Today I took Cara for her (almost) 1 year service check. The guy at the bike shop, using a nifty little chain wear measuring thingy, estimated that I made about 3000 km on my bike. Wow! … Wow! The nifty little chain wear measuring thingy shows “0” for a brand new chain and “1” for a chain that should be replaced. Cara’s chain was out of its chart. The “1” was too little to capture this amount of wear.

Anyway, the interesting number in the text above is 3000. 3000 km is a lot. If I would have used a car, I would have spent 3000 km * (6 liters / 100 km) * (5.5 ron / liter) = 990 ron (~240 euro). Which is almost how much the bike cost (=1100 ron). But, since the service checks for a bike are less than 150 ron, compared to about 500 for a car, in just one year I payed off this investment.

If, instead of using a bike or a car, I would have walked (the bike was used outside Bucharest for just… 70 km), I would have needed 3000 km / [(15 – 5) km / hour] = 300 hours = 12.5 days (considering an average bike speed of 15 kmph and an average walking speed of 5 kmph). This is something I feel every day, since instead of walking 1 hour to and from the university, I need just 20 minutes of biking.

A few days ago (Saturday night, to be more precise), I had the opportunity to check the bike vs car in a speed test. After a 2 km race between me + Cara and Andreea + Opel Corsa… guess who won? Well, it was a perfect tie – but I had to bike a little faster, I think my average was about 22 kmph. In comparison, on a normal week day, cars don’t stand a chance.

So there you have it. All the numbers say: bike > car.

(archive photos – Cara over the past year)