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I thought this was a really interesting article with some nuanced points.
Assuming a lifetime travel of 19,200km, a bicycle’s emissions come out at about 25-35g CO2e/km (depending on food footprint, which can be highly variable). With Trek’s updated figure and assuming an EU average electricity mix, e-bikes come in at 21-25g CO2e/km (yes, e-bikes can be less carbon intensive than conventional bikes, assuming the rider is doing less work)
That's quite an assumption of lifetime travel IMO....
While it markets its bikes as playing a critical role in decarbonising transportation systems, a lot of these models aren’t intended as alternatives to cars. In fact, some of them might be driven to the place where they are used.
I have never been a trail centre guy, but I do sometimes wonder how many miles some of these particularly fancy bikes actually do.
And it's an interesting distinction between a) cycling that replaces other transport, b) cycling from your door as a hobby, not replacing other transport but perhaps replacing a less sustainable hobby) and c) cycling that requires you to drive more miles in your car than you will travel on your DH bike once you get there - and you still need a 'normal' bike for the other 6 days a week...
Anyway, have a dig 🙂
It is interesting, Doris. And good to see an international business like Trek having the courage to publish a wider view about its environmental impact. The reality for all transport industries, as pointed out in the article, is that most of us are multiple transport users and each comes with its own CO2 bill. Some more interesting background is here https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint
a bicycle’s emissions come out at about 25-35g CO2e/km (depending on food footprint, which can be highly variable).
That sounds like nonsense to me. The rider has to eat anyway and most people won't eat any more food if they commute on a bike instead of take a bus, train, or car. Someone who is training seriously on a bike will need to eat more than someone who isn't training, but the same goes for any sport. By this guy's reckoning, walking to the shops should be counted as producing CO2 because we breath while doing it.
And the report doesn't consider the good old N+1, folks who have double figures in terms of bikes.
e-bikes come in at 21-25g CO2e/km (yes, e-bikes can be less carbon intensive than conventional bikes, assuming the rider is doing less work).
Doesn't cover anyone on here of course because all the e-STWers work just as hard as us analogue riders.
TBH that bit does have a whiff of the Marketing Dept. about it. It's almost as if a bike company would prefer folk to buy e-bikes as it's (a) a way of getting folk to buy a new bike and (b) there's more profit to be made from them.
Cynical? Moi?
and most people won’t eat any more food if they commute on a bike instead of take a bus, train, or car.
WHAT?
Balls. I eat stacks more if I bike commute.
a bicycle’s emissions come out at about 25-35g CO2e/km (depending on food footprint, which can be highly variable).
That sounds like nonsense to me. The rider has to eat anyway and most people won’t eat any more food if they commute on a bike instead of take a bus, train, or car.
I think it's less about *how much* you're eating and more about the *what*: a vegan diet has a very different carbon footprint than a pure meat diet. Indeed as this BBC graphic shows, even within specific foodgroups, carbon footprint can vary hugely:
TBH that bit does have a whiff of the Marketing Dept. about it. It’s almost as if a bike company would prefer folk to buy e-bikes as it’s (a) a way of getting folk to buy a new bike and (b) there’s more profit to be made from them.
Cynical? Moi?
I thought it was a really interesting detail! Ok it's tinkering at the margins, but in terms of energy sources, if your e-bike was 100% powered by solar, and you put 0% effort into it, perhaps it's more environmentally friendly than breeding/slaughtering/cooking a cow, and then pedalling?? I think it's quite fun to puzzle through
Doesn’t cover anyone on here of course because all the e-STWers work just as hard as us analogue riders.
I don't!! 🙂
Wonder how much additional carbon has been released as a result of the legal precedent which prevents the use of rickshaws and pedicabs in most UK towns and cities...
This is definitely a thing that's concerned me lately. I bought a second hand bike last year and have now decided I'm not going to replace any of my bikes (3 of them) til I'm 40, in 7 years time. It's a hobby, not an essential thing like producing medicine. My carbon footprint shouldn't be increased massively by my hobbies, and if I won't buy a new car because of the carbon footprint why would I buy a new bike?
To keep them going I've been buying second hand but high quality stuff - DT 1501 wheels, Chris King BBs and Cane Creek Hellbender headsets. Stuff that can be serviced rather than replaced.
It's also why I've changed my mind on e-mtbs. E bikes as car replacements are excellent, but the extra CO2 cost of manufacture and the short life span and disposability of the motors has made me think they're actually a daft idea for anyone that can ride a normal bike comfortably.
I think it’s less about *how much* you’re eating and more about the *what*: a vegan diet has a very different carbon footprint than a pure meat diet. Indeed as this BBC graphic shows, even within specific foodgroups, carbon footprint can vary hugely:
But non-cyclists also eat, so the idea that cycling is adding CO2 is mostly nonsense. Unless you eat massively more food, the cycling won't add any CO2 beyond what sitting on a sofa does.
But non-cyclists also eat, so the idea that cycling is adding CO2 is mostly nonsense. Unless you eat massively more food, the cycling won’t add any CO2 beyond what sitting on a sofa does.
If you're obeying the laws of physics you will use more calories. This report assumes you will eat more to make that up, and producing the food you eat produces some co2 from fossil fuels. Right?
I guess you could assume everyone who cycles only cycles distances that are covered by an existing calorie surplus they don't intend to replace. Doesn't seem right though.
My carbon footprint shouldn’t be increased massively by my hobbies, and if I won’t buy a new car because of the carbon footprint why would I buy a new bike?
Did you not tell another forumite to drive into two city centres instead of taking public transport?. 🙂
so the idea that cycling is adding CO2 is mostly nonsense.
I don't think it's saying that, though. What I think it's trying to say is:
You can't give a single gCO2/km figure for bikes, because bikes are powered by food. And 'food' doesn't have one single carbon footprint.
Which, I suspect, is why the carbon footprint range is narrower for e-bikes than for conventional bikes. Because 'food' does less of the work on an e-bike, and they've picked a single figure for the carbon footprint of electricity (which is the EU average).
If you’re obeying the laws of physics you will use more calories. This report assumes you will eat more to make that up, and producing the food you eat produces some co2 from fossil fuels. Right?
I guess you could assume everyone who cycles only cycles distances that are covered by an existing calorie surplus they don’t intend to replace. Doesn’t seem right though.
People who commute rather than using a car, bus, etc. will mostly eat exactly the same amount of food. People who ride bikes for fitness will mostly be replacing some other exercise. The extra amount of food that can be attributed to riding a bike will be tiny.
Half a litre of vegetable oil has enough calories to feed an active adult for a day. You would basically have to spend all day riding to burn that much energy. A car will burn that much fuel in a quick trip down to the shop.
I guess you could assume everyone who cycles only cycles distances that are covered by an existing calorie surplus they don’t intend to replace. Doesn’t seem right though.
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2016/walking_and_cycling_to_work_lower_body_fat.html
It is interesting and good to make people aware but there are a lot of variables after the manufacturing process that can't possibly be taken into account.
My commuter has done thousands of miles, these journeys would otherwise be done in the car. I don't tend to eat much more than if I drive into work.
My nice bike tends to be driven to interesting places to ride, that will be terrible for my carbon footprint, regardless of the manufacturing process.
Then there is my hardtail, I've done 2 night rides so far this week. One ride lasted 4 miles before my mates chain snapped so we headed to the pub and drank beer for 4 hours. The second ride my dropper got stuck down, different pub and about 5 hours. Not sure how much carbon is produced for a pint of beer but my hardtail has been responsible for a good bit or carbon so far this week.
if your e-bike was 100% powered by solar, and you put 0% effort into it, perhaps it’s more environmentally friendly
Depends on the caarbon footprint of the solar panels. And not using the bike in winter.
Buy an ebike... you'll eat in a more sustainable fashion than someone who buys a non-powered bike. Yeah... right. Piffle.
Buy an ebike… you’ll eat in a more sustainable fashion than someone who buys a non-powered bike.
where are you getting that from? 😆
if your e-bike was 100% powered by solar, and you put 0% effort into it, perhaps it’s more environmentally friendly
The power used to charge an e-bike's battery (or any EV) is creating extra demand for electricity. There is not enough renewable electricity capacity to supply all demand, so any extra demand is increasing fossil fuel use. However, if the e-bike or EV is being used instead of an ICE car, it will probably reduce overall fossil fuel use because it is much more efficient. If the e-bike is replacing a regular bike, then it will be increasing fossil fuel usage.
I bet environmental impact is weighing heavily on the minds of most eBike buyers. Not the fun they gonna have. Not at all.
To keep them going I’ve been buying second hand but high quality stuff – DT 1501 wheels, Chris King BBs and Cane Creek Hellbender headsets. Stuff that can be serviced rather than replaced.
Where in you could have serviced [some] cheaper stuff more easily and environmentally responsibly because mostly what you're doing with those parts is replacing cartridge bearings. A cheap ball and cage fsa headset is just as serviceable, as is a shimano non series cup and cone hub etc without the added waste of the cartridges - which I'm assuming you break down and recycle?
And not meaning to pick on you but you happen to bring up two things...
My carbon footprint shouldn’t be increased massively by my hobbies
And what do you do instead? Ride from your door every day* or Netflix etc, all of those things have a footprint associated with them and whilst minimising it is laudable its not as clear cut as "don't use a car"** if the alternative is sitting at home, heating, lighting, TV, WiFi, and so on.
*given your username there's every chance that's actually a viable and interesting option, for many it really isn't.
**some cars are much much better than others, some, especially older "bangernomics" ones are downright terrible.
Where in you could have serviced [some] cheaper stuff more easily and environmentally responsibly because mostly what you’re doing with those parts is replacing cartridge bearings. A cheap ball and cage fsa headset is just as serviceable, as is a shimano non series cup and cone hub etc without the added waste of the cartridges – which I’m assuming you break down and recycle?
I have actually started to switch back to cup and cone hubs - I had some 5 year old Formula hubs that died and, because they were cheap, spare parts weren't available. Which is sort of the downside of cheap kit - you have to replace the lot rather than bits. But the Chris King stuff, for example, you don't have replace the bearings in. You service them. And over the life of it that's a saving on materials compared to replacing the cartridge bearings in a Shimano BB (which lasts me roughly 8 months but I ride a lot). And, as I said, I buy stuff second hand - there's no point in two people buying new parts. There's also an ethical element to my choices (I try to avoid buying stuff that's made unethically, which means a lot of stuff from China is out) but that's a whole different argument.
I think in your second part of your post you're making me out to be a bit of a dictator. There is a compromise between having fun and hobbies and minimising your environmental footprint. It'd be sad if people had to stop doing anything fun to save the planet. I still drive to ride roughly once a fortnight, but I do it in a tiny car instead of a massive VW van. And I don't judge people who do drive to ride but I wish most of them had chosen to get a small car instead of a massive van. Everyone could do better, though - me included.
isn't this just numeric proof (if any were needed) that the e in ebike stands for easy. 😉
But non-cyclists also eat, so the idea that cycling is adding CO2 is mostly nonsense. Unless you eat massively more food, the cycling won’t add any CO2 beyond what sitting on a sofa does
It's not nonsense at all. Food has a carbon footprint, I certainly eat more when exercising therefor my carbon fotprint goes up. Compared to a 3l 4x4, it's insignificant, but as a proportion of my existing food impact, it's substantial. I don't often ride to replace the car now that I'm WFH, so my bike riding and extra food is in addition to any car carbon. As Munrobiker says, I don't have a massive van or 4x4 but when I see folk driving those to trail centres with their bike on the back, it makes me a bit sad.
Good on Trek for doing this. The actual figures are going to vary massively per individual. I find that as long as my fitness level is good that I can quite happily ride my standard issue route of 2-2.5 hrs, 30 miles on mtb, with no extra food consumption during the ride and only a tiny snackworths after. And thats with 1/2 hour or so of full race pace thrown into the mix, tempo for the rest - in fact I don't even bother carrying food with me unless am out for 3hrs+.
It also highlights the thing that's bothering me recently in the bike industry with the coming normalisation of electronic group sets, with Duraace and Ultegra going to battery only. Yeah , yeah, I know they're really good but multiplied the world over of pressumably millions of riders who will be using those group sets, that's a hell of a lot of extra batteries in circulation that didn't need to be...not sure that's progress when we all need to be minimising our footprint.
Mind you, the latest mtb lifestylers witnessed recently driving to the trailcentre with their mohassive ebikes slung over the tailgate of the outsized Dodge Ram pickup as if they're fulfilling some American wild west fantasy, will be canning those stats for the sport...and lets not get started on helidrops...
That's an infuriating article, they've purposely left out the inbedded carbon figures in the e-bike, which we know in automotive world is approx 40%more (this isn't argued btw), so like others have said we all eat irrespective so who's to say how much more on a normal bike Vs not, me would be not!
Very shoddy reporting and shoddy pr by Trek who should be ashamed..
they’ve purposely left out the inbedded carbon figures in the e-bike
I read it as adding about another 50% for a basic commuter Ebike vs non, or are you saying they're not accounting for the battery.
13 tonnes of Co2 to produce the average SUV is an eye-opener. In comparison, all bikes are tiny.
Carlton Reid was quoting 165kg of CO2 to build a bike and 5 tonnes for a car on Twitter today.
I think in your second part of your post you’re making me out to be a bit of a dictator.
Sorry that wasn't the intention, it wasn't meant as a "you say this but" rather an observation and just so happened to be it came about from your post.
but I do it in a tiny car instead of a massive VW van.
Never fails to amaze me that I can get two people, bikes and a weeks kit on/in a panda yet folks need a t5 to pickup a pint of milk from the supermarket half a mile away.
Sustainability of bikes – Trek’s new report
Assuming a lifetime travel of 19,200km,
Got to say after 19000km, most bits probably resemble triggers broom. 😆
Interesting, thanks for sharing. A full Life Cycle Analysis would be even more interesting and of course this is just Trek's figures.
Why the f%$#k is the production of the Marlin so emissions intensive compared to the other bikes i wonder! Is it because they want us to spend more on the higher end bikes?
I haven't got time to look at the details, but I can't see reference to the shipping to the customer.
Most LCAs will show this kind of consumer product probably does most of its damage as it's shipped around the world. I should probably feel guilty for buying frames built in Taiwan, shipped to the UK, then shipped to Australia. The fact that they get ridden thousands of km/year instead of me driving a car (or regularly get ridden halfway through a commute) will probably not impact that shipping impact.
I reminds me of writing sustainability reports for a consulting engineering company. Our footprint was tiny; the footprint of the designs we did for clients, or indeed our choice of clients... well, too hard to measure.
It’s not nonsense at all. Food has a carbon footprint, I certainly eat more when exercising therefor my carbon fotprint goes up.
No, it is mostly nonsense. For people who aren't training at a very high level, resting metabolism accounts for the majority of calories. A 5 mile commute by bike will barely make any difference to your calorie burn if it's on flat terrain. This is why it's very difficult to lose weight just by exercising. So, for normal people, riding a bike will not lead to much of an increase in CO2 production. They will eat exactly the same meals whether or not they ride a bike or take a car.
A small percentage of riders do train intensively and will eat more. However, most of those people would do some other exercise if cycling wasn't available. In those cases, CO2 production would be much the same.
The only case where it will make any real difference is for riders who ride intensively enough for a massive calorie burn but would otherwise not do any exercise and cut their eating accordingly if cycling wasn't available. That's a tiny, tiny percentage of cyclists.
That’s quite an assumption of lifetime travel IMO….
Yep. Lies, damn lies and statistics. Also bikes travel in/on cars. Also n+1. Etc.
It's sad that this has already dropped off the front page of the forum. And it's not appeared in the news feeds here or on Pinkbike. It's like nobody cares, which is probably true and a terrifying indication of what's going to happen to the world in the next fifty years.
It is a bit sad, but perhaps it's a reflection of how looking at stuff like this is kind of tinkering at the margins?
1 return flight to australia = 20.6 full sus bikes.
1 average car = about 50 full sus bikes.
mining 1 bitcoin = about 1,200 full sus bikes
You can buy second hand parts for your bike as much as you like, but if your neighbour has several cars, or is one of those 'but i like getting a new car every 2 years types', or ****s off skiing twice a year, what's the ****ing point*? The small amount of CO2 you've saved has been eaten up a thousand times over, by someone on your street ordering some bollocks they don't need off Amazon, about 4 seconds later.
*personally, i have a very low carbon footprint, and incidentally only have one bike, which is 28 years old. But increasingly, I question why i give a shit, and whether giving the said shit makes any difference to anything
But increasingly, I question why i give a shit, and whether giving the said shit makes any difference to anything
It does make me wonder sometimes, but it needs decent people who give a shit to at least help counteract the people who buy Range Rovers. It's altruistic, which is the mark of a good person - we do what we can, so the people in Range Rovers don't have to watch their house go up in flames in twenty years' time, and so we can all keep on living nice lives.
Just coming back to this thread.
firstly everyone has to do an ESG report these days, without it your investors will not invest, so they're not getting any brownie points. also;
their avergae co2 consumption per bike is 174kg. Quick fag packet maths and a few assumptions it doesn;t work out much better than a car per km travelled when you include occupancy. Adding cargo isnt fair as the vehicle would use more fuel and the calcs woudl be horrendous.
per person = 174kg /19,000km = 0.0092tn/km
per Car = 5000kg/200,000km = 0.025tn/km /3 =0.00833tn/km
Plus as others have argued about - i certainly don;t eat more becuase i cycle, i just don't get fatter!! PLus i have a car...
edit - clearly charts don't work
Surely your division by three should really be a division by 1.6 based on a quick Google of average UK car occupancy? So the car is still significantly worse.
Oh, and you've missed out fuel for the car in that calculations.
No, it is mostly nonsense. For people who aren’t training at a very high level, resting metabolism accounts for the majority of calories. A 5 mile commute by bike will barely make any difference to your calorie burn if it’s on flat terrain.
So you're saying that someone sitting in a car is burning the same calories as they guy riding?
Sorry but that's rubbish, your aerobic rate increases dramatically between resting and just walking. Using [url= https://www.acefitness.org/education-and-resources/lifestyle/tools-calculators/physical-activity-calorie-counter/ ]this[/url] you can see that 30 minutes of sitting doing office work (we'll assume this is close to the effort of driving) uses 57 calories whilst cycling at 5.5mph uses 157 calories. Cycle a bit faster at 12-13mph (not unreasonable) and it goes up to 306 calories.
In fact that calculator may be under estimating compared to [url= https://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburned.htm ]this[/url] table but it's pretty conclusive that any exercise will necessitate increased calorie burn.
So it absolutely does make a difference