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Toshi's thread

CBJ

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
13,130
4,929
Copenhagen, Denmark
Westy said:
That is because people don't actually buy Ferraris to drive, they are only for being seen in. I don't think I have ever seen one on a road that would be fun to drive, just sitting in traffic in fancy urban areas or prominently parked in front of a fancy hotel or restaurant by the valet.
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You are an engineer and base your conclusion on your own observation only - come on I expect more from you :-)

That said I am sure a lot a purchased for the fancy people out there and never see any real use but there are also a lot who put them to good use in Euro land. Just drive in Germany you will if you pay attention see plenty people using their fast cars.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
CBJ said:
Not sure if this is the case with all large tires? But all the ebikes that roll by my house with large tires the noise from the tires are unbearable.
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The tires do make a mighty thrum.

The suspension fork feels 100% undamped, for the record. Slightly entertaining at speed, undamped 4" large volume tire-springs and the air spring up front to boot. Less entertaining when at speed in the dark.
 
CBJ

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
13,130
4,929
Copenhagen, Denmark
Early original 928s looks amazing and so modern in many way just like the first Countach. Would be interesting to try to drive one and see if fun to ride.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Toshi said:
First errands run on the hulking commuter e-bike.

Better efficiency than expected. Just under 25 Wh/mi, and that's hustling along.
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Time to figure out how many commute days it'll take to break even, recycling some old math with new assumptions:

25 Wh/mi and ~14 mi round trip commute so 35% depth of discharge.

At that depth of discharge I estimate it'll take at least 5,000 cycles before the capacity degradation becomes a problem, 3,000 before it hits 30% loss (and even then I could start charging at work if it really came down to that). Assume $1k battery replacement cost at that point down the road.

90% charger efficiency, 10 cent/kWh average electricity, so it'll cost about 4 cents of electricity per day.

Therefore the daily cost is 4 cents of electricity and 20 cents of expected battery degradation.

Meanwhile in the Land Cruiser I use about $3.43 of gas per round trip (16 miles, 14 mpg in town is fair, assuming $3.00/gal). Since I'm accounting for battery degradation I should account for some measure of maintenance/depreciation on the car, too: per AAA maintenance costs of 10 cents/mile are expected. So call it $5.03.

With tax the e-bike cost me $2,702.96. Net daily savings per day is $5.03 - $0.24. Therefore it appears that break-even for my toy will come at its 564th day of use, or when I tick over to 7,896 miles on its own odometer. (Note that under this assumption the other costs of owning and insuring a car are eaten as part of daily life, this just on running costs.)

This also assumes 0 residual value of the bike. Let's assume it depreciates by 50% per year. If that's true then it'll break even at 282 days (if I commute that much in a year).
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So with a bit of handwaving a year is the final answer... and that's discounting that it's fun, it gets me some exercise, and that it gets me away from other people in cars.
 
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Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Hawaii accommodations and flight booked. Direct DEN-LIH is pretty sweet! Springing for lay-flat seats on the way back home since it's a redeye. Small first class section on this older configuration 752.

Screen Shot 2021-10-21 at 9.19.46 PM.png
 
CBJ

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
13,130
4,929
Copenhagen, Denmark
Fancy for sure. I have not tried to lay down flat but all my attempts to reduce jet lag has failed besides a weeks vacation and summer. This time around I actually had 3 days to improve but then friends showed up all weekend. Only live once :-)
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Short clip of my commute


Extend that for about 20 minutes +/- blinding sunlight just above the horizon today when heading east and there you have the experience of the e-bike, more or less.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684


Once again my spot in the garage is taken up by mountain house staging. This hopefully final batch that was delivered today in the foreground is deck furniture. The vertical boxes in the back right are the recliners for the loft.

(There is one more delivery scheduled for up there, for the living room couches, that I give a high likelihood of being canceled last minute a la the canceled delivery attempt for this stuff on Oct 11, wasting my time. Stay tuned on Oct 29 as I drive all about.)
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Toshi said:
$29,207.32 in taxes withheld from this (bonus-enhanced) paycheck. A new record.

o_O

Please vote in a flat tax for my benefit sometime soon kthxbye
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ugh, only $24,166.91 in taxes from this year's iteration of the same

thanks, Biden, making me poorer assuming the same effective rate
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
These sound fun. Still happy with my Mindbender 108 Ti so far!

E45612C7-4904-4679-81AB-A301A44968D0.png
 
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Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Was awake from 1:30-3 last night. Anxious that I’m going to get to the house today and find the decks in the exact same state (demolished, no new Trex) as before. Then I’ll have to fight the contractor, again, it won’t be listed all winter, and we won’t have usable decks.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
At kid bus drop off yesterday I saw that the dad of one of Yuna’s classmates had a new, temp-plated Wrangler 4xe. That’s the PHEV one. He liked it thus far.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
Glimpse at life in the slow lane, headed up Berthoud Pass with the Land Cruiser, U-Haul trailer in tow


On more usual up to 6% grades on I-70 before this I never had to dip below 56 mph, and the typical test-grade climbing at Floyd Hill was fine: 58 mph in 3rd gear, accelerating very slowly.

Overall it was just fine.

Got about 9 mpg as a rough estimate going this way, laden.
 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
and as for the house:



That's the front entryway deck, clearly not done. But next to the stacks of tiles is Trex, so there's still hope. It'll be at least 2 weeks from now even if they get their asses in gear imminently.

Snow is moving in! See runs at Winter Park, photographic left of that plume of smoke.



 
Toshi

Toshi

butthole powerwashing evangelist
Oct 23, 2001
39,638
8,684
SkaredShtles said:
Quoted for... no reason, really. :D
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From contractor dude just now

Hey Toshi, just got my phone back. It's been out of service for the last week getting fixed. We have guys heading there on Monday, they must have just dropped the decking off yesterday. Just waiting for ranch creek waste to drop off a dumpster. They were suppose to be dropping one off today. I wanted to clear some of the debris before we started back up. Did you by chance see a dumpster over there today? He said he was trying for this morning.

Thanks!
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There's still hope! (No dumpster is here, for the record.)

On the upside, the Macy's furniture delivery of living room coach + loveseats appears to be actually happening. They're driving over from Fraser at the moment--they've got a tracker thing.
 
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