The Friday Cyclotouriste

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My Honda Fit needed some repairs (valve adjustment, transmission fluid and oil change, tire rotation, driver side mirror wiring harness, and visor clip) so I had to figure out how to get to and from the dealership twice this past week.

I decided the most efficient solution was to drive to the Honda shop after work and bring my bicycle along. Then I could drop off my car and use the bike as transportation to get back home. When my car was ready for pick-up later in the week, I would repeat this in reverse, i.e., ride my bike back to the dealership, then drive the car and bicycle back home together.

Since I would be making essentially the same trip by both car and bike several times I jotted down some numbers:

• by car it was a 9.1 mile one-way trip (mostly on highway 101) and took me all of 13 minutes.
• by bicycle it was a 10.6 mile one-way trip (mostly on bike paths and back roads) and took me 46 minutes.

Adjusting for the mileage difference, the bike ride was almost exactly three times less efficient in getting me from point A to point B. But it’s probably more accurate to just say the bicycle was three times more time consuming.

Examining the bike’s efficiency (in isolation) is problematic. One can argue that all the time and energy spent riding the bike should count against the car. If one expands the boundary conditions of this hypothetical efficiency equation, you realize my bicycle riding was only necessary because of the needed automotive repairs!

However, in the process of bicycling this route twice in one week, I enjoyed myself quite a bit, got some needed post-work exercise, and became more acquainted with Marin bike paths and the new bicycle and pedestrian tunnel that opened last year, connecting Larkspur and San Rafael.

So what now? Do I register this joy and satisfaction on the bike’s or the automobile’s side of the ledger?

Now I’m really confused.

Anyhow, the picture above is in Mill Valley. Gotta love the classic VW bus.