Jack's Electric Bicycle

Weekly Wrap 9.8.06

This week’s total mileage: 57 miles

This week’s mileage on e-bike: 57

This week’s mileage on regular bike: 0

Total mileage since July 10, 2006: 342.5

Total e-bike mileage since July 10, 2006: 338

Total regular bike mileage since July 10, 2006: 4.5

Gas savings this week: 4 gallons

Gallons saved since July 10, 2006: 24.2

Price of gas today: $3.00

Gas savings since July 10, 2006: $77.80

Notes: On Thursday I racked up 19 miles – all of them business related. The mileage included four separate trips into town.

Being that I had a meeting to attend that evening, I pedaled a lot and conserved battery power. The strategy worked because I had gobs of power left over to get to the meeting and get back.

That evening Tim Hooven clocked me going 31 mph on a flat portion of Central Avenue. That’s just 4 mph under the speed limit. Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a good chance I broke the 35 mph speed limit on the downhill portion of Hiller Road. Yee-hah!

I saved four gallons of gas this week. That, by the way, is the maximum amount of gas I can save in a week given the vehicle requirements of my business.

That’s a 40 percent reduction in weekly fuel consumption compared to before I bought the e-bike.

Number notes: It’s probably a good idea to explain again what some of these numbers mean just in case there are new readers.

My “gas savings” calculation is the difference between the amount of gas I consume now compared to the average amount of gas I consumed before obtaining the e-bike on July 10. Before the e-bike, I consumed about 10 gallons of gas a week in my compact car. This week I consumed six gallons, giving me a savings of four gallons, or 40 percent.

The gas consumption is determined every Friday, which is when I visit the gas station. So, for clarification, I consumed 6 gallons of gas between Friday afternoon, Sept. 1, and Friday afternoon, Sept. 8.

While gas consumption is measured from Friday to Friday, bicycle mileage is measured from Sunday through Saturday. Being that I post my weekly wrap on Friday, I assume that on Saturday I’ll make a single trip to town. If that doesn’t happen, or if I use the bike more than anticipated, I would revise the weekly wrap accordingly. So far, that hasn’t been necessary.

The price of gas is from the Renner Cardlock station in McKinleyville. The price is generally lower than the other stations, sometimes by as much as 10 cents.

I would include the cost of charging the battery, but I don’t have a good way to determine this. I expected my electric bill to be higher since obtaining the e-bike, but it actually dropped slightly from the year before. I don’t know why.

posted by Jack Durham @ 7:03 PM