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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
Kinda says it all. My bicycle is a Canondale T800 touring model. My truck
is a 10 year old dodge pickup. The small version. I have been looking for a small car, that is good on gas. Since I want to support American jobs I have concentrated on American cars. You can't find any small cars worth a ****. Years ago I owned a Dodge Omni. Not much of a car, but great on gas. It had a hatchback, good for throwing in the camping/cycling stuff. That car got 52 miles per gallon on the highway. It had a four cylinder engine. It was a very light auto. Try finding anything like it now. The closest I can come is a Hyundai. But, that is built in Korea ???? What the heck is going on, why can't the car companies get the message; small car, good gas mileage. I am using the bicycle to go back and forth to work. It isn't that far, so I don't consider myself any eco hero. But I can save a few bucks this way. Have any of you started to use the bicycle for commuting? Less gas, more money to spend on the necessities of life; bicycle clothes, bicycle lights, food, new Ipod to use when riding, cell phone to use after riding, etc. Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. TomCAt ................... what? Gas went up? |
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#2
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
TomCAt wrote: ......... Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. TomCAt ................... what? Gas went up? On my bicycle commute to work I pass under a freeway that is almost always backed up. As I approach it and see the cars moving at 5 mph I look up and say "suckers!!". Tom |
#3
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
"TomCAt" wrote in
: Kinda says it all. My bicycle is a Canondale T800 touring model. My truck is a 10 year old dodge pickup. The small version. I have been looking for a small car, that is good on gas. Since I want to support American jobs I have concentrated on American cars. You can't find any small cars worth a ****. Years ago I owned a Dodge Omni. Not much of a car, but great on gas. It had a hatchback, good for throwing in the camping/cycling stuff. That car got 52 miles per gallon on the highway. It had a four cylinder engine. It was a very light auto. Try finding anything like it now. The closest I can come is a Hyundai. But, that is built in Korea ???? What the heck is going on, why can't the car companies get the message; small car, good gas mileage. I am using the bicycle to go back and forth to work. It isn't that far, so I don't consider myself any eco hero. But I can save a few bucks this way. Have any of you started to use the bicycle for commuting? Less gas, more money to spend on the necessities of life; bicycle clothes, bicycle lights, food, new Ipod to use when riding, cell phone to use after riding, etc. Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. TomCAt ................... what? Gas went up? You need to look at Toyota and Honda, both of them have manufacturing their cars in America for well over 20+ years (American companies use Mexicans) and they produce the most dependable and longest lasting vehicles in the world. Also their hybrids can easily get 50+ mpg. At this moment the so- called "American" companies have nothing to compete with them. |
#4
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
TomCAt wrote:
Kinda says it all. My bicycle is a Canondale T800 touring model. My truck is a 10 year old dodge pickup. The small version. I have been looking for a small car, that is good on gas. Since I want to support American jobs I have concentrated on American cars. You can't find any small cars worth a ****. The industry is so intertwined, that it's hard to keep track, for example you can buy a Nissan assembled in the US, most of the parts are contracted out (same contractors GM, Ford, DC use), and could come from anywhere on the planet. As Nissan is owned by Renault, the profits go to France. Years ago I owned a Dodge Omni. Not much of a car, but great on gas. It had a hatchback, good for throwing in the camping/cycling stuff. That car got 52 miles per gallon on the highway. It had a four cylinder engine. It was a very light auto. It used a Mitsubishi engine, IIRC, as Detriot hadn't figured out how to build anything with less then 8 cylinders at the time. Try finding anything like it now. The closest I can come is a Hyundai. But, that is built in Korea ???? What the heck is going on, why can't the car companies get the message; small car, good gas mileage. They know it, but there is more profit in a $50,000 SUV then in 10 $10,000 econoboxes. W |
#5
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
"TomCAt" wrote...
Kinda says it all. My bicycle is a Canondale T800 touring model. My truck is a 10 year old dodge pickup. The small version. I have been looking for a small car, that is good on gas. Since I want to support American jobs I have concentrated on American cars. You can't find any small cars worth a ****. All the "American" car makers started outsourcing production to Mexico and the 3rd world years ago, so buying an "American" car won't do much for American jobs. Honda, Toyota, et.al. have been building cars and providing jobs in this country for a long time now, and they build better cars than the "American" car makers ever did. -- mark |
#6
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
"TomCAt" wrote: (clip) Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You can chuckle, but you're also going to pay. Maybe not directly at the pump, but remember: crude oil is the main feed stock for the entire chemical and plastics industry. Any place heat is needed, as in heating buildings, generating electricity, cooking and baking--commercial and domestic. And then there is transportation of raw materials and finished goods. Next time you are waiting for a train to go by, look at the size of those fuel tanks. BTW, in the spirit of your post, I was riding past a driveway yesterday, and a big American V-8 paused to let me pass. The sound of that engine idling got me thinking. How much gas is that guy burning, just idling. Some quick mental arithmetic--a starter motor draws about 300 amps at (say) 10 volts. That's 3000 watts, or about 4 HP. An idling engine turns faster than the starter can spin it, so this guy is sitting there consuming 5 or 6 HP, and polluting the air, besides. That's enough power to run a good size home generator. I don't know whether even Lance Armstrong can develop that much power, and if he can, it can't be sustained. Every car that's idling is wasting more power than is used by a bicycle at top speed. |
#7
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
TomCAt wrote: Years ago I owned a Dodge Omni. Not much of a car, but great on gas. It had a hatchback, good for throwing in the camping/cycling stuff. That car got 52 miles per gallon on the highway. It had a four cylinder engine. An engine made in Germany by Volkswagen, ISTR. Trying to "buy American" is a fool's errand. Dodges made in Canada with parts outsourced from India and China. Chevies that are simply rebadged Suzukis. Fords that are Mazdas (and Mazdas that are Fords). My Mazda minivan has a Ford engine in it. The Toyota Matrix and the Pontiac Vibe are the same car. And even if you manage to find a made-in-USA car that has more than 80% domestic content, it will probably be a Honda. And where does the money go? Who "owns" multinational corporations? There are many good economy cars on the market. If you really need one, buy one. But you're better off riding your bike. RichC |
#8
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
"Leo Lichtman" wrote in
: "TomCAt" wrote: (clip) Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Every car that's idling is wasting more power than is used by a bicycle at top speed. And that is why when not in motion hybrid cars basically turnt hemselves off. That alone has to account for at least 30% of their fuel savings. Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services ---------------------------------------------------------- ** SPEED ** RETENTION ** COMPLETION ** ANONYMITY ** ---------------------------------------------------------- http://www.usenet.com |
#9
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
In article ,
TomCAt wrote: I have been looking for a small car, that is good on gas. Since I want to support American jobs I have concentrated on American cars. You can't find any small cars worth a ****. Pretty much any car you can buy will probably be assembled in North America, with parts that come from a similar distribution of sources no matter what nationality of the name on it. Given that most "Asian" cars are assembled in USA/Canada and other posters have noted that most "American" ones are assembled in Mexico, go ahead and buy a Hyundai. Have any of you started to use the bicycle for commuting? I *stopped* a year ago, actually, when I moved within walking distance. Less gas, more money to spend on the necessities of life; bicycle clothes, bicycle lights, food, new Ipod to use when riding, cell phone to use after riding, etc. Every time I pass a gas station on my bicycle, I chuckle. The bike clothes, lights, Ipod, and cell phone almost definitely contain petroleum derivatives, and food production and distribution uses a lot of energy, so if oil prices keep going up you'll see prices going up for all those things too. But if you spend less money on gas, you'll have a larger proportion of *your* money to spend on those same things everybody else is also paying higher prices for, and if you're biking everywhere you'll probably be healthier and therefore better able to enjoy them (definitely compared to what you'd be otherwise, even if not compared to the average). Me? I'm waiting for oil prices to go up another order of magnitude or two. I'll happily pay $500 for a pair of sandals that I'd pay $100 for now if it means people will stop thinking I'm a freak for not having a drivers license, especially if that's still less than the average person spends on gas in the month I buy them[1]. dave [1] A lot of the people I know who drive do a lot of travel for work, which skews the "real people" numbers I have access to, but some googling turns up http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwa...alculator.html which claims that USA averages are 22mpg and 225miles/week. At $2/gallon this comes to US$88+change/month, which at the current exchange rate is a littl over CDN$100, scarily close to the typical amount I've been paying for a pair of sandals that will actually last more than a few weeks with the kind of abuse I subject them to (and Canadian gas is more expensive). And they last three or four times as long as a month's worth of gas. -- Dave Vandervies I don't want to have to supply a tool that turns your 100 lines of html into my 10 lines of text. Let's do it the other way around. --Alan Balmer in comp.lang.c |
#10
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10 YEAR OLD TRUCK, 2 YEAR OLD BICYCLE
On Fri, 2 Sep 2005 19:59:54 +0000 (UTC),
(Dave Vandervies) wrote: At $2/gallon this comes to US$88+change/month, which at the current exchange rate is a littl over CDN$100, scarily close to the typical amount I've been paying for a pair of sandals that will actually last more than a few weeks with the kind of abuse I subject them to What kind of sandals are those? |
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