• Fafa@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Also the extra exercise will prolong your life and you’ll have to pay even more.

    • hanke@feddit.nu
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      5 days ago

      You need food regardless if you bike or drive. Maybe just a little more if you are in good trim and bike a lot. Still cheaper than gas for a car though.

    • Anivia@feddit.org
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      5 days ago

      Yeah, ebikes are significantly more economical and ecological. The human body is very inefficient at converting calories into kinetic energy, and producing 1kcal of food has a much worse CO2 output than even burning 1kcal worth of coal. Even if you follow a vegan diet

      • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        The human body will burn calories pretty much either way, and if you let your body adjust to daily riding your resting energy use will go down. If you want to be healthy you need exercise either way. Given all that you can consider the energy required to ride a bicycle for a medium distance daily to be virtually free.

        • Anivia@feddit.org
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          4 days ago

          if you let your body adjust to daily riding your resting energy use will go down

          No, that’s just a lie. The only way you’re gonna significantly reduce your BMR from daily bike riding is if you were a fatty and lost weight due to it, but a diet would accomplish the same job. If an untrained person starts commuting daily with their bike the exact opposite will happen, they will grow more muscles in their calves and quads, which will significantly increase the amount of calories they passively burn, and that’s on top of the energy you burn while riding the bicycle.

          You don’t need to make up bullshit to justify commuting with a bicycle, it will absolutely increase the amount of calories you will need to eat, but that’s a low price to pay for the money you save not commuting with a car, let alone the health benefits

          • balsoft@lemmy.ml
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            4 days ago

            You are right, I was working with outdated info. Just last year there was a study that showed the body doesn’t compensate metabolically for the exercise and the added calorie burn is not offset by conservation elsewhere. I can’t find the source of my misconception, but I guess it was widespread enough that they ran a study to disprove it.

    • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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      5 days ago

      One of my friends did a personal study on his costs at uni and found it was more cost effective to drive his car (this was in the early 2000’s) than it was to ride his bike to uni everyday than buy the food required to fuel the 50km round trip.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Hope he wasn’t majoring in anything like math or biology.

        • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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          5 days ago

          Well he certainly wasn’t majoring in wilful ignorance so that probably works in his favour.

      • needanke@feddit.orgM
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        5 days ago

        Wbat food did he use for that math? Because I doubt it would have hold up if he only used rice/beans/noodles/etc. To fuel his bike ride.

        • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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          5 days ago

          He tracked his food costs and fuel costs for a few months, noted when he drove and when he cycled and then correlated total costs with transportation mode. I have no idea how he was sourcing his food or what he was eating.

        • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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          4 days ago

          No it was the increase in petrol cost was less when he drove than his increase in food cost when he rode, he ate fine when he drove

      • Damage@feddit.it
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        5 days ago

        25km each way is, best case scenario, 1h per trip, in that case if public transport is not an option, yeah, I’d take the car

        • Lodespawn@aussie.zone
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          5 days ago

          I think public transport at the time was a real screw around for him because his area was poorly serviced and the nearest train station was super dodgy

          • Damage@feddit.it
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            5 days ago

            Yeah I live in a city with decent public transportation, but unfortunately my neighborhood is the one that’s poorly serviced, it’d take me two hours and multiple changes to get to work, it takes me 35 minutes by car and 20 by motorbike.
            Of course I take the latter as often as possible, it’s just better, even on fuel consumption.

            I’d like to bicycle to work like I did to my previous job, but here it’s just not an option, it’d take over one hour, I’d get there drenched in sweat, and risk my life multiple times.

  • Trebuchet@europe.pub
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    5 days ago

    If you’re on mastodon and like dad jokes, puns and thai recipes, Natasha is a good follow

    • NottaLottaOcelot@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      You’re making perfection the enemy of good. Nobody said bikes themselves were free - everything requires some maintenance and parts.

      And if we are comparing bike tires to car tires, they are still a lower volume of petroleum based rubber, and cheaper (especially given that you need two rather than four). A new bike tire is generally anywhere between $50-100, so that’s $100-200 to change the pair you are riding. And new car tires are about $150-250 depending on brand and size, so that’s $600-$1000.

      • Kaligalis@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Bicycles have less mass than a car and therefore need less fossil fuel for their tires. Bicycles are objectively cheaper to buy, maintain, and run than a car, even if you go for the average expensive bicycle and the average cheap car. There just is no way to make the car come out on top when it’s about costs.

      • meekah@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 days ago

        It’s definitely possible to spend a lot on your bicycle but it is almost certainly cheaper than using and maintaining a car

          • dermanus@lemmy.ca
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            4 days ago

            In cities bikes are often faster than cars. They don’t get stuck in traffic and you don’t have to worry about parking. On longer distances this goes away, but short urban trips are no brainers.

            • Damage@feddit.it
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              4 days ago

              Depends on the city. And the definition of city.
              My city used to be a “bicycle city” before it was cool, but nowadays cars have taken over the roads and the bike infrastructure that’s been created sucks, when I worked just 6km from home, car was faster even in rush hour traffic. Now work is outside the city and the bike is simply too impractical, it takes too much time and it’s dangerous.
              I have fond memories of working and living in the country side and going to work on my MTB through tree plantations, but alas, that’s in the past.

        • Tomassci@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          Even the higher-price mid-range bikes are way cheaper than the cheapest cars, and there’s a lot on the bike that you can just do yourself instead of relying on a mechanic, most parts are cheaper as well, lots of bikes allow more personalization…

          Bikes are the paragon of freedom Anericans think cars are.