The Odometer on my bike ticked over to 50,000km today

Unknown Soldier

Lovely story.

Well done Conor and thanks for writing that.

losthorizon

I'm not into cycling really but that first post would encourage me to do it more regularly. Its just a pity my workplace isn't more near by.

Beasty

... and congratulations Conor on making Post of the Day

gannon

Very good post Conor. The wedding invitations was a great idea and lets hope we do another one in the next few years.

eeeee

That's all kinds of lovely.

Congratulations, and good luck with the next 50k!!

Conor20

I know it's been a long, long time since I started this thread. But this morning I hit another notable milestone. Today, the odometer on my bike ticked over 75,000km (46,500 miles).



Some updates since I started this thread 25,000km ago..

I changed jobs roughly two years ago and the commute jumped to 26km (16 miles) each way. Because this type of distance is something which most people would drive or use public transport to cover, and I must admit I wasn't sure if I could cycle 52km every day, it was a good opportunity to look into the costs of each and decide which option to take. There is no easy public transport covering the journey so I had a simple choice: buy a car and drive, or cycle and save that money. We moved house as part of the job change and my wife did need a car, and so that gave a way to know exactly what it would cost to buy and operate a car, and hence to work out how much I would save by cycling.

We looked to find the cheapest car to own and operate for my wife's car, and that turned out to be a second hand electric Nissan Leaf. We picked up the cheapest second hand Leaf we could find with the range we needed, which was a 2015 Leaf costing €14,950. I was able to observe the costs (depreciation, insurance, "Fuel" (electricity), maintenance) of that over the last two years (below) and it cost €448.78 a month to keep on the road. That's €448.78 * 12 = €5,385.36 a year, and €5,385.36 * 2 = €10,770.72 for two years. 11 grand!

Monthly Car costs:

• Monthly Payment / Deprecation: €247.92 per month
• Insurance: €152.26
• Electricity: 8kWh per day @ .14 8 * .14 = €1.12 per day * 30 = €33.60 per month
• Maintenance: Just tires as it's an electric car with no engine. €320 for a set of new tires. 360 / 24 = €15 per month
• Total: 247.92 + 152.26 + 33.60 + 15 = €448.78 per month
• €448.78 * 12 = €5,385.36 per year

I already had a bike so I was able to make the decision: was I willing to accept €448.78 a month, tax free, to ditch the car and cycle into work every day?
You can probably guess what I chose. I've been doing the commute for the best part of two years now, so I've saved €448.78 a month * 22 months = €9,873.16 on car costs so far. Because of tax on income, I'd need to get a raise of €7,970.33 a year to increase my income by €5,385.36.. A long cycle commute leaves lots of time to think about numbers!

About three years ago, I had bought an electric bike conversion kit from Dillinger which you could fit to an existing bike. It was one of their early models and while it worked well for a while, eventually, the contacts on the battery wore down and it stopped working. So the bulk of the commute above, I did on a fairly bog-standard commuter bike. However, four months ago, about half way through the winter, I decided I'd try out a newer version of the kit to see if it could take some time off of the commute. I bought Dillinger's newer conversion kit, a 250W electric front wheel with a battery that slots into the bike bottle holder, so you can fit it to most "normal" bikes. It appears that electric bike technology has come on a huge way in the last few years, and I've been really impressed. It's taken about 15 minutes off of the cycle each way, and admittedly, it makes cycling in the wind and hills significantly easier. It wasn't particularly cheap - €550 - but given it's about the cost of running a car for a single month, I didn't feel too bad. I'm glad I went for it. While I probably would have continued cycling regardless, I feel like an electric kit like this could genuinely enable anyone to commute 10-20km each way every day as a genuine alternative to a car. It also gave me a way to ferry two kids around by bike:



Since I started this thread in 2014, I initially made slower progress towards 100,000km than expected due to the arrival of two children, but since the move to a longer commute, I've been racking up quite a few miles. Working out how much I was saving by cycling each day (€20.40 every day!) keeps me sane on the days that the weather is bad, and on the days that the weather is good, it's a pleasure.

So another 25,000km on, still having fun!

Alek

What a great story! I hope you don't mind if I quote it here and there to advocate (e-) cycling over motorised commute? The numbers speak for themselves

Bigus

Well done , I admire what you're doing and keep it up ,also you saved serious money by going for an electric car., however What is the extra time involved in the commute cycling over driving ?.

If I was you, I'd also be more generous to my biking budget and buy one one of these

http://www.cyclesuperstore.ie/shop/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=131783

It would also be interesting to see how much Co2 your family has saved per annum .

Seweryn

Bigus wrote: »

What is the extra time involved in the commute cycling over driving ?.

I commute a very same distance and by driving I can save about 30 to 40 min per trip against the bike

Bigus wrote: »

It would also be interesting to see how much Co2 your family has saved per annum .

A lot :cool:

Manufacturing an electric car (or any car) takes massive amout of resources, so before you travel your first km in it it has already done more damage to the Environment that a single bike for the lifetime of the rider.

magicbastarder

Seweryn wrote: »

I commute a very same distance and by driving I can save about 30 to 40 min per trip against the bike

depends on the commute. for me, it's about an hour whether i cycle, drive*, or take PT, but cycling is by far the most consistent/predictable timewise. and that's also allowing for the shower at the end.

*caveat here is that i haven't driven to the office in many years; it's about half an hour in clear traffic, so my guess at an hour is based on normal rush hour traffic, with the average being pushed up by snarl-ups on the M50.

Seweryn

magicbastarder wrote: »

depends on the commute. for me, it's about an hour whether i cycle, drive*, or take PT, but cycling is by far the most consistent/predictable timewise. and that's also allowing for the shower at the end.

That is for sure. It very much depends on the roads you commute on (especially when driving. For cycling it makes little to no difference). My commute time by bike or car is normally +/- 5 min one way or the other.

magicbastarder wrote: »

*caveat here is that i haven't driven to the office in many years; it's about half an hour in clear traffic, so my guess at an hour is based on normal rush hour traffic, with the average being pushed up by snarl-ups on the M50.

Ah... the "rush hour". It is the hour when things barely move .

Mickiemcfist

Very cool thread! I was mulling over the idea of a house purchase which would involve a bike commute from Greystones to Dublin city centre & this has renewed my confidence in the idea.

Utter Consternation

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

Very cool thread! I was mulling over the idea of a house purchase which would involve a bike commute from Greystones to Dublin city centre & this has renewed my confidence in the idea.

The electric bike, as someone has suggested elsewhere, would make a big difference for that commute.

Conor20

Bigus wrote: »

Well done, I admire what you're doing and keep it up, also you saved serious money by going for an electric car. However what is the extra time involved in the commute cycling over driving?

It takes about the same time on average to cycle vs drive due to traffic on the roads. The biggest difference is the consistancy of cycling over driving. Because of the big variability of driving (sometimes it would take 40 minutes by car, sometimes 1.5 hours - you would never know) I would need to leave lots of extra time to ensure I'm on time for work. On a bike, I know exactly what time I'll arrive so I don't need to leave a big buffer just in case there's a crash on the road, etc. The electric bike took about 15-20 minutes off the cycle time, and also when I arrived I was able to jump straight into other things like looking after kids, so it was a big gain.

Bigus wrote: »

It would also be interesting to see how much Co2 your family has saved per annum .

This is pretty straight forward to calculate. Cycling vs car for example, I calculated (here) saved 724.2kg CO2 per year (I cycled 3,640km that year, which in a petrol car which emits 200g CO2/km would be 728kg CO2). Charging the battery in the bike for those 3,640km from the Irish grid released 3.8kg CO2, so cycling instead of driving prevented 724.2kg CO2 being released into the atmosphere. I need to do an all up calculation for our family to know the full number to date, but we've done a few things thus far (see those here if you're interested) -

1. Switched to cycling over driving (Bike to Work scheme to save 50%)
2. Swithing our lights to LEDs - this one pays for itself in about ten minutes
3. Insulate the house really well (SEAI grant for this)
4. Switching to an electric car
5. Adding Solar panels (SEAI Grant for this)
6. and we hope soon to switch our house's heating to a heat pump (SEAI grant for this) so we can heat it electrically and no longer have any gas / oil bills.

Mickiemcfist wrote: »

Very cool thread! I was mulling over the idea of a house purchase which would involve a bike commute from Greystones to Dublin city centre & this has renewed my confidence in the idea.

Definitely go for it. With an electric bike, it'd be no problem at all. I found that after a few weeks of the longer cycle commute, I started having more and more energy throughout the day so there's probably some beneficial fitness and metabolism effects from cycling a decent distance every day that you can take advantage of.

RenewalDiary

The financing side is insightful. Thank you.

Do you have anyone you'd recommend for bike insurance?

Conor20

RenewalDiary wrote: »

The financing side is insightful. Thank you.
Do you have anyone you'd recommend for bike insurance?

No problem, thanks.

For insurance - I'm not if you mean insurance for yourself or your bikes. If you're talking about your bikes, add them explicitly to your home insurance. For yourself while you're cycling, if you join Cycling Ireland, it includes insurance for you in accidents, both for you and any third party involved in an accident. Check out http://www.cyclingireland.ie/page/membership/insurance :

Membership of Cycling Ireland provides the following Insurance cover.

1: Personal Accident
This cover again applies to when you are training, competing or officiating in an approved activities of Cycling Ireland. Medical expenses are covered to a maximum of €2,500 each claim which includes dental expenses up to €2,000. Excess of €250 applies to medical and dental claims. There is also an inner limit of €250 for physiotherapy expenses. Loss of earnings is covered for a maximum of €150 per week for a maximum of 13 weeks with the first week not being covered.

2: Public Liability (“Third Party”)
Covers you for any third party liability or property damage for which you are held legally liable. (a third party is a person not accredited with membership of Cycling Ireland) when you are training, competing or officiating in an approved Cycling Ireland activity. (a €500 excess applies to each claim, to be paid by claimant). There is no cover in respect of any Injury or Damage suffered by one participant caused by another participant during training activities.

There is an indemnity limit of €7.5 million per incident.

delynet

Just spotted this discussion. Great opening post and nice to read the updates since.

I put something similar together a while back, my own journey to get to 50,000.

https://www.dely.net/cycling-blog/buying-a-bicycle-the-first-50000km/

mfceiling

delynet wrote: »

Just spotted this discussion. Great opening post and nice to read the updates since.

I put something similar together a while back, my own journey to get to 50,000.

https://www.dely.net/cycling-blog/buying-a-bicycle-the-first-50000km/

Great read!!

SomeFool

Whats the odometer at today?

Conor20

SomeFool wrote: »

Whats the odometer at today?

It ticked over 80,000km about a month ago. 80,950km today. And the vast majority of those kms on a hybrid bike I bought second hand for €240 on Adverts. It's 12 years now and so it's saved about €65,124 in car expenses. I can only imagine how much in future health costs it's saved. At least that much again I assume. Maintenance on the bike has continued to be very little - new brake pads twice a year and new tires every 18-24 months, about €100 a year. I did also spend about €1,000 on an electric bike a few years ago, and while I don't use it that often, it has proven to be incredibly useful for shopping, getting kids around and for travel to social or work events where I want/need to wear more formal clothes.

The projection in my initial post that I would hit 100,000km by July 2020 turned out to be overly optimistic as it was based on the millage I was wracking up with daily commutes plus a lot of weekend cycling. Nevertheless, there have been plenty of adventures since that initial post - I moved country for 18 months, and took the bike with me. For those 18 months, I was doing a daily commute of 26km each way on the bike, so 52km a day. I certainly got the "oh god.. not this 26km cycle" feeling on winter mornings when it was dark and raining but once I got going, I always enjoyed it a lot. In some ways I enjoyed these cycles to work because they were hard. When you arrive at work having cycled in the wind and the rain, even just sitting at a desk feels good! I try to create this contrast in my life - experience (very mild) hardship to appreciate comfort.

So a little while to go before I get to 100,000km but I'll get there!