work means you have 2 competing bus companies so in answer to MountainMaster £3.60 a day is as cheap as you can get on the bus unless you go half way and walk the last 2.5 miles

mr_eddy

I admit that on long rides nutrition and extra food comes into it but for 5.5 miles each way on a road bike with no hills really we are only talking an extra piece of toast so call it 20p extra a day

VTech

If I had to ride to work the only one making money would be the wife as I die slowly at the side of the road

To be fair though, your post is a great one, I know several members of this forum who cycle to work, I follow a few on strava and they must be saving cash and staying fit. I think its great for people who do this and I would happily pay my staff wear and tear or mileage costs for getting too and from the office.

estampida

the P & L would need real life costings that have not taken place, and I assume you have taken car servicing into the costs of the car, but factors would include

crash / injury / illness - might be enough not to cycle but still have to be in work, the transport cost to be factored in
bike damage - that year you keep finding glass, wheels breaking or start buying shimano chains....
maybe 1 or 2 pairs of glasses trashed
clothing for all seasons, for 4 years continuous use
wear and tear replacement of consumable parts

and more gruesome factors

you also would increase your pension payments as the fitness will extend your life, which you need to pay for
you would decrease your likely age of mortality by cycling on roads, with pollution and the risk of twit and run episodes

I try to bike whenever I leave the house so I probably save £300 a year or maybe a little more (same cost as the missus car insurance so it balances out, as I don't have a spare £300 at the mo...)

daviesee

I had already worked out that I would break even by the turn of this year, after 1 1/2 years.
Factor in a bad winter and repairs then I am probably about breaking even around now.
I could buy a new bike but I can't think of anything fit for purpose that would be much better. :P

Re food. From my experience of using PT when the weather is bad I either eat fuel or I comfort eat anyway. 6+ miles doesn't generate much hunger.

daviesee

estampida wrote:

..you also would increase your pension payments as the fitness will extend your life, which you need to pay for....

How would the pension company allow for this? Surely we gain at the expense of couch potatoes pegging out early?
Just asking.

mrfpb

I bought a bike when I was sharing our only car with the wife and going to work on the bus some days. The bike cost 100 days bus fare which equated to less than a years cycling. The clothes, helmet, lock and other add-ons cost another 100 days bus fare. However the alternative to the bike was a second car, which I couldn't afford.

As I was a social worker at the time, I visited people round the city by bike and the 20p/mile allowance covered a decent service twice a year.

hasbeen

I ride to and from work and have done this in every job I've had for the past 20 years. Sometimes I've taken the car but I reckon 75%+ of the time I've commuted.
It hasn't made me richer as I've spent the money which would have otherwise gone on the car but it has meant that with a wife and two children we easily manage with just one car. So I haven't had to go to the expense of running two cars.
Once it becomes a habit, it's hard to break tbh and I naturally look at ways to achieve the commute by bike rather than thinking "must go by car".
If I had to commute over 16 miles each way or if my job involved a lot of car driving (sales based for instance) I'd more than likely have a car but with pool cars and jobs which have been based 99% within the building(s) where I work I've never needed a car for commuting purposes.
What does get me are people who live circa 2miles from their offices and won't consider anything other than a car to get to work, yet complain about the volume of traffic on the road and an inability to lose weight.....

Phil Fouracre

C'mon, now it's not just a financial calculation - forget richer or poorer, it just makes you so so superior, worth every penny as far as I'm concerned.

Mikey23

And of course if you have a bike and a free bus pass :-)

Wirral_paul

I'm not even going to try and work out my numbers - but safe to say that if i did, i'd be far richer by not having a bike (or two)

pinno

mr_eddy wrote:

So we all know...lotsofwaffle...
...I can convince myself its ok to buy another bike next month !

FFS - nobody needs an excuse to buy another friggin bicycle.
Just buy the new bike will ya and stop muckin' aroun'.

Oh...and when you do, send us pics so we can stare down our noses at it (or dribble) as we please. Ta.

On the OP. I have to take staff to and from work. I have the following options:
1. Say to them 'Walk you bast4rds' which won't be very nice as they are mostly voluntary and have mental health problems, learning difficulties, dislexia...etc etc
2. Buy a bike with a sidecar that holds 2 to 3 fully grown overweight adults on anti-depressants, which means i'll be dead by christmas and I don't want to please seanocon and Mountainmonster, so thats not going to happen.
3. Tell them to buy their own bicycles which won't happen 'cos they are mostly all unemployed and skint.
4. Tell them to get up to 3 buses (its rural here) to work which means that they will be late every f*cking day.

I would love to cycle to work.

dee4life2005

I live 18 miles from work, with the shortest safer cycling route being 20miles. I have a Focus ST which gets about 24mpg on average, i've worked it out and by cycling 3 days a week i save myself about 1.5 tanks of fuel so thats about £100 each month. Okay, by the time i factor in spare tubes, tires, chains cassettes etc. it's probably more like £80 a month saved. And thats only by cycling 3 out of the five days. I've been in this job for 11years now and i only started commuting in the last 12 months. I ciuld have saved myself about 8k by now ... Or more likely bought a few more bikes, lol.

CiB

I did a spreadsheet a couple of years ago tracking all commuting related bike costs for my 20-mile / 2 days per week (all I can do for various reasons) and offsetting them against the cost of fuel and current MPG, as all those numbers are reasonably accurate and readily to hand. Over the full year I was up by about £350, then blew that saving and a lot more by fitting Di2 to the bike.

It's not about the money. What's better? An account where there's a few quid more sitting there waiting to be spent on 'something important', or riding to work with a sense of joy & freedom? No contest. It's only money when all's said & done.

markhewitt1978

Car at 65MPG 70mile round trip = £6.61 per day = £145/monthly
Train £10.50 round trip per day - requires leaving home 90 minutes earlier and getting back 2 hours later
Bike, 35 miles each way?! Hmm..

markhewitt1978

dee4life2005 wrote:

I have a Focus ST which gets about 24mpg on average,.

Unless you have a really heavy right foot and accelerate away to 100mph at every traffic light, 24mpg?

dee4life2005

markhewitt1978 wrote:

dee4life2005 wrote:

I have a Focus ST which gets about 24mpg on average,.

Unless you have a really heavy right foot and accelerate away to 100mph at every traffic light, 24mpg?

The Focus ST has a 2.5 litre turbo petrol engine, and mine has the Mountune performance upgrade fitted taking the car from the standard 225bhp to 256 bhp - that has something to do with it If I have the desire to drive it like I stole it (while still driving within speed limits) then I have seen 18 mpg before ... so 24 is taking it easy. If I really make an effort and drive like my gran then I can get about 26mpg, but driving it like that is sooo boring.

markhewitt1978

dee4life2005 wrote:

The Focus ST has a 2.5 litre turbo petrol engine, and mine has the Mountune performance upgrade fitted taking the car from the standard 225bhp to 256 bhp - that has something to do with it If I have the desire to drive it like I stole it (while still driving within speed limits) then I have seen 18 mpg before ... so 24 is taking it easy. If I really make an effort and drive like my gran then I can get about 26mpg, but driving it like that is sooo boring.

wow, I never knew they used that much fuel. I have a 1.6TDCi Fiesta, if I'm careful driving the 35 miles to work I can get 75MPG (I did this morning), if I can be bothered pumping the tyres up and don't have much fuel in the tank I can get to 80MPG.

dee4life2005

yeah, they are a bit thirsty - but the noise from the 5-pot and the occasional pops from the exhaust are worth it :-)

If I'm doing a long motorway journey I can, if I really concentrate, get it above 30mpg. Have thought about trading it in for something a bit more sensible. Quite like the TDCi's - the folks have a TDCi Fiesta.

Pross

For me:-

Car - £5 per day fuel no parking costs and no running costs as it's a company car takes about 45 minutes on a reasonable day but can be up to an hour.
Bus - £3.50 per day (cheaper with weekly or monthly passes but I regularly work away from the office) journey time 90 minutes going in but have to wait for a connecting bus coming back so about 1 hour 45, buses often running late on the return trip.
Train - £5.20 plus either £3.00 for the bus, a lift to the station or a 5 mile bike ride takes about an hour plus 15 minute walk to office.
Bike - basically free and takes about an hour.

Ideally I would ride 3 days per week, I have done 5 days per week but get stale. But as my job involves travelling to various sites I usually only manage once or twice per week.

jonomc4

I save £8 every day I cycle into work. I do it mostly because he keeps me fit and often I don't have time a weekends for a couple of long rides.

But whatever money I save I spend on new stuff (plus the extra £100 or so). Therefore absolutely no cash saving and I don't care.

VTech

I've just bought my bike to work with me and they wanted to charge me £200 !

To be fair I'm taking it on a business trip but still, way costly. In the end and due to the fact it is a bike (not sure what difference that makes) they have let me carry it through for free.
So, no charge and on my way

estampida

daviesee wrote:

estampida wrote:

..you also would increase your pension payments as the fitness will extend your life, which you need to pay for....

How would the pension company allow for this? Surely we gain at the expense of couch potatoes pegging out early?
Just asking.

how are the payments worked out?, well you tell them / fill in forms

they then do back checks on all your previous insurance and mortgage applications and so on to make sure the calculation of premium is going to generate profit (its not a charity)

for example- if your medical records state you were a smoker (say between 18 and 25) and stopped, you premium will still be higher, even 30 years later because on the file it said you smoked, this risk has a value and they apply it to your premium.

if you said " i'm not a smoker" and then developed a smoker illness and they could prove it, they will try and cancel... or at least only give minimum payout as you had lied on application (fraud), and you give them permission to check your medical records on application so any conversation with GP will be traceable

all these things will push up payments for more profit

Pross

estampida wrote:

daviesee wrote:

estampida wrote:

..you also would increase your pension payments as the fitness will extend your life, which you need to pay for....

How would the pension company allow for this? Surely we gain at the expense of couch potatoes pegging out early?
Just asking.

how are the payments worked out?, well you tell them / fill in forms

they then do back checks on all your previous insurance and mortgage applications and so on to make sure the calculation of premium is going to generate profit (its not a charity)

for example- if your medical records state you were a smoker (say between 18 and 25) and stopped, you premium will still be higher, even 30 years later because on the file it said you smoked, this risk has a value and they apply it to your premium.

if you said " i'm not a smoker" and then developed a smoker illness and they could prove it, they will try and cancel... or at least only give minimum payout as you had lied on application (fraud), and you give them permission to check your medical records on application so any conversation with GP will be traceable

all these things will push up payments for more profit

What has any of that got to do with pension payments? :? I can see that an annuity might cost more if they thought you were super healthy and they would be paying out for longer but I'm not sure how they could check that you were a cyclist.

Wheelspinner

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

As one who works from home 98% of the time and therefore has a commute of somewhere in the region of 15 metres, I don't really have any commute costs...

Yes yes, but is there a Strava segment for your commute, and do you own the KOM for it?? :P

AchillesLeftKnee

Wheelspinner wrote:

AchillesLeftKnee wrote:

As one who works from home 98% of the time and therefore has a commute of somewhere in the region of 15 metres, I don't really have any commute costs...

Yes yes, but is there a Strava segment for your commute, and do you own the KOM for it?? :P

Ah, that'll explain all the freestyle BMXers who keep falling down the stairs. I couldn't see the segment as it was in my privacy zone.