Here's a question for the statisticians amongst you ...

[XmisterIS]

I only take my car to the supermarket when I want bulky items, which I then buy in bulk - I get some very strange looks from the cashier when I turn up with a trolley full of nothing but loo roll, washing powder and cleaning products!

Anyway, I digress. My food shopping it done by bicycle, unless it's blowing a hooley.

Similarly, I go to local places by bicycle - even the 20 mile round trip Portsmouth.

Anyway, I notice that in the more clement weather I spend noticably less on fuel than I do in the winter, simply because I'm using my motorbike and car a lot less.

Now, I know it's not feasable to expect everyone to cycle as much as I do, but I wonder how much fuel per year we'd save as a nation if everyone who was physically able was to replace one car journey per week with a round-trip distance of no more than ten miles with a bike journey.

Any thoughts? There's lots of factors to go in there!

 

[661-Pete]

Interesting proposal. It's not really 'statisticians' you're after, more: people who have a lot of useful 'statistics' at their elbow. Come in Turnout, right up your street!

Interesting, the phrase 'blowing a hooley', while I dimly recognised it, not common in my vocab., so I looked it up! Incidentally did you know that there really is a place called Hooley: here. Nice cycling country, if you stay off the A23, but very hilly!

 

[gbb]

One of the points there...you DO use less petrol in the summer. In the winter the engine doesnt get up to the optimum temperature so fuel consumptions increased. Remember when people used to blank off the radiator...thats partly why. I always used to, but didnt this year for some reason.
The other benefit is that your heater gets hotter, quicker.

Bieng a tightwad where the cars concerned, its one of the reasons i'd rather brave the cold on my bike than get the car out and suffer perhaps a 20% increase in fuel consumption.

 

[Over The Hill]

50 trips at 10 miles = 500 miles.

Say you usually do 10k per annum in a car, do 500 of that by bike and it is a saving of 5%.


I am probably guilty of using my bike almost always for leisure and hardly as a car replacement. I never seem to quite be able to plan time, clothing and requirements to do that.