- It's no secret that I love commuting into work
via my E-Mountain Bike.
Makes me arrive at the office feeling
revitalized, energized for the day ahead.
Sometimes though, I do have to drive a car
and I swear, it takes longer, it's more stressful
trying to find parking, things like that.
It's not a good start to the day.
So I decided I'm going to crunch some numbers;
E-Bike versus car, the commute challenge.
(upbeat pop music)
So I've set myself a little bit of a challenge,
a town door-to-door ride versus a drive.
Now my ride, I downloaded from komoot to my Garmin.
So it's a little bit of b roads,
a little bit of off-road action.
Staying away from as much tarmac as possible.
Yeah, it's a little bit longer way around,
but it's going to be a lot more fun.
However, my drive is the quickest route
that I know into Bath.
It uses all the little shortcuts,
all the cut-throughs, and a few b roads too.
It's not a crazy-fact route, but it's
definitely the quickest way to the office that I know of.
It's also going end in the car park
and then I make it to the office on foot.
So the car I'm going to be using for today's challenge
is a Mercedes E350 AMG Coupe.
This thing is a performance cruiser.
Big three liter turbo diesel engine, 248 brake horsepower,
and it's also limited too, but, to 150 miles per hour.
We're not going to be touching that today.
And the bike that we're going to be using
for today's challenge is the Canyon Neuron:On.
It's a trail full suspension bike, 29 inch wheels.
It's an absolute flying machine.
It's got a 250 watt motor on there.
With me combined, it's about 0.5 brake horsepower.
And it's also got a limiter too.
But this time 25 kilometers per hours.
Right, let's go, start the clock.
(commuter opens the door)
Start the clock.
(upbeat pop music)
(door closes)
(car engine revs)
(bike pedals turn)
- [Car Commuter] Aw great, road work already.
- [Bike Commuter] Coming up is red light,
- [Car Commuter] This is a first of many stops.
- [Bike Commuter] I'm going to pretend
to be on the foot path now, so I can just walk to through.
- [Car Commuter] Still waiting.
- [Bike Commuter] Straight on my bike.
It goes, I'm beating that red light.
Straight away.
- [Car Commuter] 30 mile speed limits.
I cannot go faster down there on my push bike to be fair.
- [Bike Commuter] It's cruising above
32K all on your own steam, so you're saving up
that power for when you need it really.
- [Car Commuter] The thing that most annoys me
about driving into work is you've got this
massive two liter engine, which is crazy-quick,
but you never seem to go above
40 miles an hour on the way to work.
I may as well just ride a moped in,
a 50cc scooter or something like that.
- [Bike Commuter] So this part of the way is actually a bit
less direct than the one the car's current taking.
In a minute it's going to be interesting.
We're kind of trouble in a bit of a corner off here.
So we're 8.5 minutes into the ride usually.
Depending on traffic, when you're coming on the way to Bath
you probably going to be
I don't know, just coming out of Frome.
Sometimes the bikepaths can get quite backed up in the morning
so it really depends on each day of the week.
I means it tends to be worst on a Friday.
Things like that, so
hitting these back lanes,
and escaping across the cut-through
could be a good plan.
But the great thing, obviously, about an E-bike
is what power mode you're ride in.
Now today I'm trying to get there as fast as I can
so I'm actually in boost trail
most of the way.
So there's actually, far as doing this purely for fitness,
or you know, I have more time to burn.
Of course, that could knock you back to eco.
Get more of a workout.
(upbeat pop music)
They say this is a little cut-through.
In a bit of time I can get and
then we're going to hit some woods,
which is a little kind of epic bit of trail.
- [Car Commuter] Fuel, actually looking pretty low.
- [Bike Commuter] And the Garmin saying
there's a left turn coming up here,
but I don't see much of a left turn,
especially in this mist.
Ah, this little hole in the hedge, look.
Ah yah yah.
(car engine idols) (commuter twists gas cap)
So this actually cuts across to the track that
I'm gonna be driving in the car, so...
Wonder what the time difference is going to be?
21 minutes a minute,
and we're hitting kind of mid-point of the ride.
- So there's actually a whole bit of road
is what I cut off on the commute.
It's just a complete straight along on the bike
you pretty much follow the river, but in the car
I've to go around on a 30 mile an hour speed limit.
And it's a big way around.
You see on the bike, we're just cutting
across the bottom of the field here.
So I don't know, with this 30 mile an hour limit,
and this bit of added bit of road,
the bike might be taking a win.
- [Bike Commuter] Back on the road.
After our little off-road jaunt.
Couple of miles on the road then back off-road, thank God!
(traffics roars by)
- I find when I take the car to work
I feel a lot more tired when I get into work.
I think, with the great thing about riding a bike
is that it actually gives you a massive boost of energy.
It gets your blood going, make you feel way more alive!
So commuting in the car, I get there and I'm like.
(car commuter sighs)
Whereas getting on the bike, I'm all buzzing,
I'm ready to go if a little bit sweaty.
(car commuter laughs)
- [Bike Commuter] Little traffic lights up ahead.
Luckily timed that one good.
- [Bike Commuter] This little descent's super-fast as well
so really good fun.
(soft jazz music)
- [Car Commuter] Quick time check, well 16,
what nearly 17 minutes out it look.
And we're actually right on the same bit of road
I actually dove off when I did
my little commute down to the first bit.
But right away, it's a little bit of off-road action,
so I wonder what the time comparison is.
(upbeat jazz music)
We're just cruising along at 50 mile an hour.
Now there is no way that an E-bike
is going to be faster than this.
- [Bike Commuter] Now obviously then,
the obvious change of tires this little ride.
And there's not much more I tend to do.
I just
I sometimes lock up the suspension
if I'm on a big, long tarmac stage.
But asides from that it's pretty much
the standard kind of setup.
This route 24.
This is an old railway line actually, that ran into Bath.
It's totally flat and they've resurface it
and made it a really cool path for walkers, cyclists
things like that on the way into Bath.
And the views are really epic as well.
There's a load of cool stuff along the way,
as well if you did fancy a bit of a play.
Obviously, here's some cool tunnels as well,
like some big, old tunnels that actually cut
right underneath through the hills.
Now this looks like one of the big tunnels coming up ahead.
It's provided by the Sustrans,
which is obviously a part of the cycling network.
They've viewed all the good routes.
It's a really good thing to cycling.
And this thing is absolutely huge , this tunnel.
Check
it out.
- [Car Commuter] Now on the bike commute,
this is where the big tunnel starts
and actually go under the hills.
So I got to skirt all the way around in the car.
Whereas, on the bike I'm going to be straight underneath
the city and all the way through
underground in a direct flat line.
Whereas now, I'm probably going to have to sit in traffic.
- [Bike Commuter] I going to go back to day light.
It's really a nice little break actually.
It's a little bit cold in there to be fair.
- [Car Commuter] This man has the right idea for sure.
- [Bike Commuter] This a cut-through back to
hopefully, the same road those cars
are going to be stuck in traffic on.
- [Car Commuter] Ah actually,
it's Henry Quinney from GMBN.
(car commuter blows horn)
- [Bike Commuter] Back of the route 24, which is the
National Cycle Network route.
- [Car Commuter] The dreaded brake lights.
This is just going to be stop start the whole way.
- [Bike Commuter] Back onto one of the A roads.
And it's hugely pretty busy
when you come down in a car, so fingers crossed,
we'll either be in front of the car.
Or it's going to be stuck in traffic and we shoot pass it.
(soft jazz music)
- [Car Commuter] So I've had a really,
really clear run today actually,
so this has been pretty impressive so far.
I wondered by the time I've parked and actually walked
to the office from the car park, whether our time difference
is going to be that big?
This is a dream run, I can tell you
this is usually jammed full of traffic.
But this is actually amazing!
(soft jazz music)
Red lights, red lights.
Now this is obviously going to be a bit where
we're going to lose another chunk of time.
And there's three sets of traffic lights on the row.
Obviously, hit these all being green.
Then it's going to be pretty simple,
but with them all being red, it's going to take a bit of time.
This again is usually really queued up, but not today.
(soft jazz music)
Okay, so I found a car parking space.
Time to go get a ticket.
A quick time check, 38 minutes
to get to my car parking space.
(car commuter opens car door)
(soft jazz music)
This is definitely added some time to my journey.
Finally.
(soft jazz music)
Sweet, Steve drove in today as well, nice.
(cars shoot by)
(soft jazz music)
Now say a short walk to the office
is about five minutes away from the car park.
So hopefully, shouldn't take that long to get there.
It's my only chance of fresh air before we get there.
I wonder how the clock's looking?
Now we're literally just outside the office.
So this where I commute every single day.
Let's get the clock out and have a look at the actual time
as difference has made actually driving here.
So here we go.
50 minutes, 25 seconds.
- [Bike Commuter] Sop the clock.
54 minutes 12.
(video rewinds)
- Okay, it's time to get into the
nitty gritty of the ride versus the car.
First up actually is the times themself.
Well the bike did it in 54 minutes 11 seconds
versus the car, which was 50 minute and 25 seconds.
Now the thing with a commute with the bike
is that that commute is going to take the same time
Monday through Friday, every single day,
unless you have mechanical or a flat tire,
or a snapped chain.
Whereas, the car itself, can actually vary massively.
There could be an accident on the way home.
There could traffic jams, things like that.
You know, drive in the car can take an hour.
It could actually take up to an hour and half.
So many variable along the way.
And the bike, as you can see,
was four minutes slower than the car.
But what actually is four minutes?
It's the time to make a cup of tea in the morning.
By the kettle's boiled, you made your cup of tea,
that four minutes has disappeared.
And obviously costs is a massive part of commuting as well.
Especially if you doing it in a car.
I worked that the car actually fuel itself
was around five pounds, obviously including the return.
It's 15 pounds to park, so you're up to 20 pounds.
And obviously, you got the things like taxes, insurance,
MOT, and all the depreciation of the car along the way.
So looking at these figures, we're talking about
25 to 30 pounds per day.
That equates to around 500 pounds a month,
just to drive a car into work.
Obviously, versus a bike, you got the
initial outlay of the bike itself.
You got charging the battery. Obviously that costs.
And the wear and tear on the bike itself.
Maintenance and things like that.
So it's very little compared to the car.
Now driving a car is stressful,
no matter how you look at it.
And the heart rate figures actually reflected that
when I checked them out on the Garmin.
Now I have resting heart rate of around 50 beats per minute.
And actually, in the car, it's 86 beats a minute.
So I must be getting a little bit stressed.
Heart rate's going up, pure because I'm setting
in my sweatbox, drivers around me doing crazy maneuvers.
It's just not a nice place to be.
Versus a bike, where I had average heart rate of
141 beats per minute, as to be expected
when I'm doing a lot of exercise.
So it's pretty crazy figures there.
Now when you're driving a car, it's obviously a lot of
start stop going on in the city.
And obviously on the open road
you can quite happily cruise along a good miles an hour.
But the actually average speed the car
is 20.8 miles per hour across the whole journey.
Versus the bike, which is quite surprising
at 14.8 miles per hour.
The great thing about obviously, in the bike commute
is the flow of the ride, and it's not stop start.
It's a constant speed the whole way.
So there you go, some big figures,
and a lot of money involved when it come to commute,
and especially if you're doing it by car.
It's quite surprising.
Obviously, your commute is going to be different
for every single one of us along the way.
We've all got different distances involved.
So don't take those figures for granted.
Obviously, the biggest thing for me
I think is the amount of bike time I can actually get in.
That's 130 miles per week of riding
I can get in before work, so some big, big miles.
Obviously, I can top that up on the weekend.
Just gets me excited for the day at work.
It gets me energized.
So get out there and commute it.
If you've enjoyed today's video,
be sure to check 100K the Fun Way.
That's a really cool one to show
how far you can actually get out of a couple of batteries.
Give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.
Drop us some comments in the box below about your commute
and how you set up your bike, things like that.
Really love to hear that.
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