How Many MPG?

The most common semi-smarmy question I get about riding my bike to work is: “How many MPG do you get with that thing?” So I decided to do more bike math. There are 2080 calories in one gallon of 2% milk. Using the calories burned count from last year [220 calories per day [6.6 miles per day]] I get 62.7 miles per gallon of milk while riding my bike.

2080/220 = 9.454545

9.5 days * 6.6 miles per day = 62.7 mpg.

If the average cost of milk is $3.50 a gallon, it costs me a little more than 5 ¢ per mile.

3.5/62.7 = 0.0558 $ per mile.

So the next time someone asks, I’ll tell them that I get 62.7 mpg of milk which is about 5¢ per mile; and secure my nerddom for all time.

Comments and conversations on this post

  1. Jeff Schuler

    I’m really glad you figured this out. I’ve seriously been wondering for awhile.
    Well, not for milk, specifically, but for everything I put in my tank.
    If you ever do rice/soy milk and Edmund Fitzgerald variations on this theme, let me know.

  2. Adam Harvey

    I don’t actually drink much milk anymore, unless it is soy milk in my cereal. It looks like a gallon of soy milk is pretty close to 2%; 2176 calories per gallon. Soy milk is about twice the price of regular, non-organic milk, so your fuel costs you more per mile [but has other benefits, much like higher octane gasoline].

  3. Debbie

    If biking burns 36 calories per mile and nursing burns 500 calories a day, than I’m nursing the daily caloric equivalent of 13.9 bike-miles. That’s about a mile and a half per feeding.