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Comment by vilya | Hacker News Reader

Why use a car for your 100 mile journey when you can get there by bicycle? :-)

An interesting point which is perhaps germaine, perhaps not - the bicycle is by far the most energy efficient form of human transportation. This is because it makes best use of the highly efficient biological engine we all already posses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance#Energy_effi...

Well if "what you want", doesn't include "in a timely manner", I would personally always chose the bike ;)

Try carrying a nontrivial amount of baggage on a bike.

(No, the correct answer to this is not "Don't carry luggage." You can't solve a problem by chopping its legs off so it fits in your problem-solving grid.)

So extending your analogy, you prefer travelling by truck over travelling by car ?

Define your problem, and then make your decision.

For this particular example, you can apply this sequence of logic (with thanks to wccrawford):

  if(Baggage)  use a car.
  else if(In a hurry?)  use a car.
  else if(Need to be rested?)  use a car.
  else if(Need to go 150 miles^ or more?) use a car.
  else use a bike.

^ You'll need to set this value yourself ;)

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