trailer with boxes
Whenever I go out with my bike trailer I can’t avoid thinking about the weight ratio between the vehicle, passenger and cargo. And that gets me thinking about energy waste.
When I ride my bike, which weights about 27lb (less than a fifth of my body weight) I can move around using only one third of the energy I would spend if I was walking !!
Even when I have my bike trailer, my vehicle still weights less than a third of my body weight and I can move using my own strength! And I’m not a heavy guy, I weight less than 155lb.
I have carried all sorts of stuff in my bike trailer:
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The groceries shopping
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A chest of drawers full of books
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Tree seedlings along with some bags of soil, shovel and garden hoe
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Some 45lb bags of cat and dog food
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Dogs
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Computers
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Some of my brother’s stuff when he was moving (books, dvds, cds)
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And so on…
Dog ride
I’ve carried around stuff as heavy as me and the bike together (Curitiba has some hills so I did it very slowly, but I did it anyway). Not to mention the rickshaw.
On the other hand, a car can have more than 20 times my weight. And more than half the energy is spent just to move the weight of the own vehicle. What a waste of energy!
Many people might say that the car can carry lots of people and hundreds of pounds. Ok, I give you that. But, honestly, everybody knows that most cars ride with the driver alone, carrying almost nothing.
The funny thing is that the big cars (SUVs) are increasingly popular and desired, making the “happy” owners more and more dependent on the infrastructure, resources and services. On the other hand we have the great majority of the population loosing mobility and space every time one of these cars hits the streets.
Does anyone have some more info about transportation and energy use that would like to share with us?
Written by Luis Patricio (Transporte Humano)
