The transition

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Highway and around town; each serves a purpose. Van is also nice for transporting bikes securely.
 
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My 2025 F150 long bed gets 20 mpg suburbs, 23 mpg hwy if I keep it below 70 mph. I put big plastic bins in the back to break up the rotary wind back there on the highway. I am patting myself on the back for buying a 3.5 L V-6 gas engine, instead of a F250 diesel that my brother runs for his business. Yeah, his range is 850 miles, mine is only 673 mi. His inspectors drive that far in a day sometimes, El Paso to Beaumont. I could not buy an electric F150, none in stock anywhere 6/25 and besides electrics were only 6.5' bed, not 8'.
I could not get a ride home for the cargo bike in my wife's car (elantra) nor that of any of my friend's cars. Heart stalled me out 11 miles from home 6/25 on a piddly 3% grade. Ran the vision white, breath 90 cpm, pulse 60 bpm. No friend had a truck. After heart surgery destroyed my 250 w capability, toting the bike is more important than ever. Also 4'x8' sheets of plywood, 10' long boards and ladders, steel doors to replace those kicked in at the new house, furniture there after I get the neighboring vandal blocked out. If I needed to take a shovel somewhere, like the country house to shovel snow for the propane man, wife would force me to stick the handle out of a passenger window. Good way to break my neck, IMHO. If I wanted to put the back seat down, she always yelled "this is not a truck!!!!", $47000 later, she can stay home with her Elantra mobil closet.
Regular was $4.19/g Wednesday. Staying home until all the drunks at Derby or just partying because of it are in bed for the night. Have seen some crazy driving on Oaks day when i used to work in Louisville. 8 years ago after Derby a drunk drove 80 miles out of town on the road to Vincennes (why?) to kill 3 women by crossing the center line on State 60.
 
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I like it when guys under 5'5" take a $75,000 F-350, on an eight-year payment plan, and it only takes $180 per week to fill the tank, twelve blocks to the gym. Once there they take the elevator to the second floor (Ding) where there are the stair climbers, treadmills, and stationary bikes.
 
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PedalUma said:
I like it when guys under 5'5" take a $75,000 F-350, on an eight-year payment plan, and it only takes $180 per week to fill the tank, twelve blocks to the gym. Once there they take the elevator to the second floor (Ding) where there are the stair climbers, treadmills, and stationary bikes.
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I think the story in 2026 is going to be a lot of pickup truck owners rethinking their life choices.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
I think the story in 2026 is going to be a lot of pickup truck owners rethinking their life choices.
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In the last two weeks traffic noise has dropped substantially. Not a many jackrabbit starts with Detroit V8s, just to see who can stop first at the next red light.
 
RunForTheHills said:
I doubt it. I sold my 20 year old Dodge Ram last year and already miss it for certain things. For construction workers, tradesmen, farmers, and anyone with a lot of land, there is no substitute for a pickup truck.
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But there are a lot of them in suburbia caring only the driver and nothing, not even a scratch, in the bed. And the jacked 4x4s with a polished chromed undercarriage that has never been off-road.

A guy in Vermont used an old Subaru wagon on his sheep farm. It would carry everything from dead sheep, birthing sheep, and hay bales, to oak logs in the thaw mud. One day he had to go to Burlington and saw a sign at a carwash that said Total Detail Interior and Exterior $40.
 
Sure. I have a good friend whose truck lives in suburbia. It's a 4x4 Ford F150. He likes it because it fits him. Or he fits in it. He's 6'9" and 450 lbs. His truck is over 10 years old and I am not sure what he will get after it dies as it is hard to find a new truck with a front bench seat these days.

I don't understand jacked up 4x4's with a high center of gravity that you need a ladder to climb into either. But some people are into them. They probably have $10K-$20K in upgrades on their trucks. I don't think high gas prices for a few months will change their minds. Maybe they will get a Tesla to drive to work and keep the truck in their driveways.
 
RunForTheHills said:
I don't think high gas prices for a few months will change their minds.
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Why do you think fuel prices will be high for only a few months?

Even if everything stopped today and went perfectly from this moment onwards we'd probably be looking at a major fuel supply crunch for at least another year. And also the longer the system is disrupted the longer it is going to take to bring everything back online and have the machine smoothly clanking along.

Just on the mines, oil tankers aren't going to cross the strait until that shituation is resolved. At this point it doesn't seem that even the Iranians know how many mines were deployed and where they are. What we do know is that Iran had thousands of sea mines and that the Untied States doesn't have great systems for clearing mines. Ironically we scrapped a number of minesweepers literally weeks before we started this war.

When you kick over a hornet's nest, the hornets decide when it is over.
 
Mines can be on the seafloor and look just like garbage. And they can be released upon the sound signature of a specific ship.

Okay, off topic. I saw the latest $.25 quarter today. It shows very white English looking people embracing side-to-side, dressed up as Pilgrims. The other side shows the Mayflower. That landing was the final week of 1620 at Plymouth Rock. But in the west, Spanish was spoken in California starting in September of 1542. More than 78-years earlier! That is three plus generations. So, WTF we target Californians who speak Spanish with deportation but not Cape Coders who speak English? Which came first?
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Why do you think fuel prices will be high for only a few months?

Even if everything stopped today and went perfectly from this moment onwards we'd probably be looking at a major fuel supply crunch for at least another year. And also the longer the system is disrupted the longer it is going to take to bring everything back online and have the machine smoothly clanking along.

Just on the mines, oil tankers aren't going to cross the strait until that shituation is resolved. At this point it doesn't seem that even the Iranians know how many mines were deployed and where they are. What we do know is that Iran had thousands of sea mines and that the Untied States doesn't have great systems for clearing mines. Ironically we scrapped a number of minesweepers literally weeks before we started this war.

When you kick over a hornet's nest, the hornets decide when it is over.
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Sorry, not going down that rabbit hole with you. I'm not an expert on the topic and I don't believe you are either. We'll see how it turns out. Imports from the Middle East Gulf region made up 8% of U.S. crude oil imports in 2025. Down from 25% in 2014.
 
I'm no expert either, but this is my take on the issue:

Iran is an oil producing country. Yes, they benefit by forcing up the price on a short term basis. This could hurt them in the long term however if oil prices remain high for an extended period of time. This simply forces the rest of the world to seek alternative energy sources.
 
Just a historical perspective. Pre-1979 Iran provided about 5 percent of the crude oil the US consumed. After that was cut off gas prices at the pump doubled and didn't really recover (they never recovered completely) until the Oil Glut of 1984.

We haven't quite doubled prices at the pump yet.

Long term? Yes, this will be a good thing and might even break our addiction to fossil fuels. But the short term will be very ugly for a lot of people.

If you drive a big truck as a lifestyle choice or political statement you are supporting the terrorists and harming America.
 
You will pry my little Ford Ranger from my cold, dead hands. Yes, I drive it alone most of the time. Yes, it uses regular gasoline. I get 25mpg in mixed driving, and can haul whatever I need to, and I do that a lot.
 
PedalUma said:
Mines can be on the seafloor and look just like garbage. And they can be released upon the sound signature of a specific ship.

Okay, off topic. I saw the latest $.25 quarter today. It shows very white English looking people embracing side-to-side, dressed up as Pilgrims. The other side shows the Mayflower. That landing was the final week of 1620 at Plymouth Rock. But in the west, Spanish was spoken in California starting in September of 1542. More than 78-years earlier! That is three plus generations. So, WTF we target Californians who speak Spanish with deportation but not Cape Coders who speak English? Which came first?
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Yes, we defeated them ..you can thank us later.
Moggsy and a quite informative but opinion based thought experiment if the US hadnt left the Empire.
Treat you as Gentlemen!!
 
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