Cycling UK Forum

beardy wrote:

or distribute to parents with wood burners...)

Now what would they be using to carry this wood?

One of my car's uses is bringing firewood home.

Since they'd already be in the car (expecting a 70 year old with severe arthritis who is waiting for a new hip having just broken his arm to cycle 80 miles is a bit ott) one set will be using the car.
The others will be doing similarly - in neither case will it be a dedicated journey.

Then again the council also use petroleum based lorry, and that *is* a dedicated journey (albeit spread over many residences).

OTOH if some goes to church friends (as it might, it smells lovely) then it will go in the bike trailer.

I did 9 weeks without until beginning September, the longest i'd gone without using a car & i'd held off from driving until I was 23 (a year after sprog came along too..lol)
The summer was a struggle at times for me and I'd love to go car free permanently & have considered it..but
It works out too costly to use the buses when I can't or am unable to use the bike (eg 2x10 mins rural journeys to the hospital and back is £5 a pop). It's impossible to use the bike for some of my charity work & unless I book the train more than 2-3 weeks in advance it's double the cost of going by car to visit the folks. To get it cheaper than by car (including 2x toll over the bridge) I have to cycle 5 miles to the main East coast station (not pleasant arriving soaked and having to change in a cramped loo) and come back late on a Monday night the same route which isn't always practical/doable

I applaud those that do go without a car but it costs me £1050 to cover the 3000 miles I've done YTD, that's absolutely everything including fuel/VED/servicing/repairs/tyres/MOT/Insurance. For me it's worth it.

Mrs T has a car that I use occasionally, but usually is either in the garage or travelling the country with her. (In fact I'm visiting a friend near York in a few weeks time. Planned a cycle route up, booked train tickets back and only when I mentioned this did she reveal the car was available. I hadn't even thought to ask).
Aside from that Cambridge has a car club that I'm signed up to- means I have access to a car or van should I need it, but because it's a bit of a hastle it only gets used for emergencies. Other than that it is cycle or train

[XAP]Bob wrote:And compare that with the cost of hiring a car a few times a year?

We still have a car - although I also cycle more than I drive.
Small kids and a non cycling wife don't really lend themselves to a car free life...

There's hidden costs of getting to/from the hire point, filling out the forms, arguing over whether that dent was that bad when you picked it up and so on, but the biggest problem with hiring a car is having to deal with people like https://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/201 ... snideness/

As for the kids and non-cycling wife... have you considered a pedicab?

Most of the older generations are lost, sadly. We might pick up a few from network effects and because they abandon cars, but until the costs of motoring become as obnoxious as those of smoking, the real key seems like focusing on those who are just starting to get around and make things safe (and safe-looking) for them. Then it should be better for those who already ride in our current imperfect conditions.

It's ten years since I last drove a car, but it's over three years since I did any proper cycling too. There have been a few occasions when I would have hired a car, but having seen the way that business seems to have turned into a scam it just doesn't seem worth the risk. This summer 43% of my holiday cost went on public transport, more than the cost of the accommodation.

As a number of others have said I do drive but it is not my main form of transport.
Last year cycled 9000 miles (including 5000m commuting) drove 3000 miles.
Almost all of my driving miles were a few 200 mile plus journeys.
Someone above question costs of owning a car when driving low miles. £30 a year road tax, £150 insurance the car was £1800 had it 3 years and have spent very little on repairs etc.
Would love to travel more by train. Problems: don't live near a station, unless you can book a few of the cheap tickets it's really expensive for more the one person, can't book a bike ticket on-line, changing trains where it's impossible to book a bike ticket.

Two together or group save tickets make it cheaper when there's more than one, plus you can book bike tickets online, but that doesn't solve the lack of stations or trains without bike reservations.

JohnW wrote:

Shoogle wrote:How many people on here are just cyclitsts? Don't have a car/don't drive or can't drive.

There's me, for a start.

Never owned a car - never wanted one. I had a full professional working career

And me.

Never owned a car - never wanted one. I have a full professional working career.

JohnW wrote:people say that it can't be done without a b****y car, but it can. You only have to decide.

Too true

It depends on where you live and where you work etc whether or not you can do without a car.
It isn't as simple as it first appears.

Ok.
Move house so you're on a bus route, or to somewhere it's simple to cycle.
That'll solve the issue.

Moved house to a place on two bus routes and where it's fairly easy to cycle, yet still I have to choose between driving a car or it being much more expensive to do certain tasks. Partly that's because the bus system only runs 7am-6pm Mon-Sat, but does anywhere outside London and the other cities with Integrated Transport Authorities have mass transport than really competes with cars?

Nope.
Big cities are ok, and conurbations of cities, but not anywhere else.

Round here, we eventually got a reasonable bus service, but the company went bust - goodness knows why - and the routes went out for tender. No-one came forward!

Eventually, a company were recruited, but they were terrible. Poor punctuality, breakdowns, dirty old fashioned busses, the old folk had difficulty getting on and off, and they didn't do some routes in and out of the villages. They were eventually booted out, and a new company recruited. These people are better, but some services have been cut.

I get all the low-down on this because I drive the Community Bus once or twice a month, and I hear all the complaints.

Who can afford to run public transport away from a city?
It doesn't make much profit, so there's no company who are even going to put enough in to make it worthwhile. I rue the day when they de-regulated the busses. It should be PUBLIC transport, not a system for creating a profit for private shareholders.

beardy wrote:

or distribute to parents with wood burners...)

Now what would they be using to carry this wood?

One of my car's uses is bringing firewood home.

Exactly. As one who has felled a considerable number of trees, I know that with bicycle and trailer, I would not be able to move them anywhere unless they were cut up into small logs. Even then moving tons would take a very long time or a vast number of cyclists who would all want paying.

Let's not go overboard, it's only one trailers worth of wood...

Just takes storage at the felling site - then the wood can heat you three times - when you fell/chop itm when you collect it and when you burn it

I cycled 2,000 miles last year and drove 15,000 miles, a lot of it for work. I am a Surveyor and cover a large, rural area. I would however, very much like to do more of my work travelling by bike and public transport.

We have recently moved house and I am now nearer to a main line railway station and have a good route to get there from home. Consequently, since we moved I have commuted by bike on over 3 days out of 5 on average. I am looking to increase my cycling mileage by at least 1,000 and decrease my car driving mileage by 3,000 per year in 2015. It will be interesting to see how I get on

Mick F wrote:Who can afford to run public transport away from a city?
It doesn't make much profit, so there's no company who are even going to put enough in to make it worthwhile. I rue the day when they de-regulated the busses. It should be PUBLIC transport, not a system for creating a profit for private shareholders.

Yes. Public tranport is just that. Public. And it shouldn't have to depend on a profit. That's not to say it should be allowed to run with some of the problems and inefficiencies of the past. But the government needs to subsidise public transport, and assume that in some areas, providing a service is more important than making a profit.

Maybe a community bus is sufficient for some services, but not all, and not all the time. Otherwise, we increasingly trap anyone who cannot drive, cannot afford a car, or merely has physical difficulties. That will get worse as motorised eprsonal transport becomes more expensive. That is an unreasonable way to develop a society.



p.s. I drove a bit more than I cycled in the last year for the first time since giving up the second car. I am working on reversing that trend.