Your bikes Cost per Mile

[Naggers]

I've started this thread to keep the Very satisfying Odo reading thread clear for photos rather than too much discussion.

 

The LeMond cost £1800 so I saw reaching 18000 miles as a little landmark - 10p per mile.

But I know I've spent a fair few quid on the bike since it was new and I should be looking at something over 25000 miles before it's really 10p.

There will without doubt be more money spent before that distance is reached so maybe I'm looking at 30000 miles and I'm never going to achieve it.

How many miles (or KM) have you done on each of your bikes for the cost of them?
Have you even bothered thinking about it?
Would you just use the up front purchase price or include upgrades and repairs?

Sould the cost of your kit be taken into account too?

[TheLurker]

I did the sums for my bike back in February at the 4000 mile (12 month) mark and I reckon I'm probably doing OK.

Total Annual Expenditure  GBP  649.00
Insurance reimbursement  GBP (499.00)
Actual                           GBP  150.00*

*Includes clothes, accessories, lube etc.

Set against the expenditure of GBP150 I have :

A saving of _about_ GBP550 in commuting petrol costs.
A reduction of _about_ 1024Kg in CO2 released to atmosphere.

Of course the C02 figure has to be viewed in the light of the CO2 released for the build and delivery of the new bike.

Will be interested to see how well the next accounting period goes as not doing so well this year on commuting mileage through a combination of illness (mine & others) and foul weather.

[andygates]

Tricky one with n+1 bikes...

The Bad Boy was about £800 to start with and ate about £150 of bits a year; it's done 15000 now and is 7 years old so that's 12p a mile. 

The new roadie was £400, has had about £150 spent on a wheel and tyre upgrade, but has only done 1500 miles so far - 40p a mile.  Clearly I need to get out more on that one! 

The fixie is pure zen as I've no idea how much it really cost to build - it took so long and got changed so much - or how many miles I've ridden it as there's no computer!    Running costs are close to nil as nothing has worn out, but I keep changing it around for sheer fun (bullhorns/deltas - moustache/offroad - pistas/trackfettle - carradice/fraudax).

(I still haven't ridden the pennyfakething but at a total project cost of £15, I ain't complaining...)

[MSeries]

Interesting idea. I have no clue as to how many miles any of my machines have done. I don't use computers on any of them now, and when I did I didn't keep mileage logs anyway. My oldest bike is 19 years old, I haven't recorded everything I have spent on it. I didn't bother totalling up the cost of my newest bike either which was assembled last year. Swapping parts from other bikes makes the cost more difficult to calculate. Do I use the cost of the wheels when they were new ? But they are not new. I suppose I'd have to find out how much I could buy these wheels for secondhand to get a true price, but that would be impossible. So I didn't bother. I ride bikes because I like it, not because it saves me money or is cheap.

Then there is the labour cost of maintenance. How much is my time worth compared to a professional mechanic of the same standard ? My day job will probably pay more than a spanners but I wouldn't be doing my day job instead and I wouldn't pay a spanner to do the work as I can do it myself.

[Jasmine]

I also quite like to think of the value I've had out of my bike as the cost per mile.  I got my first 'adult' bike 3 years ago for £500 and have probably only spent another £150 on repairs/other stuff (like pedals and computer).  At 5000 miles it works out at about 13p per mile at the moment, which I think is actually quite good value.

Unfortunately, I subscribed to the n+1 rule some time last year.  The result is that I have more bikes to spread the miles around.  One of my bikes currently comes in at over £1 per mile and the tandem is bobbing around 20p per km at the moment (but the repair cost is about 1/2 as much again as the initial cost).

As for kit being taken into account, if you mean clothes, no way.  I don't consider the cost of my jeans when I tell people how much it costs to drive the car around.  If the kit is phyically attached to the bike (stuff like computers) then yes, but otherwise no.

[Wowbagger]

The tandem is now down below £1 per mile.

My solo machine is at about 40p per mile.

The Trek single speed is at about 15p (it only cost me £100)

The Mercian is around 20p (it cost £200).

I've no idea about the Brompton. I've had it the longest but I'd be surprised if I've done 1000 miles on it.

All the above on base costs. I always seem to be spending money on fettling.

[MSeries]

I would include cost of cycling kit as I wouldn't have it if I didn't have cycles. I would have jeans if I didn't have a car though. I have no idea how much I have spent on cycling clothing over the years, more than I have on jeans and other civilian clothing though.

[border-rider]

The new roadie was £400, has had about £150 spent on a wheel and tyre upgrade, but has only done 1500 miles so far - 40p a mile.  Clearly I need to get out more on that one! 

Yebbut it's not worth zero now.  Say it's worth £350 now with its wheel upgrade, then that's £200 over 1500 miles - about 13 p per mile

[steveB]

I've only done 700 miles on my new bike, so it's cost me 87 pence a mile so far this year.

[TheLurker]

Pence / mile comparison charts.

I daresay there's not much point to these if you're in the happy position of only using your bike for purposes other than commuting.

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/advice/advice_rcosts_petrol_table.jsp
http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/advice/advice_rcosts_diesel_table.jsp

[Greenbank]

Audax bike: Almost £1 a mile.
Fixed: 20p a mile
Colnago: 50p a mile probably

Not including upgrades (of which there haven't been many). But I seem to have spent a large amount of kit, parts, spares, tools and accessories.

[nicknack]

My latest is at about £9 per mile!

Rather older BikeE and Halfords hybrid are probably both about 10p.

[numbnuts]

how can you put a price on enjoyment

[mike]

this is the kind of maths that Mrs Mike might use to argue for n-1, so I'll take the same approach here. 

Icanthearyounananananananananan!!!

[Notsototalnewbie]

I'd have to include the cost of cycling kit too as I wouldn't have it without the bike. And the cost of my clothing is not insubstantial! The bike was new in September through cycle2work.

I started off counting, but I stopped because I didn't think I was ever going to break even (I have a bad Minx habit - as in the clothing website). By 'break even' I mean spend around the same as (or preferably less than) the bus (£600 a year) and the car I got rid of (£800 a year).

Although I don't buy so many 'normal' clothes anymore (despite working next to the high st shopping mecca of Oxford Street in London) so I suppose that evens it out a bit.

Maybe one day I will gather courage to work it all out! But there is always something else to lust after, and my limited fettling skills mean I will usually need to pay the (very good) LBS for a decent service etc.

[Gus]

Calculating £/mile are soo much better than £/km 

Carbon audax bike around  50pence/mile

Steel audax  bike  below 3 pence/mile

Mountainbike : I don't want to calculate  but a good guess will be  above £3/mile
due to damaged parts.

The last three bikes are still not fully assembled, but  I'll try to calculate so I can see it completely over time.

[Treewheeler]

50p per mile...
 What`s it doing...?
Shedding carbon at the rate of 300gram per km...?
 
 

[border-rider]

Can I suggest that you all need to get out on your bikes and do more miles ? That'll bring the costs down

[bikenerd]

My Surly is the only bike that has a computer permanently attached.  It cost £900 two years ago and has done about 4000 km / 2500 miles.  The only new parts I've bought are two new tyres at £25 each.
So: 24p per km, 36p per mile.

My other bikes I have no idea about.  I've ridden my fixed to work everyday in winter for the past three years.  That cost about £350 to build up, including the dynamo lighting.  So, if I work 220 days per year, for 3 x six months that's 330 days.  It's a 14km round trip = 4620km / 2888 miles over 3 winters.  That's 12p per mile.  10p per mile should happen some time in October!

The Moulton has been a money pit, but has still only cost about 1/3rd of a new TSR!

The MTB is probably about £50 per mile as I hardly ride it.

[Jasmine]

I think you also might need to consider the added value to your life that cycling has.  In addition to commuting by bike (hence the better value per mile on one bike comared to the others), I like to pootle around Anglesey in the evenings now that I arrive home in the light.  I simply can't put a price on what I get out of exploring by bike - climbing a hill to find an amazing view, then screaming down the other side of it.  An hour's entertainment every night for less than £2, and dropping the more I ride.

[pdm]

Mmmmh.
Commuting Bicycle. I unfortunately seem to have the habit of bending frames every few of years...
Approx Costs:
Initial cost: 1000 (5 years ago)
Frame: 100 pa
Bits: 200 pa
Clothing: 100 pa
Milage: 6000 pa (10,000km)

That gives about 10p per mile, 7p per km.

Not bad, really....

[nuttycyclist]

I think you also might need to consider the added value to your life that cycling has.  ...

I think it's ten years that cyclists live longer.   How much does ten years of living cost?   Do I have to factor that into the cost of the bike?

[LEE]

how can you put a price on enjoyment

I don't commute on my bike so I'm not even going to figure out how much it costs per mile.  I bought it for enjoyment only so it's like calculating the cost per mile of an expensive watch (if Horology is your bag) or a new TV.

If I bought a bike solely for commuting reasons then I think it would be sensible to know how it compares to public transport.

[sas]

I think it's ten years that cyclists live longer.   How much does ten years of living cost?   Do I have to factor that into the cost of the bike?

If you did, you'd also have to factor in the lack of earnings/pension from dying 10 years earlier.

[woollypigs]

yet no one have talked about the cost off food we all enjoy doing a ride and after a ride