The Great Edinburgh Bike Experiment – March, April and May

I’m a bit behind with my Great Edinburgh Bike Experiment. The stress of the house move got in the way of regular updates and I’ve only now looked at all my data.  This is cool in hindsight, because any savings and my mileage will look more impressive…

The bike numbers from the last three months

• Total journeys: 103
• Total distance: 490 miles
• Total calories: 16,102 kcal
• Total climb: 15,644 feet

This means I cycled to the top of Mount Churchill (a badass volcano in Alaska) while commuting to work, grabbing bottles of milk and undertaking other quaxing activities.

Credit to Game McGimsey and the Alaska Volcano Observatory / U.S. Geological Survey for showing you where I cycled to the top of in the last three months.

I’m not gonna brag or anything, but as mountain climbing goes, I’m not too disappointed with that ascent. I also managed about 6 feet of descent. So I’ll need to get wheeling down it again over the next few months…

Bike expenditure in last three months

• I heard a weird squeak on the hybrid, so the bike shop guys gave it a wee service. £10 down.
• £47 – Bus fares in total. Dumb knees! These fares also included journeys I wouldn’t have taken by bike anyway, but let’s just leave it at that to make things easier…
• Total = £57.00

Public transport equivalent

• I substituted £162 worth of bus fares in March, April and May. So the £51 Ridacard would have been marginally more economical.
• Ridacard cost = £153

Car equivalent

• Monthly car running cost – £39.16
• Petrol cost for 490 miles – £47.83. Now, the journeys I’ve been doing are in the city, so I’m going to round it up to £55 to account for congestion. I think that’s being generous.
• Total running cost = £165.31

Gym equivalent

• Total cost – £91.50

Grand totals!

• Public transport (£153) + gym (£91.50) – expenditure (£57.00) = £187.50 savings
• Car (£165.31) + gym (£91.50) – expenditure (£57.00) = £199.81 savings

Year to date totals

• Bike vs Public Transport – £305 in pocket
• Bike vs Car – £331.63 in pocket

The first five months of the year have me up just over £330 on the car. Maybe by the end of 2015 I will be almost £800 better off in my highly unscientific experiment. I am being let down by my knees, which are eating into my costs via bus fares…

So far, I could buy a nice new telly with my savings, go on a last minute week-long holiday, eat 44kg of Dairy Milk (it’s 2 for £3 in Tesco) OR buy this Charge Plug…

Decisions, decisions… 😉