What utter rubbish.

No account of the amount of resources to build and dispose of the car and bike. that will tip the balance remarkably the other way. No need to buy plastic bottles of drink.

TJ, that does rely on people entirely replacing a car with a bike though doesn't it. I'd say that the majority (or at least a significant proportion) of people who commute to work don't do it every day and have a car sat at home when they do.

Similarly, not everyone buys a bottled drink but plenty of people would eat more than they would do otherwise which they justifiably claim isn't green.

I agree though, it does sound rather simplistic.

Are these people too profoundly stupid to spot a hole that size in their own reasoning, or do they just not care? Either is pretty bad. 😀

I'm surpirsed they haven't brought out the old Times line that driving is more environmentally responsible than cycling as the exhaust is cleaner than the air which goes into the engine

people seem to be missing out the crucial difference between a skyline and a skyline GT-R, one is a ford sierra/granada like your grandad drove, the other is a ford sierra XR4 cosworth V8 thats spent some time in the tuning shop.

But he's still a very big tangent line on a dome shaped lump of metal.

Yeah that's a fair point TJ – like I said, it's more complex than they presented but equally more complex than your arguement that if they're riding a bike then a car doesn't get made.

To my mind you did 🙂

My car's mileage is about 1000 miles less per year than it would be if I didn't commute. That's unlikely to make any significant difference to how long I keep it and even to the cost of ownership (the biggest expense is servicing which gets done yearly regardless) and clearly it's still been made. I reckon that I'm a reasonably typical commuter if you look at 'normal people' who commute on bikes rather than commuters who consider themselves cyclists.

Clubber, I think you've drawn up a very narrow scenario there. What about households which only have one car, thanks to one member being able to commute by bike? What about all the non-commuting journeys you save? The fitness benefits? In your case, the reduction to the "bike" element of your carbon contribution by virtue of the fact that many of your bike purchases are second hand, and in some cases third or fourth? 😉

Keeps you fit and hopefully out of the NHS system unless you are unluck to be hit by a stupid driver!

and similar on aw's points.

Absolutely and that's why it's great when people take up cycling.

It just doesn't necessarily mean that they're being 'greener' by doing it and that's what the original article linked to was about. Not other benefits.

Hmm a curious line, which side that would I be on I wonder. Reminds me of the "he's not a cyclist" discussion we have at work whenever we see a "cyclist commits armed robbery" or similar headline, the geezers who've been pulling jobs and getaway in a motor aren't described as motorists are they? Only time someone is described as motorist is when they've actually used the car in the crime e.g. killed someone by running them over, but in those cases it's normally the victims fault for having the audacity to be in the motorists way.

LOL – ok, I'll leave it there then. You're a big bearded eco warrior, near singlehandedly saving the world from eco disaster 🙂

D0NK – I guess that the point I was trying to make is that people who consider themselves cyclists (like everyone here) do it because they enjoy it rather than for purely practical reasons. As such they're quite likely to try to commute by bike if possible. That's very different to 'normal people' who do it for purely practical reasons and are less likely to cycle to work every day. I know plenty of people who cycle to work but would never consider themselves 'cyclists' in the same way that by driving a car, they don't consider themselves a 'driver' or motorist (though come to think of it one does race cars and he probably would call himself a 'driver'…)

I think that article was a textbook example of ecological sensitivity – a recycled argument, and no fossil fuels were wasted on research…

It's a distinct possibility adh. I've even heard that the meja sometimes make up sensational stories in order to sell more. Shocked me, I can tell you!