equally there are some I ride with that must be nailing the cost per mile -- only 1, 2 or at most 3 bikes, keep them for several years, rag them to death and eventually they lie up in the garage..

not sure where my bikes lie in this, pretty good VFM I think. still got an M2 I'v head from new, admittedly most boots have been replaced but it still gets rolled out for 10-15-20 mile trundles.

Probably better than a new one where the first mile cost you a few hundred pounds or a new car where the first mile costs a few thousand pounds

Absolutely - it's second hand but they still aren't cheap. It's odd that I considered this with the brompton as it's a practical bike for commuting etc - but haven't given it a second thought when I've bought other 'fun' bikes 🙂

(Not saying the brompton isn't fun!)

my mountain bike is still costing about £1.50 per mile.

Surely the cost per mile has to include the current second hand price - which I assume would be identical therefore £0 per mile.

And I don't know what my mtbs cost but total costs are << car commuting costs would be.

my mountain bike is still costing about £1.50 per mile

Chuffin’ hell! I’m running a 700cc motorbike for 11p/mile. That’s an actual long term calculated figure as well, including fuel and all servicing costs. Add in insurance tax and depreciation and a rough calculation and that goes up to about 17p/mile all in......

I started working out consumables cost per mile for my road bike, based on tyres, chain, cassette, (eventually) groupset...

Then thought about Lycra, helmets, cleats...even if you replace your helmet every three years, it can easily be half to one penny per mile.

Bananas, cake...

I stopped working it out when I got an inkling how much 100 mile rides cost. And that's having written off the frame & wheel costs entirely!

Far from saying it isn't worth it, and it's a far cheaper hobby still than most, but some things you don't need to know!

I'm hoping your bike is still relatively new nickc!

£ per hour might be a more useful figure to compare across bike types? (although £/mile would work nicely for commuting)

If I typically ride say 2 hours on a local saturday afternoon ride, or 5-7 hours on a day when I'm away on a trip somewhere, then the distance per mile between the road/cx bike, xc bike and injooro bike differ quite substantially for one of those rides, even though all cost roughly the same.

Saying that, I reckon my least used is £50/mile (it's new and not been used enough yet), and my most used doesn't have enough recorded logs, but I know I got it down below 10p/mile in a single year when commuting on it.

Total value of bikes/kit bought/number of miles in last 3 years, about £30 a mile

Might be up in the £1/mile region for the most expensive bike. A few thousand miles, a few thousand quid (and not much resale value). Hard to get anything much under 10p if you include reasonable maintenance costs, and maybe more including fuel (food)! Typical day out on the MTB costs me a pub lunch for starters 🙂

4 year old Turner Czar, 11000 miles. 6.5K. 60p a mile minus cost of heart by-pass. 🙂

My road bike has more than paid for itself being relatively cheap to start with and a fair bit of fuel money saved from occasional commuting. Mountain bike is a bit more expensive and I would prefer not to work that out 😉

In a calculation earlier this week, I worked out that my colleagues gym membership costs her £23 per workout 😯

You wanna get yourself a nitro RC car... a line of coke a mile long would problably cost less per mile....

DrP

Oh my Dad wins this one - he bought a recumbent a while ago (he had a bad back and thought this would be the ideal bike).

He paid about £1300 for it but never really liked the bike, it was very heavy, difficult to transport, couldn't cope with the ridiculous barriers on the local cycle paths (set up to deter motorbikes) and eventually, years later than he should have done, he asked me to sell it for him.

Well by then it was 2 model iterations later, the bike was largely obsolete and obviously extremely niche anyway so I ended up getting about £300 for it. So for the less than 100 miles that my Dad did on it, it cost him £1000.

Hmmm.

Bought a very fancy custom DH bike for £5k, sold it a few years later when I worked out I wasn't really into racing and I didn't need 8"+ travel to ride the stuff I liked riding anyway for less than £2k.

In that time I probably did 10 uplift days at Cwmcarn, 80 runs maybe - that's 152km

A long weekend in Morzine, maybe another 120

A week in Whistler - 200km tops but probably less.

I'll round it up to 500km to cover the times I rode it to the shops and stuff.

310 miles, £3000 cost.

£9.68 per mile or worse, £150 per day every time I used it.

Hmmm, varies by bike

Cheapest will be my commuter Arkose, which is probably about 10p per mile for absolute cost, excluding peripherals, but I've saved more than three times its purchase price when compared with tube fares

Similar logic on my Brompton, each time I ride it the price per mile comes down, but it might save a tube/train/bus fare, which further recoups the cost

All other bikes are higher, but it's a hobby so I don't mind

I agree with the comment about price per hour, which might be better. Mind you, if you factor in the travel time to go for a ride maybe that goes up?

Also, the more bikes you had the worse this calculation get. Could lead to n-1 thinking

The bike is a little over 18 months old.

But, it's not a commuter or work-horse, nor do I particularly care what it's £/mile cost actually is (I worked it out because I realised I could). It wasn't bought with debt, so the bike "owes" me no money, and it makes me happy, and I can't think of many things that cost that little, and give so much pleasure.

Looking at my mileage log on Strava, before I sold it my S-Works Epic cost me £25 per mile.

My two road bikes I have left are running at £4 a mile.

Probably should ride a bit more...

had my yeti since jan. Ridden it 40 miles

so well over £100 per mile on that

my single speed that i bought for 300 quid has seen 10 miles in a year of ownership

Roughly 29p.per mile
Approx 60 miles per week ..I bought the bike a little over a year ago on interest free credit ( daft not to ) ..still paying for it ..
I haven't factored in the cost of travelling to and from the ride which could be quite significant.
Neither have I included maintenance ..
Food & drink don't come into the equation as I would still have to do this regardless..
All of the miles are based on 3 rides per week ..all fun ..all off-road ..a biggie on a Saturday which usually involves travelling a fair distance and two smaller local(ish) rides .
My previous bike more than paid for itself just shy of 4k ( cash ) 10 years ago ..but handed down to my 14 year old son who loves it to bits ..
Regardless of cost it beats pissing it all against the wall in a pub ..

My brompton economics are looking good.

Bought a 6 mth old one for 425 8 years ago. Usual consumables of tyres, suspension bung, new saddle so cost me 100 quid maybe.

Resale now must be 500-550 on gummy.

Must have done 2000 miles, but any mileage into zero depn is still zero.

I m after another, been a good investment.

Strava would suggest that my road bike is about 60p and my best MTB is about 90p per mile.

£ per smile would be better.

I've not totalled up the cost of tyres/chains etc but my commuter is currently costing me 3.1p per mile (£400/12700 miles) probably about 4.5ppm including maintenance, maybe a smidge more.

Good question

my CX bike that I use for the odd race but mostly for commuting is working out at 20p per km (and its 4 yr old so loads of life in it yet)

my cannondale hardtail (7 yr old) used for racing and goofing about on and some commuting is currently at about 40p per km

I genuinely think an awful lot of people on here prefer buying bicycles to actually riding them.

Oi! I resemble that comment!

True though, innit?

I like looking at my road bike, fettling with it and setting it up perfectly.

Not rode it in ages. ?

I've not totalled up the cost of tyres/chains etc

on the same bike, the total expenditure on tyres has easily exceeded the total purchase price of the first bike in my collection. not because they shred in no time, but because the prices have inflated so much.

I don't prefer to buy bikes. I just have this occasional urge to build another one, and once you get that urge there's no point fighting it.

Based on purchase cost/distance recorded on strava, so about 75% of my rides

Mountain bike is at 84p/km
Commuter is at 15p/km

given a good long mtb ride round my way is only 18km it's a bit meaningless, cost per 1000m descent might be more relevant

I'm currently commuting on an Elephant Bike, which I bought for £280 almost exactly two years ago. On top of that, I bought a new front tyre for £26 and an innertube for £4. A total of £310. Nothing else has needed replacing in the two years.

I've ridden it 3,534.8km, according to Strava, which is about 2210 miles.

That's 14p per mile. That's not too shabby.

I've not got an accurate distance for my Cotic X. That was about £600 (through cycle to work) and has about the same number of Strava-logged miles as my Elephant Bike, so about 28p per mile, but I didn't log every commute when I was commuting on it so probably less.

Not spent anything on it other than bar tape and tyres/tubes so that won't change much.

I've a mate that has several high end Road bikes, a couple are in the £50 per mile category.
Ironically his cheapest (5k) is the one he's out most on so is in the pennies per mile category.

I get well under £1 per mile for XC bikes. My enduro bike less so, combination of twice the cost and much less use.

My cross-hobby value measure is £5 per hour as minimum, roughly based on cost of going to cinema, aiming for £1 hour for optimum.

Road bikes work out pretty good IME. My roadie is now down to the 30p or 50p/mile bracket now. Not much stuff breaks on a roadie.

MTBs? spend upfront to buy one, then burn a tenner replacing broken stuff, every time you go out for a couple of hours, because you've worn away the aluchocolate drivetrain with grit or you fell off and knackered the brakes or trashed a wheel.

Race day fancy schmancy Sunday best bikes are the worst value. Wife's carbon fancy race bike, used in anger for a few hundred miles tops, is well on the far side of £10/mile.

Fancy occasional MTBs, even worse, I'm with PJay on that one, I reckon I got maybe 20 solid days out on my big bike, even with second hand everything, that was £40 a day, and at the time I thought I'd got good value from the kit. Sits in shed doing squat now I have zero opportunity for all day hoonathons.

Just for comparison, all our recent cars, everything taken into account, come in at 30p/mile or less. Food for thought.

MTB stuff does seem designed to last for a year at one 20 mile ride per weekend.

Just for comparison, all our recent cars, everything taken into account, come in at 30p/mile or less.

The RAC say 50p per mile running costs for cars, but I'd guess that's partly to try to get HMRC to up the tax-free expenses from 40p per mile.

miketually, that's probably a fair shout for a newer car or something on lease.

All ours are private owned, most bought at 6-10 years, so plenty of scope to up the cost with a shiny new Merc.

40p per mile ?
Where do you get that figure from ..its 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter...

Interestingly I just worked out my MTB and that is costing me 100 times my commuter @ £3.48 per mile but it was over twice the price and gets used a tenth as much.

Commuter cost £800 and it currently works out at 10p/Km. The Solaris cost £2200 and works out at 21p/Km.

Neither costing includes replacement of parts nor any potential selling on.

The cost of the commuter could be offset against the cost of train fares (£6.50/day) which would be over £1000 so it would be reasonable to argue that it actually costs 0p/Km in terms of capital costs. I've spent about £200 on replacement parts over that time so I'd say at the moment the total cost of ownership vs fare saving is about even.

People actually work stuff like this out for their bikes?

Smiles per miles, my MTB is worth every penny.

My Giant TCR is on about 25p per mile, £1300+500 upgrade to wheels and covered about 7,000 miles on it so far. Not bad for ultegra, carbon wheels etc.

I guess if I sold it I would cash in having spent £15p per mile to own it for 2 years

Not bad I guess.

Wonder how much I spent on extra beer and pies though?

40p per mile ?
Where do you get that figure from ..its 45p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p per mile thereafter...

I don't drive and so never claim for car use for work. It was 40p per mile for us when I last claimed anything (for bike use @20p per mile) years ago.

No idea what we pay now - if 45p is the maximum allowed by HMRC then we could well be still paying 40p per mile. Nobody here would ever rack up 10000 miles in a year of driving, so the lower rate would never apply to anyone I work with.

People actually work stuff like this out for their bikes

Only when someone else starts a thread on it.

I haven't been accurately choosing the bike type on Strava. This is a shame tbh as I could have had some interesting stats, especially on performance.

Easy to do if you have Strava and log rides against each bike. You just have to remember how much you paid for the bike.

People actually work stuff like this out for their bikes?

it's not like it takes more than a few seconds effort

it's not like it takes more than a few seconds effort

Not questioning the effort, more the reason to do it. I couldn't really give a flying **** what it costs, I love MTBing.

miketually - Member
MTB stuff does seem designed to last for a year at one 20 mile ride per weekend.

Sue's still on the same Hope Mono Minis that came with the bike about 10 years ago.

I've had one Shimano caliper and a lever go in the same time.

Same wheels, Mavic on Hope from Merlin.

Rear mechs average 2 years, but some just last forever.

Cassette, chain ,and grips and BB every year at least, chainrings pedals and saddles about two?

Tyres about a year.

Fork rebuild every three years or so.

Apart from that, replaceables and a posh set of carbon bars, that's it.

🙂

I get paid 20p per mile for commuting so that covers the cost.

People actually work stuff like this out for their bikes

I used to, yes, only roughly though.
I'd buy a bike, add accessories etc then work out how that compared to just fuel usage on the car. When I'd done enough miles to equate to paying for the whole bike, I'd sell it it on and buy another. So anything I got back was effectively profit. I don't think I ever went above £400 for a whole bike including all the accessories though, the last one was about £250 all in. There's no way I'd pay more than £400 all in for a commuting bike too.

For my fun bike (BMX) I work out its ROI based on time and what I earn every hour of the year: £4.66 gross. Therefore to pay back my £500 investment I need to ride it for 107 hours which will be about 1 year based on 2 hours riding per week.

With my commuter the only time I've worked out mileage cost is when trying to justify a posher bike...