Most of NYC is pretty flat and the actual distances are not great so one does not really burn that many calories. The biggest problem I have with biking in the city is that it is just very unpleasant. As I've posted before, the atmosphere in NYC is one of "the cars are in charge." A large % of the cars are cabs and these seem to have gotten even more aggressive with higher fuel prices. The police do not even seem to be watching for infractions against bikes ( I think they think of most bikers as loonies or radicals![god forbid]).So I mean something would really have to change for biking to take off here. Fewer cars (which would entail higher average speeds) as well as infrastructure changes.

Matt

The whole car vs. bike or walking debate is really not about transportation itself, but how agriculture is so dependent on fossil fuels in it's current factory farm system. If you eat more local, organic and less meat, you can easily reduce the CO2 inputs into your body mass.

A healthy human body needs physical exercise. Walking and biking are natural healthy ways to get that exercise and achieve mobility needs as well.

And the assumption that we have to travel exactly the same distances is also false. People in walkable/bikeable cities and towns don't have to travel long distances so the amount of calories burned is pretty minimal.

Bikes are even better than walking in terms of efficiency. Walking a mile burns about 100 calories while riding a bike is generally only a third of that.

I'm not against electric bikes, but I just think it would be better to change our diets and get a little better exercise routines that all get on motorized scooters.

Good god. Someone please call the headshrinker...

Palladina,

Your write:

“Riding bikes -> consumes body energy -> Burns calories -> you eat more -> More food consumption - More fossil fuel spent to produce the food -> Worse off than driving a fuel efficient car.”

It is true that food calories represent a lot of embedded energy, but bicycles are incredibly efficient machines. A bike weighs only a fraction of its rider’s body weight and the efficiency of the chain drive is in the high nineties. Hall, Cleveland and Kaufman in their book ‘Energy and Resource Quality’ estimate the mileage equivalent of bicycles as 1560 miles/gallon of gasoline. I assume they are are just counting the conversion of calories into miles and are not accounting for the energy used to produce the food. Just to take a nice round number let us suppose that 9 calories are expended to bring 1 calorie of food to your table. This extra energy reduces the bike’s mileage to 156 miles/gallon which is still good, plus you have avoided the embedded energy represented by an automobile. If you eat locally grown food your mileage will improve even more.

Re: Palladina

Given today's method of food production, that seems like it could be plausible. However, I still strongly believe that bicycling is better than driving.

Did you consider how much energy was used to build the car, which weighs - and this is a conservative estimate - 100 times more than a bike, so has roughly 100 times the material? How about all the resources needed to maintain a car, vs. what is required to maintain a bicycle, which can go a long way on a relatively tiny amount of lubricant and a small human-powered air pump? How about the vast road system required for cars, where bicycles require considerably much less pavement, and pavement that I imagine would last much longer because it is burdened with relatively light bicycles instead of so many multi-ton vehicles? How many more resources are used to maintain roads for cars vs. paved surfaces for bicycles? How about the ridiculous waste of resources used for drive-thrus alone, with cars cars running at idle just to avoid the enormous hassle of having to actually walk a hundred or two feet?

How about pollution?

And how about your health? It seems to me there is a direct correlation between car culture and obesity. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a study to figure that one out. How many resources are used to treat obesity?

Are you looking at the whole picture, or just the energy used during use?

Our current food production system definitely should be made to be less energy-intensive. I plan to help with this next year by starting a garden in my back yard, plus growing some fruit trees. This will partially replace the water-wasting and fertilizer-laden lawn I have now.

Now, keep in mind that I am in favor of population control/reduction by the following method: I think it would be wise to have just one batch of kids (which means usually one) or none.

Cars largely use non-renewable resources. This is true for electrics, hybrids, hydrogen, and even ethanol (considering the energy inputs). Bikes use food - the same thing we've lived on for much longer than the time we've had cars around.

Which is really the better choice?

Palladina writes: "... biomass from your body is the most expensive form of energy of all... A better solution, is a electricity driven bike"

On what planet? Those statements sound like religious belief, not science.

Some simple back-of-envelope calculations show cycling as the energy winner: Let's say you can bike a mile for about 42 (kilo)calories, or about ten kilowatt-seconds, or 2.7 kwH. That's the equivalent of a 28 watt motor propelling you that same distance at ten miles an hour -- not going to happen! You'll need at least a hundred watts (about 1/8th horsepower) to do the job.

But Palladina did say "expensive", not most efficient. A package of spaghetti costs $1.99, and supplies over 10,000 calories, so our one-mile bike ride costs well under a penny. Assuming for a moment that the efficiency is the same, and that a 28 watt motor could do the job, the 2.7kwH of electricity required would cost 17 cents here in British Columbia, with some of the cheapest electricity in the world.

Granted, these are simple calculations. But I'd be surprised if they were off by as much as an order of magnitude, and then human propulsion would still win.

If Palladina has some real numbers with references to back him up, I'd be open to changing my mind...

:::: Jan Steinman, Communication Steward, EcoReality http://www.EcoReality.org ::::

I got an electric assist bike and solar panels to recharge the batteries with. Do I pass the Palladina test? I guess I should quit pedalling tho. Last time I checked, I was in no danger of wasting away to nothing.

RobertInNarita

I haven`t escaped from reality. i have a daypass.

Riding bikes -> consumes body energy -> Burns calories -> you eat more -> More food consumption - More fossil fuel spent to produce the food -> Worse off than driving a fuel efficient car.

Have you seen the numbers?

The average American eats 4000 calories/day.
Lance Armstrong used 5200 calories/day riding on average 100 miles/day in Tour de France.
A normal person need 1500 - 2500 calories.

You would not need more food, you would only get healthy.

Good allegory.

The right-wing nut-jobs are getting off on creating new ways of raising fear. Take a look at this "top-tier" conservablog to see where their mindset is right now:
Bicyclists gone wild

The chicken-hawks are now scared of a bunch of bicycle riders. OMG, when will it stop?

In the US people would just steal them and sell them on Ebay or Craigslist. We'd have to put LOjack on the bikes.

Matt

On a related tack...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6971924.stm

Commuters offered unclaimed bikes

Use of cycles will be offered free of charge in Inverness
Bikes handed into the police and have remained unclaimed are to be offered to commuters so they can cycle the last leg of their journey to work.

I wondered about that too (see more cyclists on the streets). I couldn't decide that I was seeing more because there were more, or I saw more because I began to look for them.

In any event, I never fail to be delighted when I look at a long avenue and see a steady stream of white-LED bicycles moving along.

I just hope the vandalism is kept under control: I've seen punctures, no chains, rear wheel jammed, handle bars in freewheel mode and saddle adjustment lever snapped off at the base. Not to mention people putting their own padlocks on the bikes to reserve for their own personal use.

One thing I like is the meme of pointing the saddle backwards to indicate that the bike is defective.

The very first bike I took out had a punctured tyre, and when I put it back at one of the stations someone wanted to take it. So I told them it was broken and as an afterthought flipped the seat around to signal to other people after I had left. I make no claims as to having invented this... the gesture was probably invented independently all over the city during the first week. Still, it's an effective way of signalling that something is wrong with the bike.

I've just come back from Paris.

I was told the bicyles were primarily for Paris residents and not tourists; you have to register and so forth.

They, rightfully so, want to cut down on fuel consumption and not encourage joy riding.

I live nearby, and the free buses in Hasselt have made a few nearby cities to increase their bus services too, in order not to look backwards. They're not completely free, but still cheap, and more importantly, hourly.

Mom with two small kids and luggage can buy a trailer from BoB or their competitors. The Lompoc bike club are all retired people and they kick my ass. I suggest a rephrase as sick people like somebody who needed open heart surgery.

Business travel to another city is by plane (possibly personal plane) and bulk cargo is by rail. I agree with that.

RobertInSantaBarbara

I haven`t escaped from reality. I have a daypass.