So very true. When I lived 60 minutes from work and this would happen, it was a freaking nightmare. If I was lucky, someone else would be on call, but if I wasn't, it meant a 2 hour round trip to fix what usually ended up being an unplugged cable of some sort. Sometimes it just needed a power cycle. -sigh-
... That wasn't the article? I wonder if the article is as insightful?
"And it also doesn’t count as using up your personal time because it is adding something that nobody except Olympic athletes is doing enough of anyway – exercise. You can take your 10 minute bike ride directly out of time you would have otherwise spent in the gym, or waiting in the doctor’s office for prescription medication."
I was wondering how he managed to eliminate that from his calculations. He didn't, of course. Some of us don't do either of the alternatives, so this really would be stealing the time from their day.
And 10 minutes? 5 minutes each way? I'm pretty sure that's all but impossible in most major cities.
And some of those car costs don't disappear when the commute does. You still have to -have- one to go shopping, on trips, and other errands around town.
And so you get to work after your 20 minute bike ride, and what do you do? Why, you go shower, of course! You were just biking for 20 minutes! Nobody wants to smell you. That takes more time from your down... Don't forget the shower when you get home, too! ... Your company doesn't have a shower? Good luck with that!
And danger! When you've got a ton of steel wrapped around you, you don't think much of the danger of the open road. But when the only thing keeping your brain away from the pavement is a little foam hat, the world is quite a bit scarier... Even if the drivers are playing nice!
Oh, lunch time. My favorite time, I'll just go get... Oh wait. I biked in today. I can't go very far... Guess I'm eating that bag lunch after all.
I choose my apartments for their proximity to work. And I love having a short commute... But even when I -could- bike, I rarely did. There were just too many problems with it.
There are a lot of problems with driving too: parking, traffic jams, cost, etc, but you are conditioned to take those for granted.
As a full-time bicycle commuter I have to say that your complaints are more minor inconveniences than serious problems. Do I have to shower after biking 9 miles to work? No, a change of clothes is sufficient. Am I limited to where I can go to lunch? Not compared to my colleagues who mostly walk to lunch, I can easily cover a mile radius of restaurants, and I can do it faster than anyone who opts to drive because of traffic and parking.
Granted if you have to ride open highway or wear a suit to your job, then the downsides become much stronger, but I naturally factor those into my living choices. I would never live in a distant suburb or work an an extremely isolated office park.
The point of all this is simply that I don't view bicycle commuting as some big sacrifice that I make for abstract reasons. I save money and I am more productive at work.
Then it works for you. Congrats! I really enjoyed it whenever it worked for me.
But most of the time it did not.
And no, I'm not too conditioned to take the driving problems for granted. I really, really, really hate them. I go to great lengths to avoid them. But my solution to them wasn't a bike: It was living somewhere that didn't have them.
There's no traffic to or from work. There no problem parking, as everywhere near my work and home has free, open parking lots. There isn't much cost, because I don't drive far. (Remember that I need the car for shopping and errands anyhow, so that cost is sunk. It's also well-kept, low-mileage and cheap.)
So in trying to refute me, you haven't proven me wrong. I was refuting the article, and proving that every situation is different. You came along and proved the exact same thing.
> But the author's examples and 'calculations' are just this side of garbage.
You spend one third to one fourth of your life sleeping. Just idling away time. Wait - a 10 minute shower everyday as well? And 10 minutes for breakfast? And a 30 minute lunch? You're wasting a lot of time. Better get your productivity a notch up.
Why? Because you find it irritating that he finds it irritating that some people spend more time cutting others down than trying to improve themselves?
The majority of comments on this post are of the form "his analysis is wrong, because it doesn't take into account factors x, y, and z". That's great --- we're having a civil discussion about the merits of his argument.
Linking to his blog post in this way is tantamount to implying that the commenters on this thread are "complainypants", which I find quite rude. If that wasn't his intention, then he certainly could have done a much better job communicating it.
The post he was responding too wasn't any kind of civil or even logical discussion. It just said his examples and analysis were borderline garbage with no justification.
Which is a fair point. I actually had originally drafted a much longer reply which included additional problems with the figures and comparisons [1].
But after about 10 minutes I realized that the author wasn't making a financial argument from the numbers, he was making an emotional argument with hand-waved numbers for garnish. And that, despite my interest in the issue and agreement with his conclusion, it simply wasn't worth that kind of time.
[1] e.g. $200/20,000 miles for car costs beyond oil/gas/tires is laughably low; ignoring parking/toll costs in the no-commute/used-car case; considering lost time in the commuting case but not lost-personal time in the no-commute case; assuming financing in the commuting case and savings for a used car in the no-commute case; ... generally just considering worst-case for the commuting case and best-case for the no-commute case in almost all things
So very true. When I lived 60 minutes from work and this would happen, it was a freaking nightmare. If I was lucky, someone else would be on call, but if I wasn't, it meant a 2 hour round trip to fix what usually ended up being an unplugged cable of some sort. Sometimes it just needed a power cycle. -sigh-
... That wasn't the article? I wonder if the article is as insightful?