Carrying a bike appears to affect gas mileage
May 22, 2007I’ve been hauling my bicycle to work so that I can ride the Riverwalk at lunch. The benefits of the bike ride are many–the physical and the mental-health benefits of getting out of the office and riding thru the wooded trail every day. It appears though that it’s costing me about .2 miles-per-gallon in fuel efficiency.
The bike sits on the back of my vehicle, I have a bike carrier that attaches to the trailer hitch. If the bike was attached to my roof rack, then I could see how it might impact my fuel economy. But sitting out behind the vehicle it should not be causing that much additional drag.
Yet the trip computer in my car shows that this week I’m getting .2 miles-per-gallon less in fuel efficiency than normal. I haven’t changed fuel either–same Chevron gas I use most weeks.
It’s not like the added cost is going to break the bank, it’s not nearly enough to outweigh the benefits of riding the bike at lunch. I’ll definitely keep bringing the bike in to work, at least during these summer months. Still I thought it was interesting to see how a seemingly minor thing like having a bike mounted behind my vehicle is impacting the fuel efficiency.