£ per mile for your bike

[Bazzer]

My Cannondale cost me £800 4 years ago and I have probably covered >20,000 miles on it, so that is coming out at £0.04p per mile. But that figure will increase slightly when consumables are added in.
My Raleigh on the other hand cost me around £100 in 1986. I have no idea of the mileage I have covered on that bike, but even if consumables are taken into account the figure is fractions of pence.

 

[lane]

I would divide the purchase price by ESTIMATED mileage over lifetime of the bike. So my bike cost £2k and I expect to get between 30k miles and 40k miles out of it that works out at 5p a mile. The bike might be able to do more than that or not but I probably won't. Add on £100 per year parts / maintenance and it's costing me 10p a mile. That doesn't include the cost of clothes, shoes, helmets etc which would push the cost up a bit.

 

[HLaB]

I'll check out the exact figures later but my current Triban 500 including the two chains and cassettes has cost me less than 14p per mile.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Shouldn't this be £ per smile?

Good point, ant therefore improved mental health, better concentration if you're commuting, better health, better quality if life...

That's the problem here: my bike may theoretically be worthless after 20 years (but she's not going in a skip...) but the intangible benefits are impossible to factor in.

This is my excuse not to bother with the maths required to work this out...

Also, isn't a car considered all but worthless after two decades?

 

[tom73]

I've not added things up since now having 3 bikes to pick from. Need to have a good look at what miles and what bike.
But really I don't care the fun I've had over the last year and a bit is priceless.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I'm betting on @SkipdiverJohn

Bikes pay him to be ridden.

If you're talking about my worthless hack bikes, which is what I do most of my mileage on, I reckon they cost me less than 2p a mile to run. You have to remember, essentially I don't buy anything like tyres or tubes for these bikes. They get run on what was already on them when acquired, or get fitted with used tyres/tubes/anything else that have been taken off other secondhand or donor bikes and saved for future use. Whilst they don't quite pay me to ride them, they are a pretty cheap form of transport, and getting cheaper all the time as the miles mount up but the spending doesn't.
My "good" bikes, i.e. better than skip rescue quality and not bashed up cosmetically, are not quite so cheap as I have actually spent money on things like Schwalbe tyres (only when on special offer of course!), but the tyre spend has still exceeded the original cost of the bike in each case. Obviously the more miles I do, the lower it will get, but currently 10p/mile per "good" bike is probably not far off the mark.

 

[Shearwater Missile]

I have never worked it out because in my way of thinking, whatever the cost is, it is a pretty cheap mode of transport for one thing. Also, as for exercise, keeping fit and pure enjoyment what would be cheaper ? ( OK then, walking or running). Imagine the cost of gym membership, golf membership and so on and so on. I have never worked out the cost of running the car either. It is what it is and no I don`t run a Rolls Royce ! I enjoy cycling more than driving, it has to be said.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Some people know the price of everything , and the value of nothing.

 

[lane]

Really although I gave an estimated cost per mile upthread - when I purchased my bike I based it on the frame being guranteed by 10 years which gave me a maximum cost of £200 per year but hopefully nearer £100 which really is very little in the scheme of things and well worth it to me based on the pleasure it gives me.

 

[HLaB]

I'll check out the exact figures later but my current Triban 500 including the two chains and cassettes has cost me less than 14p per mile.

The Triban commuter has cost me under 12p per mile.
The previous commuter circa 12p per mile too.
My last leisure bike must have cost me circa 5p per mile.
The current leisure bike has cost me a relatively massive £1 per mile

 

[Pumpkin the robot]

I paid £1500 for my Wilier GT in 2013. It has done circa 32k miles. In 2014 I had an accident and the bike was written off. In the insurance claim against the driver I was awarded £3k for the bike, so even with all the parts I have changed on it, I think I owe the bike money!
I was going to send the bike away to have it ultrasound tested, but both places I sent pics to were 99% sure it would be fine. It has done about 25 thousand miles since, so I guess it was unharmed in the crash.

 

[Soltydog]

Its coming up to a year since I bought my Giant Defy, in this time I have covered just over 2800 miles. I paid £1300 for the bike so that breaks down to 46p per mile. This strikes me as a pretty low figure which I'm happy with and shows how cheap cycling is.

Sounds cheap enough to me
My Enigma is about a year old now & I've covered almost 5k miles on it, but 'ownership per mile costs' are around twice yours However, looking at the figures I've had my Van Nic for over 3 years & that has cost me about 12p per mile (excluding new wheels, saddles, stem, tyres, chains, chainset, cassettes, seatposts, pedals, bar tape etc )
You can't put a price on happiness & you can't take £££ with you when you leave

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

You can't put a price on happiness & you can't take £££ with you when you leave

You're making the assumption that there is a strong relationship between the amount you spend on a bike and the amount of enjoyment it gives you. I don't find that really to be the case to any great extent. So long as a bike is not mechanically maladjusted and therefore noticeably unpleasant to ride, the places I ride, the roads, the weather, and the occurrence or non-occurrence of aggro with other road users have by far the biggest influence on the enjoyment factor compared with the bike itself. I was out on my cheapo Apollo MTB hack bike on Sunday, which has all the most basic quality Shimano stuff on it and I run it on my stock of random old knobbly MTB tyres. It's functional but somewhat unrefined, but nonetheless my planned two hour morning ride turned into nearly 3 hours for the simple reason I was enjoying it and not feeling overly tired. The only improvement riding one of my good bikes instead would have given me would be a slicker gear change, so a pretty marginal difference overall.

 

[Soltydog]

You're making the assumption that there is a strong relationship between the amount you spend on a bike and the amount of enjoyment it gives you.

I'm not making any assumptions, I'm speaking purely from my experiences
Have you ever rode on a modern Ti bike? I'm sure you would find it far more comfortable & enjoyable than any Apollo bike
I'm in a fortunate position in life to have a considerable amount of 'disposable' income & much of my free time is spent cycling, so that is where I spend most money. I have several bikes, the cheapest of which was £45, & whilst it is nice to ride, there is no comparison with my more expensive bikes. Admittedly there is a point where money spent does not increase enjoyment pro rata, but that is down to the individual & to a certain extent the bikes in question

 

[classic33]

£200 bike, over 10,000 miles a year for two years.