Archives

I was at the shop and a young lady came in to get the oil changed on her '07 VW Bug. She had the biggest doggone bike rack I've ever seen mounted on top. I asked her about it and she gave me a gushing spiel about how beautiful the mountains are, how blue Lake Tahoe is and how clear the Truckee river is, and that there's no better, cleaner place she'd like to ride her bike. She also mentioned that it's been months since she had the chance to go riding.

So I asked her if she took the bike rack off when she didn't need it in order to help her fuel economy and emissions (subtle, eh?). I pointed out that her rack has a quick release system which makes mounting and un-mounting it a simple procedure that can be done in less than a minute, and the the rack pieces collapse to fit neatly in a cargo space.. She replied that she always keeps it on.

I whipped out my trusty calculator (well, the calculator on my cell phone) and walked her through the math to find out how much wasted fuel this was costing her per year. We came up with about 60 gallons, or $180.

She shrugged and said, "I can afford that.".

Hi Brian:

___You did great and although the initial outcome may not have been satisfactory, I bet you planted a seed and she will be thinking about that rack every time she fills the tank. Unless she is independently wealthy with not a care in the world, you can bet your discussion will stick with her for some time to come … I can only hope anyway.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

:eek: :p :(

lol

Btw, how'd you come up with the 60 gallons?

Btw, how'd you come up with the 60 gallons?

Just by asking her how much gasoline she normally puts in the tank at each fueling (13 gallons), how often she fills up (every 4 days), and calculating a 5% drag hit to FE (industry standards say bike and other roof racks give a 2-5% reduction, and this one was honking big and had large vertical surfaces).

365 / 4 = 91.25 fill-ups per year

91.25 x 13 = 1,186 gallons of gasoline per year

1,186 x 0.05 = 59.3 gallons wasted per year

Call it 60 gallons for neatness and call gasoline $3.00 for neatness (it's actually about $3.25 right now):

60 x 3 = $180/year wasted

:flag: It could be that she has "No-Place" to store the rack assembly or does not want to take the time to remove it and then have to reinstall it every time she wants to use the bikes. Just a thought.

Also as you pointed out on the yearly cost per your calculations it may be that the savings are just not that big a deal to her considering taking that rack off and storing it and then reinstalling it.

It kinda reminds me of myself and my situation. I could get better FE/MPG with my HCH II if I chose to (Slow-Up) take off a lot easier from Stops. I just do not choose to do this these days because my {Time} is worth more to me and possibly Her Time than the additional Savings.

All situations are different for people and unless we are in that persons situation we just sometimes cannot figure why they do things the way they do or make the decision they do.

Your savings to Her was legit and you were nice to suggest to Her how easy it was to remove the rack and reinstall it. You did the nice thing, but in the end it is as we all know, it is up to Her to make the change.

Terry (tiger)

My approach to showing her the savings was an alternate tact in lieu of giving her the hour-long speech about the carbon pitfalls of burning another 60 gallons of gasoline every year which make her favorite local lake and river less blue and less clear and pollute the clean air she likes so much when she's biking.

That's the subtle point I was trying to make here. By being so lazy with the bike rack she is hurting the very things that make her like biking here so much. That's where the irony comes in.

My approach to showing her the savings was an alternate tact in lieu of giving her the hour-long speech about the carbon pitfalls of burning another 60 gallons of gasoline every year which make her favorite local lake and river less blue and less clear and pollute the clean air she likes so much when she's biking.

That's the subtle point I was trying to make here. By being so lazy with the bike rack she is hurting the very things that make her like biking here so much. That's where the irony comes in.
Brian,

That makes sense. I really doubt that she is thinking along those lines though. ;)

Terry (tiger)

Nobody thinks along those lines. Convenience is king. A guy i work with has a great big roof rack on his car and says its great for carrying stuff thats too big to fit in the car(he does a lot of DIY). In the same conversation he complains about how the car is drinking fuel. His tyres are also soft....
You should have seen his face when i told him my tyres were up to the sidewall limit! It was like i told him i won the lottery!
To summarise: People just couldn't be bothered.

because i can afford it. that's the main reason for not making a change that i hear so frequently. until it's so painful that it hurts to spend the money, nothing's going to change. this is what hurts those who are less able to afford it, that those who CAN afford it just don't care.

If you went around at the filling stations(hey I wouldn't suggest it) and asked all those drivers of big SUVs why they were putting up with filling their tanks with $60-90 worth of gas while you only put in $30 or so and not near as often, they might answer because they can afford it.

Admittedly it has changed behavior (witness the sales of smaller cars and downward trends of larger ones) but not, imo, enough of them.

--des


because i can afford it. that's the main reason for not making a change that i hear so frequently. until it's so painful that it hurts to spend the money, nothing's going to change. this is what hurts those who are less able to afford it, that those who CAN afford it just don't care.

I think there is something else going on here - I think some SUV owners that also have higher FE vehicles are putting more miles on the high FE ones, and leaving the SUVs home.

I have a Saris brand roof rack that I have had for many years on used on many cars. This model is not as popular as Thule or Yakima, but I love it because it can be removed and installed it in less than 5 minutes, without tools, so I only put it on when needed for carting bike, skis, or sometimes even building materials.

Some brands are a pain to remove, and I understand why people leave them on. While it is wasteful (and usually noisy) to leave it on, it's certainly less wasteful than falling for the marketing hype that you need an SUV or a truck just to carry your bike around.