Stolen 1993 Civic hatch with aeromods... Update: FOUND!

[Stubby79]

Good excuse to bike.

If I didn't work the next town over - however close it is - I could get away with a bike/ebike/moped 99% of the time. The distance/jaunt on the highway is prohibitive. (And, of course, if you want to get there without doing highway speeds, you have to add about 25% distance, and 100% more time. The highway cuts straight through, whereas there are no roads that do.)

[The Toecutter]

It sucks that this happened.

It is the perfect excuse to make an electric velomobile though.

I'm all too familiar with the growing disparity between prevailing wages and living costs. A minimum wage earner in 1968 was able to afford as much food/housing/utilities/transportation per hour of work as I was able to as an electrical engineer in the 2010s making more than 3x the minimum wage. And it's only getting worse. Throw in education and healthcare costs, and the minimum wage earner of 50 years ago possibly had things better than me. When I was gainfully employed, I lived in the hood and deprived myself of nice things to pay my student loans off, and this is after scholarships covered the overwhelming majority of my tuition. The Consumer Price Index is gamed with "hedonic adjustments" so thoroughly that it fails to accurately represent changes within the economic/financial reality that people within the U.S. are living. The middle class and rich, combined composing the wealthiest quintile of the population, have been mostly insulated from this and it seems that most of them readily believe whatever the media/government tells them about the economy. The bottom 80% of Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck and many of them are in crippling debt to pretend they are middle class(IF they are among the better paid half of that demographic who make enough to even service said debt! The rest scrape by an existence in their urban ghettos and rural methvilles one medical emergency/car breakdown/job loss/arrest/missed paycheck/ect away from destitution).

My velomobile requires no insurance, no registration taxes, no titling fees, no fuel taxes, no license and its associated fees, and is cheaper than a moped to operate while being faster, more comfortable, and better-suited for inclement weather. In terms of travel time, it is comparable to a car on city streets while obeying the speed limit. I can go 50 miles on less than $0.05 of electricity. My single most expensive operating expense on a per-mile basis are high-quality bicycle tires, which cost me about $0.01/mile. Including the build cost of the vehicle, the total operating/ownership costs so far in more than 52,000 miles of use has been about $0.07/mile(rounded up to the nearest cent), although admittedly, almost 50,000 of those miles were purely as human powered transport before electric conversion and about half of those miles were as a trike without a body shell. Cars are really something for the well-off. This is greatly cheaper than as well as more convenient than even public transportation!

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Cd

I think I've decided to just not own a car.

I should follow your example. I've got three, one streetable, one driveable and one roller.

I generally have divided my needs between a car, the bike and the Local Transit District. I use the bus less while masks are a requirement. Here the bus pass is free for age 55+.

I can't use Uber because I don't have the thing in my pocket. Not that thing, the other thing.

[Stubby79]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I can't use Uber because I don't have the thing in my pocket. Not that thing, the other thing.

Be careful you don't poke someone's eye out with that thing!

Who's Uber and where can I get her phone number?

[RedDevil]

Originally Posted by Stubby79

Be careful you don't poke someone's eye out with that thing!

Who's Uber and where can I get her phone number?

Just get the other thing out and see. I bet she will drive you crazy!

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

Cars are really something for the well-off.

Now that even the upper-middle class in my country is resorting to cars that fall under the "popular" category with 61cu.in. engines for lower taxation, it makes me consider a small-displacement motorcycle with either a sidecar or a tricycle conversion as a reasonable option. I did the math, and this approach can cover easily 99.9% of what I would do with a random econobox.

[The Toecutter]

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

Now that even the upper-middle class in my country is resorting to cars that fall under the "popular" category with 61cu.in. engines for lower taxation, it makes me consider a small-displacement motorcycle with either a sidecar or a tricycle conversion as a reasonable option. I did the math, and this approach can cover easily 99.9% of what I would do with a random econobox.

You could buy a KMX framekit, put adam333's from Endless Sphere's front and rear suspension kits on it, and build a velomobile out of it. Using a small 49cc gasoline engine, you'd probably get around 500-1,000 mpg depending on how much drag the shell has, and top speed would be dependent upon gearing(albeit, you probably wouldn't want to cruise at more than 40 mph in it). You'd only need a 1/2 gallon fuel tank. Total cost would be around $3,500 in parts if you get everything new AND include a bicycle drivetrain with hydraulic brakes, and significantly cheaper without the bicycle drivetrain.

If you have the know-how, workspace, time, and tools you could even build your own frame design for significantly cheaper.

A vehicle with the form factor, drag, and weight of a velomobile, even if there is no bicycle drivetrain, is the key to the cheapest possible operating cost. Less loading not only means less energy consumption, but also less wear and tear on parts.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by The Toecutter

You could buy a KMX framekit, put adam333's from Endless Sphere's front and rear suspension kits on it, and build a velomobile out of it.

Wouldn't be so easy to import those to my country.

Using a small 49cc gasoline engine, you'd probably get around 500-1,000 mpg depending on how much drag the shell has, and top speed would be dependent upon gearing(albeit, you probably wouldn't want to cruise at more than 40 mph in it).

If I were going to build a velomobile as you suggest, I would consider a 125cc Cub-type Honda engine, attempting to make it also roadworthy. Well, even though a 150cc motorcycle with a sidecar won't pull like a 14 with a Playboy, it could still cruise legally in my country and some neighboring ones such as Uruguay or Argentina.

[MetroMPG]

Cd: any more news on your AWOL Civic?

[Cd]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Cd: any more news on your AWOL Civic?

No news.

And bad timing too.
My parents had just bought me a GoPro ( off brand actually ) camera to do testing with for my birthday.

I was really looking forward to doing some throttle stop tests, and I would have loved to do testing using the GoPro.
The car was more if a geek toy than anything.

Now I can have that Geico Geko saying " This fellow just saved over $600 a year on car insurance . How did he do it ? He cancelled his insurance ! - Bloody brilliant ! "