Monday, May 16, 2011

Make that 5000 miles on the Surly


In early September, I posted that my commute/touring/do-all beloved Surly surpassed 4000 miles. I'm proud to announce that as of last week, it is now 5000 miles. Not to boast, but the 1000 miles between September and May is rather impressive in itself. Pittsburgh experienced a cold winter and we got several good helpings of snow. This decreased my bike commuting miles, as I chose to drive instead. However, for the most part, I was good about choosing reasonable days to commute during December, January, February, and March. Ever since April and the looming $4/gallon of gas, I have made it a personal quest to bike commute as much as humanly possible. This has been successful. I filled up the tank on my vehicle on April 7th and didn't put more gas in until yesterday, May 15th. So, I went a little over 5 weeks on one tank of gas! Normally, I would have to fill up my tank every 2-3 weeks, so I figured that I saved about $120 in gas during that time period. Cost for the bike = couple of flats ($5 per tube), chain lube ($7), and the occasional bike clean (time). Not to mention the exercise and the liberation of being on two wheels versus four. Bike commuting at its finest. Go bikes!