Year to date, I have biked to work 85% of the time. I anticipate this will increase to upwards of 90% as the year goes on. With a round-trip commute of 9.5 miles and assuming 50 5-day work weeks and sustained 90% biking (as it’s easy to drive less than twice a month), I’ll have 2,137.5 miles of commuting by bike. That’s approximately 85.5 gallons of gas saved (at 25mpg), which at a $2/gallon average is $171. Not a ton of cash, but given that it gives me 35 minutes of exercise every day on top of whatever else I do, it will help keep me in great shape.
In other news, I’ve been thinking about my Rainier plans lately. It’s a beautiful mountain and I know I’ll climb it eventually, I’m considering saving the money and time off that it would require, and planning a guided trip to the Himalayas instead. There appear to be many 2-3 week options that would cost a few thousand dollars. Triple the time off and triple the cost, for a trip that should be far, far more rewarding. I may even push Rainier to the summer and do it over a long weekend for much less money than a spring climb of Liberty Ridge would take. We’ll see.
Tomorrow night I’ll finally earn my Irish Snug Running Club shirt. I’m looking forward to it, even though that place has become a charlie foxtrot, packed with people who don’t actually run, just get primped for a night out and put on activewear instead of typical bar clothing. I’m enjoying Slattery’s run far more than the Snug lately.
Sunday should be a good day up on Berthoud Pass. I can’t wait.
Through Polarized Eyes 
it seems like biking that much should save you a ton more money. in my mind, i imagined piles of money a person could roll around in by biking 90% of their commute. but i guess if your commute is 4.something miles, that is still a pretty good savings.have you seen the planet earth series that the discovery channel did? the himalayas are awesome. and rainier is going to explode catastrophically someday, so you could save yourself the lava burns if you went there instead. haha 🙂
Before I changed jobs I had a commute on the order of 16.5 miles each way by bike, so the savings would’ve been over $650 a year. Of course, gas was quite a bit more at that point too, so I would’ve saved over $1,000 in a year doing that.