robi2106's Journal: Thanks for the Weather Update Stan, Now on to the Top Story

So we had some lucky guesses, some close guesses, and a nearly correct guess (except he was greedy and tried two answers in one).

Purchasing a bicycle is nothing ground shaking. What is, is that I will be selling my car (sniff sniff.... I love that car!) and moving my family to a one car household, and my wife keeps her car.

There are many reasons NOT to give up our current a 1:1 ratio of cars to people:

1) two different jobs
2) living in a large geographical area that is not bicycle friendly
3) second job requiring on site visits in my off hours time
4) the "late for work rush"
5) convenience
6) summer heat (Boise gets to 100+/- 5deg and stays there for weeks) that car is old style freon and works stronger than ANY vehicle I have ever been in. We recharged it the month before the ban in the US.
7) safety - bikes by themselves may be safe but any bicycle / motorcycle vs SUV crash is one sided)
8) spur of the moment errands
9) capacity.... few cars (excluding trucks here) have the capacity of an 88 LeSabre for being able to haul lots of stuff or people or both all while hitting 20MPG in city traffic.

But there are also many reasons to get rid of the second vehicle. Here are some:
1) Money - Car insurance - additional $200-300 every year.
2) Logistics - Low mile commute (less than 2 miles)
3) Money - Gas - $320 / year (again for a very low mileage commute) (~$80 / wuarter)
4) Health - Forced exercise (more on this in later journal)
5) Money - Car Repairs - at least $150-200 / year in bits and pieces averaged over time.
6) Logistics - Flat terrain (no hills between work & home)
7) Money - Vehicle Registration & Fees - ~$100 / yr in registration & emissions test
8) Sex appeal - ok..... so bike shorts don't quite count
9) Tradition - My wife's dad has ridden a bike to work for decades (of course he has worked at the same business for decades where as I have had 3 jobs in the last year, and 9 jobs in the last decade)
10) Social - Road Biking with the brother-in-law & pastor. Should be loads of fun.

Yes I mentioned money a lot. That is because money is a big concern. Especially when our mortgage is 40% of after-tax income and my per hour income after health care (bought on the open market through a PPO) is $13 / hr (excluding any actual spending on health care).

So of course I made a spreadsheet. It is costing me about $1.85 every day to fuel, repair, register, license, and insure my vehicle (an `88 LeSabre). This cost does not include the cost for my wife's car. This is just my costs (I even can tell who's credit card receipt for gas it is because she goes to Chevron and I go to Fred Meyer).

A bicycle has far more limited re-occurring costs. If I blow a tire tube every quarter $10 (not that crazy of an expectation) and buy gear every once and a while ($30 / quarter and that is a big expense account for just commuting and occasional road biking) I'll have a pretty realistic expectation lined up. After one year my expenses with a bike would be $1,130. Car would be $465.32. After two years the expense is $1,290 for the bike and $1,115 for the car. After three years the cost is $1,450 for the bike and $1,765 for the car.

So after 3 years, including startup expenses and assuming no major problems with the car then I will be ahead by switching to the bike. And assuming no major problems for the car is quite an assumption.

To that end, I bought a road bicycle yesterday. Visit the pictures section of my Multiply to see the rig. I bought a clearance bike at Bob's Bicycles Boise (Google to find it) that was initially ~$950 and has carbon fiber front fork and seat post. Nice shifters and lots of gears. Then I added on a rear rack to hold my change of clothes, a rack bag with side bags (and the metal frame to hold the side bags), a helmet (might return it cause I found my old one), pants (yes they are padded biking pants), a pump, and padded gloves (a must).

So in 3 weeks I'll be flushing my cars brakes (needed this for a while) checking lots of fluids and then putting it up for sale. Pretty much any income from the sale will push forward my break even deadline.

So there you have it. Not an insignificant change. Hopefully a change for the better financially and health wise. Now if only I could be paid to have made this change (more on this later).

A suggestion

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Consider doing the following instead of putting the car up for sale:

1. Gas stabilizer into the gas tank.
2. Remove the battery and possibly also the spark plugs (this is dependant on state insurance regulations so look into it).
3. Drain the raidator and other potentially freezeable fluids.
4. Parking the car and leaving it sit, unregistered, unlicensed, uninsured.

Costs you nothing and you get the benefit that if you ever DO need a second car again, it's available. Of course, if you're really good with

Re:

[ncc74656]

If you're mothballing a car for any significant period, there are a few more things you might consider doing. My father put his '73 Cutlass in storage for four years while we were over in Europe. IIRC, he put it up on blocks (placed under the lower A-arms up front and under the rear axle so that the weight of the car is still on the suspension, but the tires are off the ground so they don't get flat spots), squirted some oil into the cylinders and turned over the engine a bit to get the oil all over the t

Re:

[robi2106]

you know, I hadn't considered this at all. thanks for the tip. There still is a chance I might need it if the job changes, but so far the customer seems to have jobs lined up for us and they seem OK with my pace of development. one problem is that I do not have a place to put the car. I expect that the $300-500 I could get for it is a reasonable price and not to bad of a price at that.

but I'll look into the storage bit. I might have space in the back yard, but I KNOW that my wife would be against it st