Mythbusters: Is a bike greener than a car?

[GRU]

So we can see that cars/truck have better emissions but the question should be:
If i use a bike for a summer and travel 10000 miles. I would use 200 gallons of fuel (at 50mpg) would the bike polute more than if i used that Ford Raptor on the same 10000 miles and wasted 666 gallons of fuel (at 15 mpg)

[user removed]

I found my gloves on the road yesterday, a gust of wind blew the trunk open on the Harley in front of me. Tried to catch him and let him know, but after a mile, I turned around and went back and picked them up. Head ski gloves, about $35 on the web.

Free and brand new .

regards
Mech

[ProDarwin]

Originally Posted by GRU

You're talking about regular maintenance on your bike. How about your car, it doesn't cost to maintain?
I've had bikes for 10 years and i could easily get 10000 miles on a set of tires, unless you're buying soft racing tires.
Gloves every 10k miles? c'mon now

10-15k miles on a set of mediocre tires on a bike. Even "sticky" street tires on a car last ~20k. All seasons usually in the 40-60k range, and pretty easy to find stuff that goes 80k. Aggressive brake pads on my car again last many times the life of motorcycle pads - and they cost about the same amount. My car doesn't have any solid lifters to inspect an shim at 6000mile intervals. I don't have to lube the chain, etc.

Point is, many things that are common maintenance on a bike don't exist on a car. For the rest, the maintenance intervals are WAY further apart than they are on a bike. Look at how many cars you can buy new that will go more than 50k miles while only needing a couple of oil changes and an air filter. Even at 100k you only add in spark plugs, brakes, and tires. By the time you reach this point with many bikes, you are looking at new rings, bearings, or a complete rebuild.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

I've never had a bike rust out and have to be scrapped.

Bike tires contain far less materials than car tires, in average sizes.

Since I don't have a crotch rocket, my bikes' tire life isn't that dismal.

How many miles do you get out of a set? Sure, four tire on my cat at ~22lbs each is ~90lbs, but they'll also do ~100k miles, and I've never heard of people routinely getting 30+k miles out of two 15lb motorcycle tires. 10-15k average seems to be what the longer lasting tires are at, which is still two to three times the rubber a car uses. Crotch rockets are even worse.

[sendler]

How did we end up talking about tires? A minimal concern next to thousands of gallons of gas and CO2. An 80mpg bike is much greener than a 40mpg car. Get one and start riding it to replace the use of your car whenever possible. And, fuel efficiency and motorcycles are two words that have only recently been considered together outside of India and Southeast Asia where the average bike gets 120mpg at 35mph and sells for $1600. Bike companies could do much better if they thought anyone wanted it. Honda could re wrap the CBR250R with a recumbent seating position and aero body work to sell a 100mpg all weather (above freezing) highway commuter with a trunk for $6000 if they thought anyone would buy it. Vote for it with your wallet. Buy a CBR250R. Ride it everywhere, all the time. A rolling billboard toward sustainability. And spread the word that we want even better fuel economy from better bodywork on two and three wheelers and maybe someday one of the big companies will sell one affordably. RIP Aptera. Their styling would have been a quantum leap forward.
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ps. car tires last for 35,000 miles as a high average. I work at a car dealership.
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Originally Posted by roflwaffle

How many miles do you get out of a set? Sure, four tire on my cat at ~22lbs each is ~90lbs, but they'll also do ~100k miles, and I've never heard of people routinely getting 30+k miles out of two 15lb motorcycle tires. 10-15k average seems to be what the longer lasting tires are at, which is still two to three times the rubber a car uses. Crotch rockets are even worse.

[roflwaffle]

The tire talk started because of the talk about the difference in embodied energy. Initially it's pretty big, but as the miles rack up and a motorcycle goes through more tires the gap closes. An 80mpg bike does have half the carbon emissions of a 40mpg car, and it also tends to have similar or greater emissions aside from carbon.

On the subject of tires, I can see a dealership cutting corners and going with el cheapo tires, but plenty of tires in the U.S. come with 80k to 100k mile treadlife warranties and will last for that long, or less if the owners abuse them. I don't see any bike tires with 30k lifespans.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

On the subject of tires, I can see a dealership cutting corners and going with el cheapo tires, but plenty of tires in the U.S. come with 80k to 100k mile treadlife warranties and will last for that long

Sorry. This is not the case at all. You are getting hooked in by the treadwear adds. The tire companies are banking on the fact that you will loose the receipt or forget. 35,000 miles is tops on all kinds of cars. OEM tires and replacements. SUV's get 25,000. I see thousands of cars come through my shop per year for 28 years.
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Anyway it takes 28 gallons of oil to make 4 tires that will be used to burn 875 gallons of gas in a car to go 35,000 miles. 56 gallons (or less since they are half the size) to make 8 tires ( I won't use even 3 in the front but whatever) to burn 440 gallons of gas to cover 35,000 miles on the bike. The bike still wins by a factor of 2. Bringing tires into this discussion is a complete non issue.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by sendler

An 80mpg bike is much greener than a 40mpg car.

Well, sure :-) But where do you find an 80 mpg bike? (I mean an actual bike that you wouldn't be afraid to take on the interstate, not a Vespa-like scooter.) I've had a number of bikes over the years, from a 350cc Honda back in the '70s to the most recent 850cc Suzuki. As far as I can remember, none got much better than 50 mpg. On the other hand, I'm now driving a car that gets over 70 mpg.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by sendler

Sorry. This is not the case at all. You are getting hooked in by the treadwear adds. The tire companies are banking on the fact that you will loose the receipt or forget. 35,000 miles is tops on all kinds of cars.

Wrong. The rear tires on my Insight are at close to 60K miles, and look nearly new. (I replaced the old ones, which may or may not have been original, at around 90K.) 35K is about what I get on the fronts, though.

[Frank Lee]

In my experience the bulk of bikes get in the 50 mpg range. But James, you are aware that getting better fe in your car than on your bike falls into the exception-to-the-rule category?

Re: tires: I don't recall putting on/getting a bike with new tires and wearing them out, then replacing them, so that I know how many miles they went. I've replaced shot tires but they were worn when I got them. I just can't answer the question of how many miles I get from bike tires.