Adios 2012
Posted by Jim Zeiser on Wednesday, January 2, 2013
I hope you all had a happy New Year. I'm sitting here with the tally sheet for two wheeled commuting in 2012. While it won't knock your socks off, I'm fairly content. The 150cc scooter was used 27 times for trips to work before the cylinder head started to seriously leak and stopped it. The ill fated Yamaha 250 was used once. The Honda Rebel made eight trips while the 50cc mini-motorcycle made nine runs over the hills. Lastly we have the big scooter, Galileo, at a colossal 43 trips between the beginning of August and the end of the season. This all totals out to 88 commutes over the course of the riding season or about 3080 miles. At a savings of $6.00 per trip over using the minivan I pocketed $528. That might not sound like alot but think about the bigger picture. Over the course of 10 years I'd save about $5300 and that's not to mention not driving the car an additional 30,000 miles. I'm sure that's a simple picture not taking into account the maintenance required on a bike or scooter over that time. I only know that in the past I've been able to keep some low priced cars longer than expected by shifting miles onto my motorcycles.
I also have a lot more fun riding a bike or scooter than I do driving a car. So the small financial savings is over shadowed by the pure "Grin Power" I collect from riding. I don't know if I'll approach that number of commutes by bike this year given how the weather has been more severe already this winter, but who knows? Records are made to be broken.
I also have a lot more fun riding a bike or scooter than I do driving a car. So the small financial savings is over shadowed by the pure "Grin Power" I collect from riding. I don't know if I'll approach that number of commutes by bike this year given how the weather has been more severe already this winter, but who knows? Records are made to be broken.
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