$12 / 75km??
Let's presume the gas price is $1.50/L, $12 will buy you 8L of gas.
That's 9.3km/L, ok yeah, not an econobox gas mileage, but still sounds like an average family sedan powered by a typical V6 engine.
Amortization of $250-300/year? That's nothing compare to cars.
Buy a Honda Civic, which is approx. $20,000 Canadian, and one of the best resale vehicle in USA/Canada, there's no way the amortization cost will only be $250-300 a year.
It does cost you $10 food to ride a bike.
Although health was NOT why I bought my ebike for, because I bought it to save money after my own in depth analysis, many people here bought ebike for health reasons.
After doing some research, apparently sitting in the traffic will cause you all kinds of health problems.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...warned-It-harm-mental-health-years-later.html
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/minding-the-body/201509/how-stress-less-in-traffic-jam
Some say obese people should pay extra tax due to increased medical cost. Sitting in a car vs riding a bike, I guess we all know which one is healthier.
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/ove...thers-cant-pay-for-our-folly-2587183-Feb2016/
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/h...k/news-story/8270c0e2a7af1b10f91a7e527ba0f096
IRS says people spend $125,000 / 10 years in commuting
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-your-commute-is-really-costing-you/
Long commute will cause divorce, break relationship with your loved ones.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...e-your-marriage-may-be-at-risk/article614671/
I can see why though, getting stuck in the traffic jam vs commuting on a bike...
Commuting is something do every day, so I can see the long term health and mental benefits / differences.
Just look, which one is more stressful?
(Link Removed - No Longer Exists)
Listen to the voice of an active youth. He is of a growing minority in his own age set.
I looked up what it would cost me to own a car again. Firstly, in Miami the cheapest auto insurance provides only "10-20-5" protection, laughably small public liability and zero collision protection. Ten-Twenty-Five was mandated by Florida lawmakers about 40 years ago (40 years ago my annual car ins. premium was about $1,000 per year in Miami) At my senior age of 64 today and with my perfect driving record, a hypothetical, 8 year old, ultra-safe, paid-for Prius = 172 dollars per month, just for insurance that is next to nothing in value.
I have a family car that I can use at any time I really need it. But cheaper by far is my ebike that I can use on a whim, anytime, rain or shine (I wear quick dry clothes!) and do my little, unimportant but fun and life-sustaining errands.
Timpo and I are two generations apart in age but we are so together on this (and all of us here, are).
Cars are necessary evils for others but not for us but for rare occasions. We use cars as little as possible. Timpo, to save money at his student age. Myself to save health.
As most of us here are senior and financially secure, we are cycling for health and to help make roads safer for younger people to come, by our not putting our cars on the roads unless we truly have a need to do so.
Hurrah for Timpo. Hurrah for everyone here who tries not to use a car so much.
The stress of Miami traffic is a primary reason I hope I never have a car again. When I need a car for a piano tuning job, it really pays dividends to my health (because stress is so destructive to my health) to take a Lyft. I am not so anti-car as I am against my wasting my resources for a car I would not use but rarely.
Were it not for the ebike I would be in poor health today. As it is, I am lucky. And I am happy to be an ecyclist extolling to others that cars=death by neglect of exercise. And bikes equal breezes and sunshine and a good time.
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essay. It was 1966 and I was 12 and still riding a single speed cruiser bike. Walter and Marian Booher, neighbors on Almeria Avenue in Coral Gables at number 1024 next to my own family's Matthew-like 1034, were Quakers, retired teachers, Walter aged 66, and Marion a few years younger, just returned from a European vacation. Walter, a church man, made wonderful things of wood, gee haws and windmilling sawyers and windmilling bicyclists, toys that pivoted and operated in any light breeze and moved to prove they were reflections of Walter and Marian's life of always producing results. Marion baked whole wheat bread from flour that Walter (industrial arts teacher) ground in a small, hand-cranked mill that he invented, manufactured, and gave copies of to friends. He never sold them. He only gave.
Walter, soon after his and Marian's return from France in 1966, was riding an amazing, French-made 2-stroke gasoline bike on local errands. I stared at the Solex purring up and down our banyan-canopied, Almeria analog of Spain. The Solex, it was lively even in black, had to have by law, then, a FL motorcycle tag. But it was not a motorcycle, really, not to my young self. It was a magical bicycle, so minimal, so unobtrusive, so gentle as a free flowing breeze, a 15 mph substitute for a car. How many errands require anything like fifteen miles? I knew in 1966 that very few trips were more than a few miles. I liked the idea of exercise without requirement to sweat.
I would have something like that Solex, so much more fun, so much better than a car.
Walter gave me his Solex years later (he lived to be ninety) and I rode the Solex for years before passing it on to a collector. It must exist yet today. Walter Booher, soft spoken, taught me to wonder, taught me next door how to think of others.
He taught me how to apply linseed oil varnish, the kind that made surfaces gleam in 1910. Apply the varnish in full, wet strokes, X pattern on the vertical panel. Lay it on thick. Then with successive vertical strokes spread it out. Then with very light strokes in the next few seconds, tip it off. You have only moments to make the film of even thickness before the varnish sets.
You have only moments to make the film an even thickness before the varnish sets.
I find in his technique an analogy for our lives, whether we are young or old. We hope to affect others in good ways. We hope to be good because we are all good at heart like Walter Booher, Quaker, who gently mentored a secular humanist and knew exactly, precisely, what he was doing and why he was doing it.
You only have moments, he said.
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