Increasing petrol prices and cycling inspiration can create new cyclists.

[Col5632]

i am 39 and have only been driving for 4 years now as i never bothered to learn before that as it bored me silly.

Now i do drive i wont be giving it up as im now a right car nut.

I have always liked cars but never was one for driving them.

I currently drive a V6 powered sports car and my next car is likely to be another V6 but with a twin turbo.
I have no intention to stop driving now as it has opened up a whole new world of things for me to do. as well as driving i really enjoy tinckering around with the car.

I also enjoy cycling to and from work which is about 30 miles in total for me. The reasoon i do this is that the trains are pants and its great for keeping the weight down. Plus it also saves me a few £££sss in train fairs.

Petrol has gone up by about 30pence since i passed my test which i personnely think is discusting. If it goes up a lot more so will EVERYTHING else that we buy... Thats including our bike that have to get to the shops one way or the other for us to buy.

Like you i am was a car nut and went to various meets and shows with and without my car being on show but being driving since i was 17 and im 25 now and its changed alot since i passed my test and petrol is just silly money, it was around 80p a litre when i passed my test and i thought that was steep

 

[marshmella]

Like you i am was a car nut and went to various meets and shows with and without my car being on show but being driving since i was 17 and im 25 now and its changed alot since i passed my test and petrol is just silly money, it was around 80p a litre when i passed my test and i thought that was steep

It seems hard to believe that petrol has almost doubled in price since you passed your test, but having said that i think it was about £1.20 A GALLON when i passed in 1982.

 

[400bhp]

..a V6 powered sports car..

Oxymoron.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Problem is, cars are incredibly hard to live without, simply because your range for finding employment increases dramatically.

Incidentally - on commute ranges (and on the offchance it's useful to others, too: http://cartoo.dyndns.org/)

nice app. rather conservative on the cycling front though. apparently I can't work where I work and get there in less than an hour.

I went car free (again) last month. SWMBO still has her SAAB and I ride in it from time-to-time. But I (deliberately) live 100yds from a mainline railway station and do office work. When I don't fancy riding the train can take the strain.

 

[Belfastox]

Got rid of my car last week after not having driven it for nearly five months! Hate driving, can't stand the congestion and love riding my bike so it seemed just the thing to do. I'll see how I get on without a car but I'm actually looking forward to it. I commute about 25 miles a day and use my bike as my main source of transport for just about everything. I do live near a train station which helps.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

I've just driven over 550 miles and, while I used to enjoy driving, I found the only satisfying challenge of the day was seeing where mpg consumption matched up with speed. (I got to 62.3 mpg in a borrowed Honda Jazz at about the same speed. That's still a lot of petrol money though.) The only other challenge, while listening to news of Belgian coaches in Switzerland, passing one just crashed car and a caravan fire, was simply getting the car back intact. It was almost a relief to get back into town, mixing it with the cyclists.... Actually, it was striking how omnipresent bikes now are in London.

 

[MacB]

Actually, it was striking how omnipresent bikes now are in London.

This gets me every time I'm up there, whatever time of the day or night I see lots of cyclists and some of the most unlikely people have been smitten by the Boris Bikes thing. One client has become a regular user and you should have heard the vitriol he used to direct at bikes and the concept of hire bikes. He's a real born again type now

 

[benb]

And those of you fortunate enough to be able to ditch the car: you'll save so much money that you'll easily be able to afford taxis/hire cars on the odd occasion when you do need one.

 

[Leodis]

My wife and two children might not approve I'm afraid.

Fial...

 

[Linford]

Oxymoron.

My bike only has 4 cylinders, but you'd need more than 400bhp in a car to stay with it on a sprint

 

[400bhp]

And what about corners?

 

[BentMikey]

Look, just meet up somewhere, pull out your willies and compare sizes on the quiet.

 

[Linford]

And what about corners?

You can't string corners together on the redline in a car or on a bike. Cars will always have an advantage when braking as bikes can't brake hard when leaning over - but then I did say that you need more than 400bhp to catch my 4 pot 636cc bike in a sprint

That is where the skill comes into it. Bike = 100% skill to ride quickly through the corners, Car== 50% car, 50% driver. A quick car makes a mediocre driver look good. A Quick bike will make a mediocre rider look bad.

I'm certainly not saying that if you were up in the 600bhp mark in your car you wouldn't be able to out sprint mine, but 400bhp in a straight drag would only show you my tail pipe until you were above about 150 from a standing start.

Anyway I thought this was an interesting test seeing as we are discussing road going vehicles through corners

 

[Linford]

Look, just meet up somewhere, pull out your willies and compare sizes on the quiet.

It's my willy and I'll wave it as much as I like

 

[400bhp]

You can't string corners together on the redline in a car or on a bike. Cars will always have an advantage when braking as bikes can't brake hard when leaning over - but then I did say that you need more than 400bhp to catch my 4 pot 636cc bike in a sprint

That is where the skill comes into it. Bike = 100% skill to ride quickly through the corners, Car== 50% car, 50% driver. A quick car makes a mediocre driver look good. A Quick bike will make a mediocre rider look bad.

I'm certainly not saying that if you were up in the 600bhp mark in your car you wouldn't be able to out sprint mine, but 400bhp in a straight drag would only show you my tail pipe until you were above about 150 from a standing start.

Anyway I thought this was an interesting test seeing as we are discussing road going vehicles through corners

Ahh, where to start... (can't see the vid btw at work)

Standing sprints don't come down to bhp in isolation. It's broadly a combination of bhp, weight and tyre width. You've assumed (wrongly) that I was comparing a specific car with your specific bike, which I wasn't.

A crap driver will look a crap driver [important-to those who understand] in whatever car they drive. I have seen it so many times on track. It is still 100% driver skill to drive quickly through corners in a car. Let's put an important word in here - "relative". We have played "spot the write off" on track before at the start of the day and we are often right.

I could never own a mbike - would kill myself on one.

All a bit of fun. Don't know about the willy waving as I can't see some peoples' posts.