I can't drive 75
A lot has changed since my last post. The temperature has spiked and the cost of oil is dang near $150 a barrel. If I remember correctly just the other day the cost rose about $16 over the course of two days; all due to speculation. Speculation. We're talking about speculation, man. We're not talking about the market. It's speculation. Not supply or demand. We're talking about speculation man.
Sound familiar? It's a take from one of Allen Iverson's rants about missing basketball practice with the Philadelphia 76ers. Hilarious actually. I mean, I'm all about showing up for practice, but he's got a point. Well, one reporter commented about the big spike (which also sent the Dow Jones falling significantly) being propelled due to a financial analyst predicting the price of a barrel reaching $200 soon. Of all people to benefit from such a comment, hey, an oil analyst with a big New York firm firing off more speculation. Couple that with a surprising rise in unemployment and boom! That's all it took. Oil trading shot up while stocks plummeted. We're talking about speculation man. We're not even talking about the game!
Saudi Arabia Calls for Summit on Energy Costs
Even the Saudi government is saying things are getting to be too much and not justified by market fundamentals.
The market is certainly more complicated than what I'm making it out to be, but there are several different forces at play here. It's a recipe for the perfect storm, and the weakening dollar only makes matters worse. What's sad is that our governmental leaders at all levels have not said one thing about cutting back and sacrificing. There's no encouragement to drive less, save, walk more, ride a bicycle, carpool, slug, slow down, nothing. It's as if they want all of us to keep up the pace we've been at the last 20 years.
Speaking of the value of a dollar we must ask ourselves how does that affect me the bicyclist. Well, if you aren't looking for ways to ride your bike for commuting or errands then you're wasting gas and resources. If you're still driving your vehicle over 75 miles per hour everywhere you go then you're wasting gas and resources. Forget about the environment and conserving for a moment, but rather think about your own wallet. Suppose your car gets 20 or 25 miles per gallon depending upon city or highway or speed driven. Now imagine if every 20 to 25 miles you had to stop and pay $4. Which would you choose to do? Would you rather pay that $4 every 20 miles or every 25 miles? Or, would you rather be even more patient and pay $4 every 27 to 28 miles? If not, what if you had to pay $7 for every 20 to 25 miles you drive?
Currently, you're already paying the $4 and don't be too shocked when you're paying $7. At the rate we're going now it's going to happen. Speculation man! So for quite awhile now I've put some restrictions on myself to maximize a tank of gas. When driving on the interstate through Nashville I don't drive any faster than 60mph, and when taking a longer trip outside of Nashville I'll stick to 65 mph. Before this I'd drive 65 through town and 70-75 on longer trips. I'm keeping my speed very low on non-interstate roadways also. I've never been a speeder anyway, but I've purposely cut back to save money and see the effects on my tank efficiency.
Since doing this I've stretched my tanks of gas anywhere from 30 to 40 miles farther than before. I haven't taken a really long trip to see how much more efficient I could be, but I'm increasing performance between 8 to 10% with these small changes. If you knew you could take a LEGAL pill from GNC and increase cycling performance by that much how quickly would you buy it? Pretty quick I bet!
What really catches my eye is how much slower I'm driving than everybody else. Put your car on cruise at 60mph through metro interstates or 65 on the interstate outside of town and see yourself get blown off the road! It's really staggering to see the difference in speed, so think big picture here. Look around to see how many are driving fast versus how many are driving below the speed limits. Do the math. According to the Federal Highway Administration there were over 190,000,000 licensed drivers in the year 2000, which is a 23% increase over 1980. The cumulative effect of our current value systems are catching up and biting our rears in the worst way.
I'm not sure why I'm saying all this, but most everyone reading this is being impacted negatively by rising fuel costs. These costs are definitely impacting the decision of driving long distances to attend a bike race, a charity ride or even a simple short vacation to visit family out-of-state.
At the end of it all there's just one question to ask yourself, "What are you going to do about it?"
Sound familiar? It's a take from one of Allen Iverson's rants about missing basketball practice with the Philadelphia 76ers. Hilarious actually. I mean, I'm all about showing up for practice, but he's got a point. Well, one reporter commented about the big spike (which also sent the Dow Jones falling significantly) being propelled due to a financial analyst predicting the price of a barrel reaching $200 soon. Of all people to benefit from such a comment, hey, an oil analyst with a big New York firm firing off more speculation. Couple that with a surprising rise in unemployment and boom! That's all it took. Oil trading shot up while stocks plummeted. We're talking about speculation man. We're not even talking about the game!
Saudi Arabia Calls for Summit on Energy Costs
Even the Saudi government is saying things are getting to be too much and not justified by market fundamentals.
The market is certainly more complicated than what I'm making it out to be, but there are several different forces at play here. It's a recipe for the perfect storm, and the weakening dollar only makes matters worse. What's sad is that our governmental leaders at all levels have not said one thing about cutting back and sacrificing. There's no encouragement to drive less, save, walk more, ride a bicycle, carpool, slug, slow down, nothing. It's as if they want all of us to keep up the pace we've been at the last 20 years.
Speaking of the value of a dollar we must ask ourselves how does that affect me the bicyclist. Well, if you aren't looking for ways to ride your bike for commuting or errands then you're wasting gas and resources. If you're still driving your vehicle over 75 miles per hour everywhere you go then you're wasting gas and resources. Forget about the environment and conserving for a moment, but rather think about your own wallet. Suppose your car gets 20 or 25 miles per gallon depending upon city or highway or speed driven. Now imagine if every 20 to 25 miles you had to stop and pay $4. Which would you choose to do? Would you rather pay that $4 every 20 miles or every 25 miles? Or, would you rather be even more patient and pay $4 every 27 to 28 miles? If not, what if you had to pay $7 for every 20 to 25 miles you drive?
Currently, you're already paying the $4 and don't be too shocked when you're paying $7. At the rate we're going now it's going to happen. Speculation man! So for quite awhile now I've put some restrictions on myself to maximize a tank of gas. When driving on the interstate through Nashville I don't drive any faster than 60mph, and when taking a longer trip outside of Nashville I'll stick to 65 mph. Before this I'd drive 65 through town and 70-75 on longer trips. I'm keeping my speed very low on non-interstate roadways also. I've never been a speeder anyway, but I've purposely cut back to save money and see the effects on my tank efficiency.
Since doing this I've stretched my tanks of gas anywhere from 30 to 40 miles farther than before. I haven't taken a really long trip to see how much more efficient I could be, but I'm increasing performance between 8 to 10% with these small changes. If you knew you could take a LEGAL pill from GNC and increase cycling performance by that much how quickly would you buy it? Pretty quick I bet!
What really catches my eye is how much slower I'm driving than everybody else. Put your car on cruise at 60mph through metro interstates or 65 on the interstate outside of town and see yourself get blown off the road! It's really staggering to see the difference in speed, so think big picture here. Look around to see how many are driving fast versus how many are driving below the speed limits. Do the math. According to the Federal Highway Administration there were over 190,000,000 licensed drivers in the year 2000, which is a 23% increase over 1980. The cumulative effect of our current value systems are catching up and biting our rears in the worst way.
I'm not sure why I'm saying all this, but most everyone reading this is being impacted negatively by rising fuel costs. These costs are definitely impacting the decision of driving long distances to attend a bike race, a charity ride or even a simple short vacation to visit family out-of-state.
At the end of it all there's just one question to ask yourself, "What are you going to do about it?"
posted by NashvilleCyclist.com at 6/09/2008 10:56:00 PM
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