Does Cycling To Work Save You Money?

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Oldhippy

Cynical idealist
I have ridden my bike all year all weather for years. Oil the chain regularly, the odd cable for a couple of quid and a tyre every two years or so. Not even a penny a day.
 

SkipdiverJohn

Deplorable Brexiteer
Location
London
The way in which people approach cars and car "ownership" is changing. People are becoming more used to leasing or at least never owning cars and paying a monthly fee as driven by the god awful value (imho) pcps. This will persist into electric vehicles and or electric vehicle battery packs.

The various finance/lease plans only exist because the secondhand owner driver market is there to mop up all the end of lease handbacks. Without the owner market there would be no residual values worth talking about, and leasing would get much more expensive and/or lease periods would have to be longer and mean lessees would have to stomach driving older cars, not almost new ones.
Unless you are running a car through a business, so can write off the monthly cost as a business expense against tax, I see leasing as something only mugs do. The cost isn't even that transparent since any cosmetic damage and high mileage will reduce residuals so incur excess charges.
 

glasgowcyclist

Charming but somewhat feckless
Location
Scotland
I think I mentioned £300 annually (£100 for 6 month play £200 for 12 months). for me, it also includes new tyres, the cost of a few inner tubes during flats, brake pads.

But anyway, give me an example of servicing cost for an all weather bike ridden for a year, at a bike shop from your perspective.

By car, let's call it £150 over two years, so that's £75 annually. No new tyres required.

You definitely wrote that you serviced the bike every 6 months plus gave it a major service.

service the bike every 6 months for about £100 plus a major service of £200 annually.

Even £300 in servicing is steep and, I would suggest, atypical.

I tend to do my own but, if pressed for time, my preferred professional for servicing is Willy Bain in Glasgow. He has a small workshop on the south side of the city and is constantly rammed full with bikes. He’s been going about 30 years and is well known. A full service there costs £45 or, if you’ve hammered the bike through a tough winter, he will do a complete strip down to component parts, regrease, replace bearings, AND do everything else covered by the full service for £85.

A basic annual service (oil & filter change only) for my car costs £184.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
[...] He’s been going about 30 years and is well known. A full service there costs £45 or, if you’ve hammered the bike through a tough winter, he will do a complete strip down to component parts, regrease, replace bearings, AND do everything else covered by the full service for £85.
I'd assume that web page is not current because it shows a proTX logo, which became SagePay about a decade ago IIRC, which itself became opayo more recently.
 

Nebulous

Guru
Location
Aberdeen
I normally have a very short commute, but am now working from home. My office is city centre, so parking is £12 a day. We’ve toyed with two vehicles over the years, but with me cycling we can get by on one. My work cx bike cost £700 in 2014. It has had one new set of wheels since, as the standard wheels were rubbish and snapped several spokes. I wear work clothes and an Altura jacket which came in a big bag of second-hand cycling clothes I bought for £40. I change the chain once a year, cables have only been changed twice and I needed a replacement set of mudguards as the rivets holding the plastic to the stays gave way. My biggest expenditure in the last 6.5 years for commuting has been lights. All that means that cycle commuting is considerably cheaper than driving.

But, and there is always a but, as well as a sub 2 mile commute, cycling became a big part of the rest of my life. A £2k steel audax bike, about £700 to fit it with new wheels and dynamo lights, expensive clothing, weekends away to take part in an event, preparation for and entry to PBP have cost a lot of money. To cap it all I really dislike my bikes being on the roof of the car while away with the caravan, so bought a van a year ago to keep them inside. Thankfully I don’t have a spreadsheet.
 
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Lovacott

Lovacott

Über Member
A basic annual service (oil & filter change only) for my car costs £184.

I'm a bit of an Excel freak and I keep track of things like car costs and so on.

On an average, the cost of buying a car accounts for £1,000 a year to start with.

Servicing including tyre replacements, oil changes, pads, discs, cam belt, battery etc etc averages out at £400 per year.

Then there's tax and insurance gobbling up another £450 a year.

Before you even put fuel in and drive your car, it's costing you nearly £40 per week just to own the thing.

During the ten years I cycled in London and didn't own a car at all, I would have saved at least £20,000.
 
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Lovacott

Lovacott

Über Member
thats good going i get through a couple of pairs of tyres a year, crappy roas i ride eat them
My MTB tyres last me around 1500 miles on the road so if I stay on the current trajectory of 6,000 miles per year, that's four sets of tyres.

My tyres are only £12 a piece but that still equates to $96 per year.

I think anyone on here who claims that their car or bike only costs them pennies to run every year, needs to take a serious look at their accounting methods.
 

SkipdiverJohn

Deplorable Brexiteer
Location
London
thats good going i get through a couple of pairs of tyres a year, crappy roas i ride eat them

You must be running the wrong sort of tyres then because bomb proof touring/commuting tyres should be good for at least 5,000 miles, and they just laugh at the small stone and glass fragments that will cut up flimsy soft compound road tyres.
 
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Lovacott

Lovacott

Über Member
You must be running the wrong sort of tyres then because bomb proof touring/commuting tyres should be good for at least 5,000 miles, and they just laugh at the small stone and glass fragments that will cut up flimsy soft compound road tyres.
I get 1500 miles per tyre on my current commute but that is a predominantly country lane route with the usual gravel surfaces and potholes etc.

I replace my tyres when the "nobbles" in the centre are level with the surface of the tyre wall (by this stage, I'm also losing grip on corners).

A couple of sets of tyres per year is not out of the way for someone commuting bewteen fifty and one hundred miles per week.
 

Moodyman

Legendary Member
If you ride with tougher rubber, you will get more miles. MTB tyres are softer compound as they're not designed for asphalt use. Touring or training tyres are good for several thousand miles. A Marathon Plus tyre I once commuted on did 7500 miles when the bike was nicked and it still had about 50% tread left.
 

SkipdiverJohn

Deplorable Brexiteer
Location
London
I think anyone on here who claims that their car or bike only costs them pennies to run every year, needs to take a serious look at their accounting methods.

I can honestly say I have not bought a single bike tyre or inner tube in the last 12 months. I did recently acquire a rideable Raleigh spares bike for £20, which had 2 almost new Schwalbes and inner tubes, so about £40 of tyres for £20 with a free bike thrown in. I also found two serviceable 700c hybrid back wheels in the scrap skip at work, one with a nearly new Schwalbe and the other with a Kenda, both good tubes. Those wheels & tyres are now in my spares pile for when I need one.
I've replaced two 26" knobbly MTB tyres in the last couple of months as they were worn low and puncturing. The "new" tyres both came off skip salvages, so free. Literally zero cycling running cost spend this year, although I did buy a £25 workstand from Lidl several months ago.

I get 1500 miles per tyre on my current commute but that is a predominantly country lane route with the usual gravel surfaces and potholes etc.
I replace my tyres when the "nobbles" in the centre are level with the surface of the tyre wall (by this stage, I'm also losing grip on corners).
A couple of sets of tyres per year is not out of the way for someone commuting bewteen fifty and one hundred miles per week.

You are riding rural roads and need traction, and it's true knobbly MTB tyres wear out faster. I would have thought you would get more than 1,500 miles if you ran Schwalbe Land Cruisers though. I have a pair that are proving very hard wearing, although I got them used for £4 and I don't know the exact mileage on them.
@cyberknight is riding a Boardman road bike on road tyres. so he has the option of running long-life touring types that will not get shredded on crappy roads. I ride on really crap roads with all sorts of debris and potholes and my road tyres don't get destroyed.
 

Moodyman

Legendary Member
What this thread shows is there are many ways to skin a cat.

Do your own maintenance, buy gear when on offer and run cheaper drivetrains (8, 9 or single sp) and it's perfectly possible to run a commuter on pennies.

Took me 3.5 years for the money saved by not paying for a yearly rail pass, to draw even with my cycling outlay. Since I still own the bikes and the majority of kit/tools I'm positively in the black.
 

cyberknight

As long as I breathe, I attack.
I can honestly say I have not bought a single bike tyre or inner tube in the last 12 months. I did recently acquire a rideable Raleigh spares bike for £20, which had 2 almost new Schwalbes and inner tubes, so about £40 of tyres for £20 with a free bike thrown in. I also found two serviceable 700c hybrid back wheels in the scrap skip at work, one with a nearly new Schwalbe and the other with a Kenda, both good tubes. Those wheels & tyres are now in my spares pile for when I need one.
I've replaced two 26" knobbly MTB tyres in the last couple of months as they were worn low and puncturing. The "new" tyres both came off skip salvages, so free. Literally zero cycling running cost spend this year, although I did buy a £25 workstand from Lidl several months ago.



You are riding rural roads and need traction, and it's true knobbly MTB tyres wear out faster. I would have thought you would get more than 1,500 miles if you ran Schwalbe Land Cruisers though. I have a pair that are proving very hard wearing, although I got them used for £4 and I don't know the exact mileage on them.
@cyberknight is riding a Boardman road bike on road tyres. so he has the option of running long-life touring types that will not get shredded on crappy roads. I ride on really crap roads with all sorts of debris and potholes and my road tyres don't get destroyed.
commuter is my carrera still on the stock tyres atm running 28s these days
 
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Lovacott

Lovacott

Über Member
Took me 3.5 years for the money saved by not paying for a yearly rail pass, to draw even with my cycling outlay. Since I still own the bikes and the majority of kit/tools I'm positively in the black.
I've spent a small fortune on my bike over the last nine months but that would not be reflective of a typical year.

To start with, it's a Halfords Apollo hardtail MTB which clearly wasn't built to last. Once I started to use the bike daily back in March, it started to fall apart. The bottom bracket bearings failed and a pedal split all within a few weeks. Since then, I've replaced/upgraded pretty much every moving part.

Then there are the other costs such as buying lights, rack, tools and cycle clothing.

I wouldn't expect to have to repeat that amount of spending over the following year.
 
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