Shoes still produce way less tire pollution than bicycles
Do you have a source for that? Because that doesn’t match my experience at all, especially if we measure by wear per mile. Plus, shoes are a lot more finicky than bike tires. If they’re not a good fit or if the wearer has bad walking habits, they’ll wear out prematurely and end up in a landfill with a lot of rubber left. I tend to wear out the balls of my feet, for example. To do the same with a bike tire you’d have to be downright abusive, locking brakes on pavement and stuff
If now you’re moving the goalposts to “wear per mile” then car tires win substantially over bicycle tires.
According to this source bicycle tires should be replaced after about 4,000 miles. source
Whereas according to this source an average car tire should last 50,000 miles source
The argument against bicycles vs cars, using tire wear as the metric, gets even worse when you introduce the cost of tires in bicycle vs car. You get many MANY more miles per tire per dollar on a car than you do on a bicycle.
I understand all the flaws in this comparison, but this is the metric which you introduced to be the problem to solve for.
I think that the wear per distance is the only metric that makes sense, given these are modes of transportation. To be totally honest with you though, I only skimmed the thread up until your comment, and the statement about shoes caught my eye, so I had to ask. So any sources on shoe wear? I’m not even trying to argue, I’ve just had this question for months because I’ve heard others make the same claim that shoes pollute less than bike tires.
Do you have a source for that? Because that doesn’t match my experience at all, especially if we measure by wear per mile. Plus, shoes are a lot more finicky than bike tires. If they’re not a good fit or if the wearer has bad walking habits, they’ll wear out prematurely and end up in a landfill with a lot of rubber left. I tend to wear out the balls of my feet, for example. To do the same with a bike tire you’d have to be downright abusive, locking brakes on pavement and stuff
If now you’re moving the goalposts to “wear per mile” then car tires win substantially over bicycle tires.
According to this source bicycle tires should be replaced after about 4,000 miles. source
Whereas according to this source an average car tire should last 50,000 miles source
The argument against bicycles vs cars, using tire wear as the metric, gets even worse when you introduce the cost of tires in bicycle vs car. You get many MANY more miles per tire per dollar on a car than you do on a bicycle.
I understand all the flaws in this comparison, but this is the metric which you introduced to be the problem to solve for.
I think that the wear per distance is the only metric that makes sense, given these are modes of transportation. To be totally honest with you though, I only skimmed the thread up until your comment, and the statement about shoes caught my eye, so I had to ask. So any sources on shoe wear? I’m not even trying to argue, I’ve just had this question for months because I’ve heard others make the same claim that shoes pollute less than bike tires.