I’ve only ever taken any of my cars to the shop twice or thrice over the years I believe. All the rest of my repairs have been done at home.
If I did 15000 km a year on a bicycle, that would be literally hell for that bicycle. I need new pedals every 500-1000 km because I exert too much force and I can’t be arsed to downshift every time I accelerate. Plastics break, metal ones bend. The crank bearing or whatever it’s called in English doesn’t tend to last too long either. I’m not much easier on my cars either, but they’re built to take it.
I have a 20 year old car. This January I had to replace the control arms (bushings were shot), CV axels, and steering knuckle assembly. I did this all myself, to save a few thousand in labor (not joking, thats what one of my friends is paying a shop right now for just the brakes.) Still the price of those parts added up to just under 600. For that budget I could go out and buy a veritable fleet of used bikes from garage sales. Tune them up with tools on hand and a few spray cans of Degreasers and Teflon lubricants they wont even sell you in Europe, and never run out of bikes to ride again in my life. The thing is, I still own a damned car. I resent that I own a car. I won’t try to argue that a bike has more utility than a car because it would be impossible. However, I will argue to the end of a time that a bike is more utilitarian. We all just don’t live the kind of lives that are compatible with the slower speeds, more difficult travel that a bike requires outside of inner city travel.
I’ve only ever taken any of my cars to the shop twice or thrice over the years I believe. All the rest of my repairs have been done at home.
If I did 15000 km a year on a bicycle, that would be literally hell for that bicycle. I need new pedals every 500-1000 km because I exert too much force and I can’t be arsed to downshift every time I accelerate. Plastics break, metal ones bend. The crank bearing or whatever it’s called in English doesn’t tend to last too long either. I’m not much easier on my cars either, but they’re built to take it.
I have a 20 year old car. This January I had to replace the control arms (bushings were shot), CV axels, and steering knuckle assembly. I did this all myself, to save a few thousand in labor (not joking, thats what one of my friends is paying a shop right now for just the brakes.) Still the price of those parts added up to just under 600. For that budget I could go out and buy a veritable fleet of used bikes from garage sales. Tune them up with tools on hand and a few spray cans of Degreasers and Teflon lubricants they wont even sell you in Europe, and never run out of bikes to ride again in my life. The thing is, I still own a damned car. I resent that I own a car. I won’t try to argue that a bike has more utility than a car because it would be impossible. However, I will argue to the end of a time that a bike is more utilitarian. We all just don’t live the kind of lives that are compatible with the slower speeds, more difficult travel that a bike requires outside of inner city travel.