{"id":56671,"date":"2026-04-18T17:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T15:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/?p=56671"},"modified":"2026-04-18T17:54:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T15:54:38","slug":"the-lure-of-affordable-cycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/the-lure-of-affordable-cycling\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lure of Affordable Cycling"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n

A few days ago I noticed that the car said I had 1300km before the next service. Within a few days it said 0km until next service. Now the “service” light is on permanently. I went to the garage to book a service and I was told that the service would be from 1700-2000 CHF because it is the 10 year service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What frustrates me is that I have a 10 year old car with 63,000 kilometres on it and no matter how little I drive it, I spend a thousand francs plus on services each year. That’s without counting petrol, without counting tyres. In essence a car becomes more affordable as you use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday I damaged the rear wheel cycling, so I went to a bike shop and they took it in, to work on it when they had time. This morning I picked it up. They replaced two spokes for a total of 30 Euros. That’s nothing, compared to the price of a new wheel, and nothing compared to the cost of a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paradox is that I cycle as much as I drive, so if I look at the cost of my cycling habit, compared to the cost of my driving habit, then cycling is affordable, whereas the car is absurdly expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real paradox is that a cheap C3 costs as much to maintain, in Switzerland as a Mercedes A Class. The car might be cheaper, but expensive things break sooner and in contrast to the car, the service costs are absurd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got rid of the petrol scooter when the service was 500 CHF rather than the 200-300 CHF, and now, with the car services being so expensive, but especially with petrol being so expensive it’s more and more tempting to slide towards cycling, rather than driving a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The summer I spent without a car, and the following summer that I spent with a broken arm, and then the pandemic years, taught me to be content with things that don’t require a car. Cycling and hiking are both possible without a car. With cycling you can range far, without much difficulty. My furthest ride was 149 kilometres but last Saturday I cycled 100km. I often go towards Bi\u00e8re with cycling groups. It has become ordinary. If I can get there, then the necessity for a car declines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cars are good for scuba diving and climbing, but for plenty of other activities bikes, trains and buses are fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Desire to Jump to Electric<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My current car is a petrol car but I often drive an electric car. I find that the electric car has great acceleration and although the range is a quarter of that of the petrol car, it costs a fraction to recharge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my eyes petrol engines have become obsolete, especially with the current petroleum crisis. In my eyes it makes sense to invest in an electric car, rather than a petrol one, because elcectricity, at the time or writing, remains at a stable price, given that power comes from solar, hydroelectric, wind, and potentially nuclear, although I am not as keen on that source of energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a resilient charging habit at this moment in time, so it makes sense to take advantage of this acquired knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I find an affordable e-vehicle then I would be tempted to replace petrol for electric, despite the road trip limitations it would impose. 200km between charges means charging five or six times if I drive to Spain. If it’s 15 minutes per charge then it adds an extra 90 minutes, and that’s best case scenario. In that situation the two day trip makes sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>A few days ago I noticed that the car said I had 1300km before the next service. Within a few days it said 0km until next service. Now the “service” light is on permanently. I went to the garage to book a service and I was told that the service would be from 1700-2000 CHF […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[255],"tags":[7683,1203,733,7684,7682],"class_list":["post-56671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-swiss-walks","tag-affordability","tag-cars","tag-cycling","tag-movement","tag-services"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56672,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56671\/revisions\/56672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.main-vision.com\/richard\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}