Motorcycle Carbon Foot Print

Mmmh, the carbon foot print. Carbon foot print this, carbon foot print that. What's your carbon foot print?

If you live where I live (San Francisco) you are probably getting really sick of all those foot print people, wishing you could put a foot print up theirs by now.

Nevertheless, they have a point, and I'm personally glad that people are starting to catch onto the fact that we are changing our environment, and not always to the better, since the industrial revolution...

Since I grew up in Germany where environmental awareness was fed to me with my mother's breast milk, and since I still like our environment a whole lot, especially when I ride a motorcycle around in it, I set out to find the truth about the carbon foot print of motorcycles.

My hope was to be able to say: By merely riding a motorcycle instead of a car I am a good person sparing the environment.

Unfortunately, motorcycles are not really included in most carbon footprint calculators, but after some research, I came to this conclusion:

Yes, if you ride a motorcycle, you emit less green house gases (CO2), by sheer better gas mileage and also by shorter travel times, especially in California where you can split lanes and won't have to take part in traffic jams :)

My 2001 Suzuki GSX-R 750 gets over 30 mls/gl.

If you ride a commuter bike, you are likely to get 40-50 mls/gl.

And if you use a scooter to get around town, it could be up to 100 mls/gl.

And to produce and then recycle a motorcycle must be generating a smaller carbon foot print than a car's.

So that's good.

But: other pollutants, like CO and HC, are directly bad for people breathing them, and unfortunately motorcycle emissions seem to exceed the emissions of cars, even with a catalytic converter according to some sources.

So while I really would like to be able to say that riding a motorcycle is better than driving a car, unfortunately it isn't quite so.

Anyway, I think riding motorcycles is definitely a little better and one way to make a difference, all the while having a lot more fun than sitting in traffic in a car.

And using that other type of two wheeled transportation for cross training was never a bad idea anyway. Keeps ya in shape for those track days when you need endurance to ride every single session until the sun goes down.

Which makes my carbon foot print bigger again I know, so I repent by commuting (aka training) with the push bike. It's kind of like in the medieaval world where you could sin and then pay it off to the church with monetary means. I wonder why that went out of fashion?

P.S. I would appreciate any comments that shed more light on this issue or the motorcycle carbon foot print.

Happy two wheeling in the meantime!