Is walking better than biking? As I understand biking’s more efficient.
It depends. Expended energy/m is higher but space usage is much lower. For walking you arguably don’t even need a paved path while (non-sport) cycling needs a somewhat even surface and places to store and lock the bike. It’s not nearly as bad as with cars but even with cycling, space usage can become an issue in very densely populated areas; the Dutch don’t build massive bike garages because it’s cool (okay, maybe also a little of that) but because it’s a necessity.
If it’s near enough to walk, it’s usually better to just walk.
I feel like the amount of wear I put on my shoes by walking a certain distance is higher than the wear on my tires when I bike that same distance
The bike’s production has a non-zero carbon footprint. A very small footprint, but one that is there nonetheless. The carbon footprint of walking is negligible in comparison.
Shoe production has a non-zero carbon footprint, especially with the vast majority of shoes being a “single use” product (i.e. not resoleable) and with a very limited amount of miles
Not all shoes are so limited, you can buy shoes that have plenty of lifespan such as Brooks running shoes. I’ve put hundreds of miles on mine and they’re still in good shape. That being said with planned obsolescence and cheap manufacturing for fast turnover being prioritized, we end up with less reliable shoes.
Debatable, and largely depends on a person’s diet and some other factors like how much travel is getting done. If someone is fueling their biking (or walking) by flying in beef from the other side of the world, I think it is pretty safe to say that their carbon footprint is worse than a typical gas car, (because air travel and beef are just that bad) or if not that at least an electric car from renewables and ethically sourced materials. For everything else in between, we’d just be speculating and we’d have to factor in source and type of car fuel, and the source and type of additional food consumed by a cyclist where that “additional food” line lies exactly.
Controlling for diet, distance and purpose of travel, I think cycling virtually always wins over walking.
Bikes are actually greener than walking, because if you need to move, they allow you to have a greater daily range for a not much higher footprint (more efficient and 3 times faster).
Embedded CO2 for a bike is like 100kg (that’s what 4 trees in your backyard absorb a year), which over a lifetime of 30 years is negligible.
You say negligible, but what you mean is negligible on a scale of the CO2 emissions we are used to. Human body CO2 emission is just as negligible on that scale.
Ill do some quick maths: According to the first source on google, an average human burns 3kcal/min walking and 5kcal/min biking at 15km/h, which is about 3x as fast as walking. Considering that, we arrive at a difference of 1.33kcal/min by walking instead of biking. Estimates suggest 1.3g CO2-equivalents per kcal for average consumption (much lower for vegans), so thats 1.73g CO2/min. 100kg CO2 for bike production would take 57,800min of walking, thats almost 963h. An average bike will probably be used more so I guess you are right and bikes are indeed more efficient than walking :D
It’s also really green if you die riding one in places where it’s completely unsafe to ride one like where I live. You eliminate your carbon footprint completely!
I was so excited to finally live in a city where I could actually ride a bike to work most of the year until I actually tried it.
Drivers are assholes, have no awareness of their surroundings, the rules of the road and they give zero shits.
Nope nope nope. I’ll walk to the train
It’s not really the drivers’ fault, it’s the bad infrastructure that drives their behavior.
But tanks are the perfect cure for traffic jam.
Is c level a motorcycle or an e-bike? I’ve never seen an icon for an e-bike before, and if it is, I am loving the conciseness of the design. If not, there’s no way a motorcycle is better than a line bus right?
Just a bonus note from a Dutch guy, the text just below say lekker blijven likken, or: ‘just keep on licking’.
tankies in shambles
