David HoA person on a bicycle is by far the most energy-efficient among animals and machines per distance traveled relative to body weight. The bicycle is magic.
Gabriel Pettier@davidho it’s a bit unfair to compare to animals, i assume the bike is on a nice road, not in the forest or in a river, where its performance are severely impacted.
However, totally fair to compare to the automobile and other man-made transports.
However, totally fair to compare to the automobile and other man-made transports.
Patrick GillamI would like the chart-makers to recalculate the data factoring in the energy needed to make roads and runways in those instances where they apply. The bicycles would maybe need half the roadway of cars, but still.
We hold up the wheel as civilization-defining technology, but wheels are for naught without roads, and the smoother, the better.
@patrickgillam @davidho indeed. In Europe we marvel at the remaining roman buildings, but all the roads they built are covered by our own, newer, smoother, layers upon the ones they built back then, building roads across half the continent might have been one of their most impactful work.
(no, i don’t commonly think about the roman empire)
Matthew Miller@patrickgillam @tshirtman @davidho
Yeah, this. I'd be interested to see the same comparison across different types of terrain.
Presumably, salmon are much less performant on roadways. And grass. And mountains.
Bikes also probably rather poor in the ocean.