When does an E-bike become economnical

[PhilipV]

Where do you people live that you don't want your kids to ride to school?

Maybe Somerset West is just way more chilled, but we take the bikes (with child seats) or a pram to the shops alot, and have never felt endangered. Some times I even go jogging with the pram in the dark.

 

We don't do it to save a car trip, we do it as a fun activity, and to spend family time together. And after a crap work day a bike ride or walkies with the little one just makes life better.

 

Does Mrs Savage's work dress make leeway for a cycle commute? Or is there a shower at work? My Wifey wears fancy business clothes, bikes and pencil skirts might have a place in the Lady Pros thread, but not in real life.

[Pure Savage]

Where do you people live that you don't want your kids to ride to school?

Maybe Somerset West is just way more chilled, but we take the bikes (with child seats) or a pram to the shops alot, and have never felt endangered. Some times I even go jogging with the pram in the dark.

 

We don't do it to save a car trip, we do it as a fun activity, and to spend family time together. And after a crap work day a bike ride or walkies with the little one just makes life better.

 

Does Mrs Savage's work dress make leeway for a cycle commute? Or is there a shower at work? My Wifey wears fancy business clothes, bikes and pencil skirts might have a place in the Lady Pros thread, but not in real life.

 

 

Hopefully Mrs Savage can continue working from home. But she does go to coffee shops in the area for meetings etc. Will get her a lock for the bike. 

 

I may have to work on the seat vibe though, as her front bum is a little eina still from Sundays ride which was only 25 minutes. Guess its these small things we dont think about only have back bums. 

 

Things have escalated rather quickly though, she brought up the idea of bike packing through Europe on e-bike/bike. Get 3/4 days extra in europe if dont have car hire.

 

I need to actually show her all the bike paths that are seperate from the road in Rondebosch/Claremont so she gets a little easier with the idea. 

[Pure Savage]

All of these points are financially valid, but the reputational* risk of a Savage riding an e-bike should supercede all other considerations.

 

* - pulling up at KPMG not considered

 

I am not worried about going to office, its the street cred at clients I dont want to lose

[Pure Savage]

Unless you actually sell a car it will probably just cost more to have the ebike as well as the car in total... unless you lose more cost than just a saving on petrol it's not a cost saving.

 

Might make you feel good about saving petrol but it won't save money in total.

 

Do the numbers...

 

We have gotten to the point where we thinking of going for it, if it is a white elephant will flog the thing for a R2k loss. Ideally I would give up my car and supplement travel with Uber.

[Pure Savage]

Tell me more...

 

I get an email each week from Uber saying, get out some more, take R25 off 10 trips this week. 

 

Then I get 25% off the trip thanks to discovery insure, then I get 15% paid in cash back from credit card. 

 

I did ALOT of uber as client was so close to home and the parking for the day was R95 vs R40 uber.

 

Annoyingly cannot get my uber score above 4.5

[PhilipV]

Hopefully Mrs Savage can continue working from home. But she does go to coffee shops in the area for meetings etc. Will get her a lock for the bike.

 

I may have to work on the seat vibe though, as her front bum is a little eina still from Sundays ride which was only 25 minutes. Guess its these small things we dont think about only have back bums.

 

Things have escalated rather quickly though, she brought up the idea of bike packing through Europe on e-bike/bike. Get 3/4 days extra in europe if dont have car hire.

 

I need to actually show her all the bike paths that are seperate from the road in Rondebosch/Claremont so she gets a little easier with the idea.

Can't have painful front-bum. No one wins then. Happy wife. Happy life.

A wide and softish spez saddle was the ticket for Wifey.

[The Ouzo]

lots of talk about getting rid of one of the cars, but factor a few things in to your calculations.

1) if you tell you insurer you only do x km per month in the car they will often drop the premiums. 

I did that with my private car as I use company car during the week.

 

2) yes the car will need its annual service, but wear and tear will be lower and saving km on the car will count in your favour when the time comes to sell.

[Hairy]

so... i can't comment on taking kids to school, but i've done the math on a normal MTB (which i would use for commuting rather than a road bike) and the answer is that it's not that cheap in R/km terms...

 

i typically get around 2500 km from a set of tyres so that means 4 x tyres in 5000 km's running.

 

on a MTB, you can budget on a chain and a cassette every 5000 and a fork service every 2500km.

 

In a 5000 km cycle, it would thus mean roughly R5000 for tyres, chains, cassets and fork service.

 

One will also realistically ride 20000 km on a bicycle over its life, so even though the capital is low, the depreciation rate is an order of magnitude higher than for a vehicle.

 

So, if you take a R20k bike, commute with it for 4 years @ 5000km / year, then it will cost you R20k for wear parts and you'll lose 90% of the R20k in capital, so it's R40000 or R2/km.  More expensive bikes replaced more frequently... well that easily goes to R5+/km...

 

If we can trust our friends at AA, the all inclusive cost of running a car is ~R3/km.  The major cost benefit of commuting by bike is that you tend to ride much less total km's...

I am on the same set of tyres on my SS that I bought from CWC for R95 per tyre at the end of last year ... the drivetrain has been there for some time. So far this year I am over the 4K mark for commuting, so my running costs are minimal per km.

 

This particular bike is nearing it's second birthday and was bought for 3.5K after a nice little discount.

 

Now many a years ago my car would just sit in the garage doing nothing. We decided to sell it, and I have never looked back.

 

With the wife being registered as the primary driver, and the mileage per month being ridiculously low our insurance is minimal and the maintenance and wear and tear also minimal.

 

My meetings in town are made on the bicycle, and when I need to go over the mountain to Camps Bay / Houtbay, etc I take Uber,  which the office covers. They would have had to cover a cost per km for travel and I also offered up my parking bay which is another 1.6k odd saving to the office. So essentially I have a 1.6K Uber credit for work and then still the cost / mileage that I would have the office cover if I had used my car. 

 

Like al lthings in life, you can do it cheap, or you can do it expensive. 

Look at all the safetyboot commuters, is there really a cheaper option for them? is it not all our "bling" that makes cycling commuting expensive?  

 

If you guys want first hand knowledge of commuting and the cost there off, just ask Hairy...... 

Shotto

 

Where do you people live that you don't want your kids to ride to school?

Maybe Somerset West is just way more chilled, but we take the bikes (with child seats) or a pram to the shops alot, and have never felt endangered. Some times I even go jogging with the pram in the dark.

 

We don't do it to save a car trip, we do it as a fun activity, and to spend family time together. And after a crap work day a bike ride or walkies with the little one just makes life better.

 

Does Mrs Savage's work dress make leeway for a cycle commute? Or is there a shower at work? My Wifey wears fancy business clothes, bikes and pencil skirts might have a place in the Lady Pros thread, but not in real life.

Now Philip, there are some ladies in the CBD who ride about in that exact same work attire and manage to look good while doing it too. Being an E-Bike, it would assist in keeping Mrs Savage from building up a "glow"

 

I get an email each week from Uber saying, get out some more, take R25 off 10 trips this week. 

 

Then I get 25% off the trip thanks to discovery insure, then I get 15% paid in cash back from credit card. 

 

I did ALOT of uber as client was so close to home and the parking for the day was R95 vs R40 uber.

 

Annoyingly cannot get my uber score above 4.5

I am sitting on a 4.39 score.

 

Now here is the BIGGEST factor to consider. Is the "value" calculation really that important vs Mrs Savage potentially discovering a freedom that can only be achieved on a bicycle commute with her little one tow?

[Shebeen]

Like al lthings in life, you can do it cheap, or you can do it expensive. 

Look at all the safetyboot commuters, is there really a cheaper option for them? is it not all our "bling" that makes cycling commuting expensive?  

 

If you guys want first hand knowledge of commuting and the cost there off, just ask Hairy...... 

or the THOUSANDS of these guy who are probably ahead in costs due to taxi fare savings in 3 months.

 

[Furbz]

I rode something similar to the sportsman special in Barcelona a few days ago.

All I can say is they are brilliant.

Was the best and easiest way to see the city. I'm certainly interested in one for commuting to work now

[Hairy]

I rode something similar to the sportsman special in Barcelona a few days ago.

All I can say is they are brilliant.

Was the best and easiest way to see the city. I'm certainly interested in one for commuting to work now

A commuter in our group tried out a basic Charge SS bike for the commute (We do between a 40-50km round trip per day) and the bike fell apart within the first month.

 

A half decent SS from ROOK, Simple Sam or Colony bikes would get you far better mileage at a really great price.

[Hairy]

or the THOUSANDS of these guy who are probably ahead in costs due to taxi fare savings in 3 months.

 

If I take a bus it will cost around R600 for a single month ... it should cost more than this, and then x it by 22 months it equates to R13200.00 ......

 

So I very nearly have 4 x SS commuter bikes at the price that I originally paid for it .... think I need to go home and renegotiate the cycling budget with the wife

 

but... the commute whatsapp group is now 6 years old, been constantly commuting for far longer than that.

[Hairy]

or the THOUSANDS of these guy who are probably ahead in costs due to taxi fare savings in 3 months.

 

cool pic by the way

[Patchelicious]

And just when I thought that the Savages couldnt get any softer, here they are looking at eBikes.... ????

[Hairy]

And just when I thought that the Savages couldnt get any softer, here they are looking at eBikes....

you expecting them to start an e-bike league ?

[wolter]

so... i can't comment on taking kids to school, but i've done the math on a normal MTB (which i would use for commuting rather than a road bike) and the answer is that it's not that cheap in R/km terms...

 

i typically get around 2500 km from a set of tyres so that means 4 x tyres in 5000 km's running.

 

on a MTB, you can budget on a chain and a cassette every 5000 and a fork service every 2500km.

 

In a 5000 km cycle, it would thus mean roughly R5000 for tyres, chains, cassets and fork service.

 

One will also realistically ride 20000 km on a bicycle over its life, so even though the capital is low, the depreciation rate is an order of magnitude higher than for a vehicle.

 

So, if you take a R20k bike, commute with it for 4 years @ 5000km / year, then it will cost you R20k for wear parts and you'll lose 90% of the R20k in capital, so it's R40000 or R2/km. More expensive bikes replaced more frequently... well that easily goes to R5+/km...

 

If we can trust our friends at AA, the all inclusive cost of running a car is ~R3/km. The major cost benefit of commuting by bike is that you tend to ride much less total km's...