WOW!  What a bad stretch of weather we have been having.  Since I got back from Tennessee about four weeks ago, we have had snow, freezing rain, or both almost every day.  The days that we do not have snow or ice, we had enough the night before that I cannot ride to work.  While the RT is a very capable bike, I don’t relish the thought of sliding to work on the ice.  I will have to look through my older photos and post some ride reports for rides that I have taken in the past three summers.  I am sure that I have some photos somewhere, as Amy is really good about taking them.  When I ride alone,  I am bad about not taking photos.  I get focused on riding and forget to take photos.

Even though there has been lousy weather for riding the motorcycle, there is some great news.  As I am sure you have noticed, the gas prices are getting back down to where they should be.  Today, as I was driving to a friend’s house to work on a computer, a gas station in Waynesburg, OH had gas for $1.38.  I haven’t seen a price that low in years.  The CEO of Gulf oil was on Fox News the other day and he said that gas WILL fall to $1.00 per gallon.  I can’t wait.  The politicians want to talk about economic stimulus, well giving Americans the extra disposable income that they will have by cutting fuel prices to $1.00 per gallon will do far more than anything a politician can do.  In case you haven;t picked up on it in other posts, I am not one to wait on the Government to help me.  I tend to think that Government involvement is what messes so many things up.  I know one guy who doesn’t have a real job, he sits around mostly and complains about his situation, says that his chosen politician will fix everything, and wonders why he is in the same situation 30 years later even though he has been through several administrations in Washington.  That life isn’t for me!  The only person that can improve my situation is me!  Enough about my political views though.  Gas prices are plummeting despite OPEC’s best efforts and I am thrilled.

Look for my next post a little sooner than this one came.  I have been very busy with Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations.  I know what you are thinking, “He said Thanksgiving and Christmas!”  That’s right people, I said it, unlike the employees of most of the stores you will do your Christmas shopping in this year.  I find it funny that they want me to spend tons of money on Christmas gifts, but then say they might offend me if they said Christmas.

I have been talking quite a lot to my brother about saving money by riding a motorcycle lately.  It is a great way to beat high gas prices.  I started my motorcycle riding life in April of 2006.  I purchased my Honda CB900 Custom for $1500 to save money on gas, and gas was about $2.30 per gallon then.  Gas continued to rise since the day that I picked up my bike, and I have been saving gas by riding.  

It was easy to justify buying my motorcycle by looking at the numbers.  My truck, a Dodge Ram 2500 HD 4×4 with the V-10, gets roughly 10 mpg during my commute.  The Honda CB900 Custom averaged 45 mpg.  Because of my schedule, I do not drive as much as some others to work and back, as I work 24 hour shifts, so I drive roughly 80 miles per week to work.  If gas prices averaged $3 for a year, I would save about $970 in the first year alone, just in my commute.  That may not seem like much, but remember, I drive to work two or three times per week, and this does not take into account any other driving that I replace with the motorcycle.  In the first year of owning my motorcycle, I drove it 12,587 miles, meaning that I saved roughly $2600 in gas.  This is a significant amount.  Now that prices are higher, I am saving more everyday.  This sure beats sitting around and waiting for the lower gas prices that I was promised by the new Congress two years ago.  They promised to fix the situation, and the already high gas prices doubled!  I am glad that I took action to save gas myself.

Now, for my brother’s gas saving situation.  He lived in Atlanta, commuting in city gridlock 6 days per week.  He bought his motorcycle, a 1983 Honda CB1000 Custom to save gas.  He paid roughly $1,200 dollars for the motorcycle and gas was over $4.00 per gallon when he decided to buy it.  He has since moved back to Ohio, but still has a long commute and he drives to work 6 days per week.  His commute is 32 miles each way.  He rides his motorcycle averaging 45 mpg and his truck gets 15 mpg.  At $3.50 per gallon (the current price in our area, and the lowest it has been all summer) his motorcycle will save him $3,100 dollars in one year commuting to work alone.  My brother has it figured that with ALL of his driving, taking the motorcycle is like getting a raise of $90 per week.  He has been looking at extending how long he can ride so he can keep saving money at the gas pump.  If he buys a better jacket for $180 and he rides for three weeks longer, he has saved money versus driving his truck.  He could throw the jacket away at the end of three weeks and still be ahead, but that same jacket will allow him to begin riding earlier in the spring, thereby saving more gas money!  He has tried to explain this to some of his friends, and they have a hard time grasping this concept.

If anybody reading this blog is interested in saving gas and saving money by riding a motorcycle, I would encourage you to do it soon.  The sooner you start riding, the sooner you have more money in your pocket.  I can tell a huge difference in my disposable income when I am riding all of the time versus taking my truck.  There are a handful of weeks that I cannot ride in the winter, but if the roads are clear of snow and ice, I ride.  Amy and I even took the bike to the Christmas party for my shift at work in January, we had to scrape the frost off of the windshield to ride home from that one.  The reason I started riding a motorcycle was purely financial.  I ride now because of the enjoyment I get from riding a motorcycle AND the financial benefit of burning 1/4 the gas!

How much gas money do you save by riding in a year?  Leave a comment and let us know.