How I transitioned to E-bike and Transit
Hi anybody who actually reads this blog! I know that this blog is mainly for my programming and I haven’t posted anything programming related on here yet, but I promise it is coming! I actually have a few planned blog posts about topics such as git flow, matrices, and convolution planned. I just have to get around to actually writing these.
Instead, I have a story about transitioning from driving to work every day, to using my E-bike and Transit. Most of the time when I talk about this, people are taken aback by this decision and often tell me I am making a bad choice. I don’t think a single person liked the idea except for one guy at my work who also uses his is E-bike. People can’t wrap their minds around the idea of “upgrading” to a bike. The thing is, this is absolutely an upgrade for me.
There are a couple reasons why I have eagerly been looking forward to selling my car. The story starts with my first office job when I was hired to work as a SQL developer back during my coop term about 7 years ago. During this two month stint over the summer, I put on about 30 pounds. It was a dramatic increase caused by my new sedentary life style. Ever since then, I desperately tried to knock those pounds back off through diet and exercise, but this proved to be futile. Since then, I have had a few more office jobs and have been developing minor health issues. It doesn’t take a genius to see the trend, and to predict my future. This lead me to realizing the first factor motivating this change:
Health
I realized that I sit in my car for anywhere between 40-60 min per day depending on road conditions - even more in the winter. I compared my different transit options using google maps and specifically searched for the times I would normally be taking to work, and arranged it in the below table:
| Transit Method | One-way time | Complete time |
|---|---|---|
| Car | 20 mins | 40 mins |
| Bus | 40 - 60 min | 1h 20m - 2h |
| Bike | 40 mins | 1h 20m |
So the interesting thing about this was that although biking and bussing added time to my commute, they offered a number of advantages. For one, both of these methods are healthier and would require either walking on my part, or cycling for about 16km one way. On days I can use my E-bike, I am able to get a significant amount of cario done to fill in my exercise quota. On the other hand, when I am bussing instead, I have anywhere between 40-60 minutes to read or program on my laptop. Finally, the next big advantage is:
Savings
This was a primary motivator after I crunched the numbers.
I calculated the cost of my car, and was floored.
Car
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Car Payments | $210 |
| Insurance | $185 |
| Gas | $150 |
| Maintenance | $50 |
| Total | $600 |
For comparison, here is my monthly costs for the other methods of transportation:
E-bike
| Item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Maintenance | $20 - 50 |
The e-bike has few costs other than the flat cost of purchasing the bike. I would basically be maintaining the chain and drive with lubricant, and sensitive parts of the bike with a protective coating on a weekly or biweekly basis. The wheels would occasionally need to be changed from wear, and the breaks would have to be changed roughly every two years. Other parts of the bike should be mostly maintenance free save for the occasional tune-up. Overall, the price is very low.
Bus
| Item | Monthly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fares | $150 | This is based off of two trips per day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks per month |
So the above costs are based on bus transit only. In reality, I would not be taking the bus twice a day, 5 days a week, and every week of the month. For good weather days, I will be travelling by E-bike, including during the winter. This reduces my monthly costs dramatically. Some months, I can probably get away with no transit fare at all, while other months - specifically during the winter - I will rely almost exclusively on transit.
Total savings
Under the worst conditions, I will be transiting every day, which is highly unlikely. Despite this, under these conditions, I would be saving $450 per month. This is a significant amount considering my current salary. I am expecting even more savings as I will be getting away with no transit fares on most days thanks to the e-bike. The idea of actually building savings, and eventually going on a vacation to Japan is a major driving force behind this plan.
Weather
The weather would be main factor which would decide whether I transit or ride my bike. Maybe I went a bit overboard with this, but I looked up the weather statistics for the past few years and averaged them to get a rough idea of the total number of rain and snow days during the year:
This resulted in:
So obviously, this is only a rough estimate. Realistically, I would have to consider that of these days, I would only be going to work during week days and not weekends. The other thing is that on days of lighter snow or rain, cycling really isn’t much of an issue and I can still do this. My strategy this far has been to consider the worst possibility, which would be that I am unable to bike for roughly 30% of the year. For this 30%, I would mainly be relying on transit.
Scenarios
If the last step wasn’t neurotic enough, I took it to the next level. I built a document considering every single scenario where I use my car:
- Commute to Work
- Picking up Groceries
- Going to Restaurants or Events
- Buying large furniture/objects
- Moving
For each of the scenarios, I compared the Car to E-bike and transit. Some scenarios were impossible for the E-bike or Transit, however the saved costs from owning the car allowed for truck rentals and emergency uber trips. Other scenarios were either impossible or inconvenient in the car, which would still require truck rentals.
After deliberating on each scenario, I summed them up:
Here, I wanted to see the full picture.
For minimum savings, I compared the lowest possible costs of using the car with the highest possible costs of using the bike and transit. Converesely, for maximum savings I compare the highest possible costs of using the car, and the lowest possible costs for using the bike and transit. The “possible” part was based on the the ranges of costs of some items, and some low likeliness possibilities like major repairs.
Overall, I saw the potential savings of $4744 - 7744.
Conclusion
Well, as with all choices in life, there is always risk involved. I have used my car for the past 10 years and have become accustomed to it. Despite this, I saw a great future with more money and better health. I saw a future without the anxiety that comes with car ownership and a limited salary. I heavily considered all options, and different factors and scenarios for each option, and at the end, the choice was clear.
I became very eager to proceed with the car sale and to buy the e-bike. Luckily, I was able to snag an insane deal on the e-bike and saved about 40% of what I would have normally paid for the bike. This gave me an opportunity to actually try the trip to work, which went far better than expected thanks to the motor on the bike - but that is a subject for another blog post.
To wrap it up, I decided to go ahead with this plan, and I am extremely excited to conclude the car sale and start a new chapter of my life.
For anybody who spent the time reading this post, thanks for dropping by and I hope to see you again!