Following on from the "How many miles this year" thread, have you ever bothered to work out the cost of depreciation per mile ridden for your bike(s) and / or car?
I have included some examples below, but generally, if I can get below 10p per mile in depreciation costs I think that's quite reasonable. This means that a 200 mile pleasure ride on a weekend might cost £ 25.00 in fuel, but a further £ 20.00 in depreciation - a not inconsiderable cost.
To keep this simple I have ignored the cost of any repairs, or consumables, and just taken into account the cost of buying the bike (what I paid, not the new price). I've also ignored any value left in the vehicle, so in some cases the true cost will be lower.
Example 1: BMW R1200GS. I bought this for £ 6,000 a few years ago, with 20k miles on the clock. It now has 90k miles on it. Cost per mile works out at £ 6,000 / 70,000 = 8.6p. For this bike it has cost a few hundred pounds in repairs over the years, but has a thousand or two value left in it, so the two cancel each other out.
Example 2: BMW R1100GS I bought this for £ 1,300 last year, with 70k miles on the clock. It now has 86k miles on it. Cost per mile works out at £ 1,300 / 16,000 = 8.1p. For this bike it has cost little in repairs over the year, but has a thousand or so value left in it, so the real cost is probably less.
Example 3: BMW R1100RT I bought this for £ 6,000 about 10 years ago, with 5k miles on the clock. It now has 83k miles on it. Cost per mile works out at £ 6,000 / 78,000 = 7.7p. For this bike it has cost a bit in repairs over the year, and has little value remaining, but is now going to be used as spares to keep the 1100 GS on the road.
Example 4: Ford Fiesta - bought a couple of months ago to teach my daughter to drive - Cost £ 300.00 and has done approx 2,000 miles in the past couple of months - cost per mile = 15p to date.
Would be interested to see how others come out?
Ride safe,
Shad.
