My Fuel Economy Goal...
 

So, instead of shooting for a particular mpg - I'm going to shoot for an overall fuel consumption goal/time frame.

So I have a quarter of a tank left. My goal is to not fill up until September 12. This means subsidizing car usage with bike usage - perhaps electric scooter too (if I can find a replacement inner tube)...

I'm using a cycle computer to measure my distance traveled, so I can see how many gallons I use v. how many miles traveled. For school commuting alone, I'll do about 30 miles.


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I'm not sure if this goal is even feasible, as I'm camping this weekend and I have a 25 mile (45min) drive to make with a kayak on my roof. Plus, I need to pick up said kayak today o.0


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Thoughts/Comments?

Self rationing, that's awesome treb! :)

Instead of just seeing how good mpg he can get, he is limiting himself to a certain amount of fuel for a given amount of time. Forcing himself to go to some lengths to make that goal.

Does the kayak have to go on the roof? (Taking back seat passengers?)

Could leave it sticking WAaaAaay out with a red flag on the tip of it... (done that before).

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing today :p Although I did notice my cruising mpg dropped about 5mpg - but with some excessive P&G I got 36 on the way home (whereas I got 35 getting there - going in a general downhill direction).


Exactly, which means I need to keep high mpg numbers and make a best effort to use other personal transportation....

i like this idea im getting my bike soon and i will make this part of my goals thanks for posting.

I do some of that too, I really try to stretch out my tank for those extra 2 days.

I have to say that although I hardly miss 12mpg in my van, I do miss being able to go 6 weeks on a tank of gas. I'll say it pretty often, but I really do think it would be nice to have larger fuel tanks on small cars to help outlast pump price spikes, etc. 400 miles to a tank according to EPA city mileage would be my design benchmark...

Good work trebuchet03. When I was going to college I was a biking FOOL. It just made sense time-wise. Parking on campus was a B*tch.

For the month of August I made it on just one tank (with me driving. My brother drove the car but returned it with roughly the same amount of gas in the tank).

Alas, I don't think I'll hit my goal :(

But it's for a good reason - emergency use... My buddy's chain broke on his ride back from work, so I picked him up and brought him home. I'm down to .8 gallons left (according to SG - I started with 1.2g) and tomorrow I'm taking my other half for a blood test. It's within biking distance (perhaps on the outer edge of range), but I wouldn't ask anyone to go without being able to eat....

I may just fill up - but stay with my goal to not consume that last .8 gallons until the 12th.

It's funny, all my bikes operate on rusty, reconditioned chain. My friend's bike's chain (chain and bike not even three weeks old) breaks. Perhaps the rusty chain has proven itself worthy :p

Or maybe friend has tree trunk legs and uses the wrong gear :p.

I'm finding this self-rationing experiment really interesting.

It's the future :thumbup:

Aww geez, I really should be riding to school if I am supposed to be training for this Josh Billings bike race, huh. And since everyone else is doing it. Well, it's 28 miles each way. Lotta hills. So maybe not. But if you factor in distance traveled by bike into your overall MPG, well, if you can't reach that lofty goal by mods and slow driving, then achieve it by cycling! Think of it as extended engine off coasting. :D Except it's not really coasting. More like extended huffing it.

Well, even if you don't quite make it, it was a great idea and a very worthy goal. I just may have to take this up sometime.

So... I refueled today. But I'm going to try and not use up the remaining .8 gallons. I think I'm down to .5ish after today's events. With a full tank of fuel, the sense of urgency is no longer there.

But, the good news... I've never gone 450 miles on a tank :thumbup: Now I need to figure out a new goal :)

Metrompg seems to be the king of the high mpg/gasoline rationing category.

He has used under 25 gallons so far this year!

That is a neat idea.

I estimate mine at 168 gal/Year (still way too much) ,

Which is down from 437 gal/year last January (traded in for the metro and learned how to drive again),

And down from 936 gal/year 5 years ago (moved 15 miles closer to work and was driving big old sloppy cars at the time)

So I still use way too much, but a decent trend, and I'm thinking real hard about how to take another chunk out of my consumption.

It looks nice when you graph it :)
https://www.gassavers.org/attachment....1&d=1189266647

national average in 2004 was 464 gal/year ( https://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/st...er_capita.html )