Infinity Miles Per Gallon
 

Question: What can you do to absolutely minimize your fuel use?     Answer: Don’t drive a car. (You peaked at the picture header, didn’t you!?) As much time and effort as we all put into making our cars and trucks more efficient, its easy to forget that even at their absolute best, a motorized [...]

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Naw, I probably peaked a couple decades ago.

If you look at efficiency in terms of $/mile, a bike is not much more efficient than a car. Less efficient than some in fact.

Still fun and healthy though.

Off the Grid,

but some couldn't help it - those eco-hipsters need their Wal-Mart.

Off the Grid : Eric Valli

Can you explain?

Must figure car drivers don't eat.

Not as much as someone biking. Getting to work would burn >500 calories. Eating cheap (taco bell) that will cost me a little over $1. Eating healthy, it would cost me much more. Also, commute time is 45mins-1 hour

Driving to work in my car that gets only 32mpg would cost me... a little over $1. A more efficient car would be less. Commute time is ~20 minutes.

So the cost for fuel is the same, and the bike takes longer to get places.

Don't get me wrong, I like biking. I plan on biking to work often if I am able to do so this summer (may be switching jobs), and I often go mountain biking on tuesday nights and weekends.

Better do a more thorough cents/mile analysis...

Before we go too far off topic:
Bicycling wastes gas?

The miles per dollar analysis ignores the huge upfront cost investment in a motor vehicle, the huge annopual insurance and maintenance costs and the fact that you will still burn calories while driving.

In fact, most cost-per-mile analyses assume you're cycling briskly. You can lower the caloric consumption per mile by simply cycling slower and more effectively.

I once spent an entire year walking several miles a day to school, and my typical Western-style diet had so many excess calories in it that my food costs didn't increase at all, which saved me a pretty bundle in commuting costs. And walking is much less energy efficient than cycling. Also terribly time inefficient.