It figures that, two days after celebrating my 1000th mile on the electric bike, I would be celebrating my third blown tire.  The previous two blown tires were the fault of the sharp objects that had been allowed to lay in the bike lanes of Houston.  This blown tire was my fault, a result of adding too much pressure.  But it also presented me with an opportunity to consider how great an investment this bicycle actually was. No, seriously.

When evaluating an energy-saving project, there are two ways to go about it.  The first is called "simple payback" - you calculate the amount of energy you'll save each year, and the cash value of that energy.  Then, you divide the total cost of the project by this amount.  The result is the number of years it will take for you to recoup your investment.  This is the analysis I did two days ago in evaluating how long it will take to recoup my bicycle investment.  I came up with a simple payback of 3 to 4 years.

A more complete analysis will include, among other things, the cost of operations and maintenance.  In this case, the operations are free (unless I decide to get myself a driver) so I only need to consider the maintenance costs.  Over the first 4 months of bike ownership, I have spent $100 on repairs, including today's expected $30 bill and the $30 I spent on a new bicycle pump. 

Now for car maintenance savings: for 2008, the IRS reimbursement rate for business vehicles was 50.5 cents per mile.  Over 1000 miles, that amounts to $505, including fuel and maintenance costs.

At that rate, I'll have the bike paid off in less than a year and a half.  Hmm.  Maybe I should have included O&M costs in my original analysis after all.