I have heard this statement before but here is a chart from a 1973 Scientific American article. Kind of small, perhaps someone has a link to the actual article.
Google “V. A. Tucker The Energetic Cost of Moving About” and you’ll find an American Scientist 1975 article that is pretty good explaining why bicycles are so efficient. In fact, you’ll find several other studies along the same lines.
Spoiler: Freight trains and ships blow everything else away.
A human on a bicycle doesn’t look so hot when you consider that it takes about 10 calories of energy to produce 1 calorie of food.
CSX says:
CSX trains can move a ton of freight approximately 492 miles on a single gallon of fuel.
Translated to decent units, that’s 792 km on 126 MJ (assuming diesel) for 907 kg, or 175 J/km-kg. Translating again to the original units, that’s .042 cal/km-g. Quite a lot better than the 0.15 cal/km-g from the man on a bicycle, even without considering food production inefficiency. Also, 0.15 cal/km-g seems optimistic from the figures I’ve seen–one online calculator came up with 0.35 cal/km-g. At the 0.15 figure, a 75 kg man riding 100 km would only burn ~1125 kcal. That seems a little low to me.
In terms of unit analysis, all of these units are equivalent to a deceleration (i.e., m/s^2). That makes all of this much more intuitive–while a bicycle can certainly coast for quite a ways, a freight train or cargo ship can go for miles when you cut power.
But I was under the impression that water transportation is more energy efficient than railroads.
It might be. I was only motivated to do the math for one of them. It’s still much better than the bicycle.
On the other hand, I absolutely love bicycles, as I own seven of them. I tried to cull the herd and was down to five, but am now back at seven.
It really is like flying. Even more so back in my racing days.
My trucking friends would always say that 200 of those will be in the wrong direction! Which is to say that a train will move freight 492 miles when you need to move it 92 miles from point A to point B. Real life examples from that time (mid 90s). Something going from Wichita to New Orleans would often go through Chicago and take three days.
Disclaimer these “trucking friends” were on the staff of the Owner Operator Independent Trucking Association, a trucker’s lobbying group.
I think the idea is for the efficiency of a single traveler. I wonder if he considered the Monarch butterfly?
Has anyone got a good (human) metabolic cost chart comparing biking, jogging, walking, sprinting, etc.? Swimming? Would be interesting.
Are any of them e-bikes?
Sure doesn’t seem efficient while I’m humping my sorry ass up a long hill.
On the other hand, there’s no energy expenditure on the descent. (assuming it’s a straight, paved road and not a highly technical trail off-road)
Keep in mind that most of the biker’s Calorie consumption would be there even if he were taking a motorized vehicle. You need to either look only at the marginal Calorie consumption for biking, or add in the basal human figure for all other forms of transportation.
No, not yet. I’m not particularly a Luddite though none of my mountain bikes are full suspension. And I am fully onboard with gravel biking. I have ridden an e-bike, and I can certainly see the appeal (one would certainly overcome gnarator’s objection). Maybe one day, as I haven’t decided what my next bike is going to be.
I am guessing that none of these studies include the energy needed for the laying of a surface for the vehicle to travel on smoothly, nor the creation of the vehicle.
Sure, but it’s a lot more costly putting in a canal if there doesn’t happen to be a river between the points you want to go.
I love bikes. Don’t use mine enough because I’m relatively far from my “office” and the roads in between here and there are IMO not safe for biking. But someday…
I’d love to try an e-bike. Starting with such an efficient system, the unadorned bicycle, you can add a small, low powered, lightweight upgrade to make hills a little easier etc. I wonder if regenerative braking systems exist for e-bikes. That could make it even better…
Sure but try peddling with a 40’ shipping container on your back.
Ah yes.
The correct number of bicycles to own is N+1, where N is the number you already have.
True for skis as well.