A great read+great magazine.
TL;DR: Old bikes last way longer than new bikes. From a production standpoint, steel bikes have a smaller carbon footprint than aluminum or carbon frame bikes. Conventional bikes use fewer consumables over their usable life than electric bikes. Among electric bikes, cargo bikes use the most resources to run and maintain.
Super interesting!
I believe that until capitalism makes it sustainable, the corporation will not make it sustainable.
Yep! Iβd love to see indie bicycle companies grow. (homemade bikes too but those are more complicated)
I saw this guy a few years ago that provided STLs for a 3D printed bike that anyone with the proper printer can print. It was the specialized parts that you printed, and everything else was standard parts from the hardware store. I thought that was super cool. No clue what ever happened to that project.
i found the AI generated tldr that you originally posted to be a bit confusing, but the article itself was very interesting. Here is my summary of the major points:
- from a production standpoint, steel bikes have a smaller carbon footprint than aluminum or carbon frame bikes.
- conventional bikes use fewer consumables over their usable life than electric bikes.
- among electric bikes, cargo bikes use the most resources to run and maintain.
to simplify this from a long-time bicycle commuters perspective: steel is real π
So the least efficient bicycle is about half that of the average car. Iβll take that. Since the lifetime miles traveled on any bike is going to be at least an order of magnitude less than the average car miles traveled, infrastructure and lifestyle changes to replace car reliance with bike reliance are hugely beneficial from the perspective of reducing carbon emissions.
So you just can a bike after ~12k miles? Thatβs insane.
I guess on average they get damaged from neglect/theft/crashed. But that seems so insane to me.
Interesting read.
Iβve always wondered about the environmental footprint of regular vs ebikes after switching to the latter a couple of years ago.
I think in my case, one point in favour of the ebike is that it has replaced more car trips? Outside of the winter months, around 80% of my trips around the city are now by ebike compared to perhaps 60% before with the traditional?
I canβt help but feel like this is thinking way too far ahead. It feels to me that society has to get people into riding bicycles as an option before even thinking about refining the processes around building bicycles. A big factor of lifecycle (heh) assessment is the amount of usage you get out of a given produced object before it becomes necessary to replace. Making the option to ride the bike easier, more accessible, more inviting is how you make bicycles more sustainable.
re: carbon fiber cargo bike emissions
Clearly there needs to be more studies because this feels like very narrow view of cargo bikes especially when the market for consumer cargo bikes is largely occupied by Urban Arrow (aluminum), Riese & Muller (aluminum), Larry vs Harry (Aluminum), and many more that construct cargo bikes out of aluminum or steel. Just looking at some commercial models of cargo bike it seems like for the most part those are made from aluminum as well. I believe that Urban Arrow offers models for businesses.
edit:formatting
