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?

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

"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.

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

"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

"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.

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

"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.

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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

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?