Ok, so I just renewed my city of Ottawa gym and pool pass. For $480 for the year, I can use all the pools in the City (around 25 of them) and all the gyms associated with them.
Over the past year, I just looked at my sport related expenses. With not much jogging and minimal riding, I spent $0 on the other two sports. In a normal year, even without any major capital expenses, I am going through 4-6 pairs of running shoes for running. For biking, in theory I should just be buying in inner tubes once I have bike, helmet and shoes since those last forever. In practice, it never works out that way.
I’ve pretty well swam every day this year for 60-120 min range, and all I bought are 2 pairs of goggles, and 2 sets of paddles. These jammer shorts that are chlorine proof last forever literally. So total expenses have been sub $600 CDN. Running on a mimimalist expense program assuming the same volume of running in hours as swimming, would need to spend around $600-$1000 CDN. In theory, biking should be the cheapest…maybe 4-6 inner tubes and two sets of tires for a 10000km year once you own the gear, but in theory you should amortize the gear over say 3-4 years and allocate some yearly depreciation to that…so then biking is the most expensive
Unless you live to 200 and use the same gear until you die, cycling is going to lose this, badly.
Personally I think running should be marginally cheaper, I wouldn’t spend a monthly gym membership on running shoes. Swimming can have hidden costs in fuel and dead time commuting to pool where running can be flexible and free in both regards. Both can be cheap persuits though.
swimming is 240 a year theoretically for pool membership locally. But add in 400 a year to do masters too. Then the gas and wear and tear of driving 40 km round trip to the pool plus lost time opportunity cost. Running wins. Two to three pairs of shoes a year thats it. I get orthotics for free Still running in shorts from 20 years ago.
Swimming is only cheap if you have cheap pool access.
It can be decently expensive otherwise, between pool fees, driving costs to/from the pool, and possible masters expenditures, not to mention lessons if you’re going that route.
Still, it’s def cheaper than cycling, which seems to have no upper limit on what you can spend your cash on.
I think I spend $1100 per year for a family plan YMCA membership that I use nearly exclusively for pool access at the 4-5 various worksites around the area I go to. And I own a $2k Vasa erg as well.
Running is by far the cheapest for me. With my current minimalist style footwear, it’s <$20 for water shoes that last over 4 months each, but even when I was using maximalist Brooks $120 motion control shoes not too long ago, 2 pairs lasted me the entire year.
Running is by far the cheapest, for me at least. I don’t buy into shoes wearing out until the uppers begin to fail. Of course I only run on dirt, so the mid sole is not as important to my health. On the weekend if I want to swim I have to drive 55 miles each way( 8 gallons of gas @ 3 bucks=$24) and $4 to get into the pool, so $28 for one workout.
If I go here to a local pool it is $6 to get in, 3 gallons of gas, $9, and $5 dollars for parking for $20 a workout.
So what I usually do is swim by myself in the free pool in my neighborhood that has a couple of lap lanes, or surf at the beach where my annual pass amortizes to a pretty low rate, well below the $15 a day cost…
Going to masters is a real treat for me, like going out to dinner these days…
swimming is 240 a year theoretically for pool membership locally. But add in 400 a year to do masters too. Then the gas and wear and tear of driving 40 km round trip to the pool plus lost time opportunity cost. Running wins. Two to three pairs of shoes a year thats it. I get orthotics for free Still running in shorts from 20 years ago.
How in hell are you doing that??? The elastic on mine stretches out within 12-18 months so i end up buying 2-3 pair of running shorts every 1-1.5 yrs.
swimming is 240 a year theoretically for pool membership locally. But add in 400 a year to do masters too. Then the gas and wear and tear of driving 40 km round trip to the pool plus lost time opportunity cost. Running wins. Two to three pairs of shoes a year thats it. I get orthotics for free Still running in shorts from 20 years ago.
How in hell are you doing that??? The elastic on mine stretches out within 12-18 months so i end up buying 2-3 pair of running shorts every 1-1.5 yrs.
I run in a pair of Performance mountain bike shorts from early 1990’s - back when mt bike shorts were not very long. Tore out the liner years ago but they are made out of very tough material, like sail cloth, which I’ve sewed and gorilla glued a few times. I replaced the tie with 1/4 elastic. Thousands of runs in them. I wear underwear and don’t wash the shorts very often so maybe that makes a difference. I don’t wear things out very quickly – last pair of Asics gel cumulus shoes had ~2100 miles.
For me swimming as always been the cheapest but as we have seen it’s highly dependent on someone’s situation. I am lucky to have free pool access at school (otherwise city pools are ~5-6$/visit) and there is no commuting time since I’m already on campus. I go through ~2 pairs of googles a year and maybe 1 swimsuit every other year (but I like options so I have many haha). The only cost aside from this is I rented a locker for the semester so I wouldn’t have to carry my stuff back and forth anymore so that was about 55$. And that’s in a brand new pool (UBC pool which was just completed last spring).
Highly dependent - I pay somewhere north of a grand per year for pool access. Plus driving, plus equipment (the suits I like don’t last as long as yours and I need a few pairs of goggles per year to avoid leakage) leaves swimming as more expensive than running (several pairs of shoes per year and a total change of watch and shorts maybe every 3-4 years). At a high estimate, I’d put running at ~$800/ year. People who have access to city or university pools could make swimming nearly free per sessions, so it’s a fool’s errand to try to make a sweeping statement.
Even cycling can be dirt cheap if you grab a friend’s or relative’s old bike, put in new tires and tubes, and ride it with cheap house-brand kit for a few years. I don’t think any such people hang out here though, do they?
me too. Old soccer shorts. Now that I think about it I would buy one or two thin wool sweaters a winter (smartwool) which are pricey but worth it. All my t shirts are from races so no extra cost there. Cycling costs me about one service or two per year at bike shop and a new pair of tires and a few tubes but up front cost was high.
Biking is the cheapest for me, simply because the vast majority of my bike training also transports me back and forth from work. If driving costs $0.53/mi., then I save $21.20 every day I bike x ~150 days/yr = $3180/yr. Of course, my actual driving expenses are closer to $0.30/mi, and some of those costs are fixed. Subtract out the cost of bike maintenance, and the extra calories I need to consume, and my net savings are probably closer to $6/day, or $900/yr. I’m sure I pour almost all that money into the other, non-utility half of my bike addiction, but who’s counting anyway. It’s never been about the money.
I’d think running is usually cheaper than swimming, because few have free access to a pool but pretty much everyone has free access to a place to run. I guess if you do a lot of mileage and replace shoes frequently, maybe running could be more costly than a pool membership.
With bikes, you not only have the initial equipment investment, which can be considerable, but also ongoing maintenance costs (lube, chains, cassettes, brake pads, tires, tubes, tape, etc.).
When it comes to entry fees, swimming is cheap. For the price of one Ironman entry fee, I could fund the entry fees for a whole season of competitive swimming including 4-5 local meets, the state championship meet, both the USMS Spring and Summer Nationals, and at least one of the Open Water National Championship events.
From what I can tell, and I know this sounds like a cop out… But every sport is the cheapest and every sport is the most expensive. The bike at first glance always seems to be the most expensive, but your gear also last the longest, and if you’re a DIY person could even have the cheapest maintenance. Also if you’re lucky you can even commute on the bike and start to shrink and offset cycling cost. This of course depends on your gas mileage, me driving a hybrid I’d have to commute 21,000 miles to offset the cost of my relatively cheap bike. However anyone in a pick-up truck would only have to ride 7,200 miles, which over the life of your bike is very doable!. Swimming with pool access could be cheap or expensive. When I was in college of course I had free pool access, and swam in a $10 jammer so training wise swimming cost me like $5 or less a year since I beat that jammer into oblivion. However now, I have to pay either $20/mo or $5 a visit to swim. Which would mean after about 5 1/2 years pool fees cost just as much as buying a whole bike, not counting any equipment or commuting of course, and unless you live in a really unique area… no chance to offset cost at all. For me, I keep my run shoes way too long and that probably makes it the cheapest. But if I were a more responsible triathlete, or a single sport guy one could easily drop more on just running shoes over a 5 year period than you would on a bike again with little hope to offset cost in any significant way.
From what I can tell, and I know this sounds like a cop out… But every sport is the cheapest and every sport is the most expensive. The bike at first glance always seems to be the most expensive, but your gear also last the longest, and if you’re a DIY person could even have the cheapest maintenance. Also if you’re lucky you can even commute on the bike and start to shrink and offset cycling cost. This of course depends on your gas mileage, me driving a hybrid I’d have to commute 21,000 miles to offset the cost of my relatively cheap bike. However anyone in a pick-up truck would only have to ride 7,200 miles, which over the life of your bike is very doable!. Swimming with pool access could be cheap or expensive. When I was in college of course I had free pool access, and swam in a $10 jammer so training wise swimming cost me like $5 or less a year since I beat that jammer into oblivion. However now, I have to pay either $20/mo or $5 a visit to swim. Which would mean after about 5 1/2 years pool fees cost just as much as buying a whole bike, not counting any equipment or commuting of course, and unless you live in a really unique area… no chance to offset cost at all. For me, I keep my run shoes way too long and that probably makes it the cheapest. But if I were a more responsible triathlete, or a single sport guy one could easily drop more on just running shoes over a 5 year period than you would on a bike again with little hope to offset cost in any significant way.
I just learned to “DIY” my repairs as cheaply as possible, and although it’s a lot cheaper than the $$$$ that the LBS will charge, I will say its farrrr from cheap. Lots of consumables (tubes, cables, housings, ferrules, etc) and required tools and even parts if you’re changing them up. Bike stuff at the racing level (and I’m not talking superbike, I’m talking Shimano Tiagra, or entry-level point stuff) is friggin expensive.
For myself, if I remove depreciation of biking capital expenses, consumables SHOULD be the cheapest. But it turns out that swim works out the cheapest, as it is a short walk from my work or on the way to/from work so no extra gas to swim. Running (not that I am doing much), but I can’t help myself from buying 4-6 pairs per year (4 is minimum, mainly 6 on most years), whether I need them or not. For me, putting on a pair of new shoes and trying out the new feel of a different shoe is part of the reward of running. Honestly, I could get by on 2 pairs per year easily. My normal run year was 2000K to 3000K per year, and most years around 2500K, so barely 50K per week (30 miles per week)…as I only weigh around 140lbs, there is no good reason that I should ever need more than 2 pairs…so in theory it should be the cheapest. But swimming, I have zero urge to spend on new equipment. it does not change the sporting experience as gear can in biking and even running…so swim happens to end up the cheapest given my circumstance. Running SHOULD be the cheapest, but it never is for me. I’ve had some years when I bought 2 sets of racing flats, a few pairs of trail shoes and 4 pairs of other day in day out neutral shoes. I can’t stop myself trending closer to 8 pairs in many years.
Swimming. The ocean costs me nothing. a Speedo Endurance suit lasts a long time if it never sees chlorine. Goggles still need replacement now and then, but I use them well beyond where I should. They don’t leak, the just get a little harder to see through.
This year has been the biggest swim year of my life. By the beginning of August I had clocked around 500 miles of ocean swim training. No entry fees, just head down to the beach, meet the swim group and swim, including throughout winter. My infrequent additional pool swimming costs have involved walking to a public olympic pool and paying $6, or just $2 when I visited the in-laws.
The flip-side has been flying to the other side of the country for a 20km ocean swim, for which I was extraordinarily fortunate to have a local boat crew and 2 kayakers who were all willing to give their time for nothing more than the cost of the boat fuel, some alcohol and a few meals. Other swimmers paid several $1000 for a boat and skipper.
Last month, I traveled to Japan for one of the Oceans 7 swims. At this point you’re getting into a sport which makes IM look like an exercise in Dickensian frugality. In addition to bringing my accompanying support crew, their is a substantial entry cost that covers coast guard permits, two local boats and skippers, plus the transport and accommodation costs for two officials from Tokyo.
The end result? A passing typhoon ensured ocean conditions were unswimmable. An expensive holiday where I spent more time soaking in onsen than ocean.