Heard a news article this morning that gasoline will probably go to $5/gallon by 2012. European friends...I know you've been paying a lot more than that and I sympathize. That notwithstanding, here in California, all fuels are specially blended in accordance with Air Resources Board requirements and those blends are used nowhere else in the country...jacks the price up quite nicely here in CA.

I think I'll be using the SWing a lot more in the near future. Haven't checked the mileage on it yet, but last bike averaged 50 mpg and I'm sure the SWing is somewhere around there if one maintains a reasonable velocity. Not factoring cost of maintenance in, here...just purely fuel economy.

wow thats cheap we pay $9.65 here in the uk roughly £6.00 a gallon if only fuel was as cheap as yours.

The sign of things to come ………

last time i was in Amsterdam, Netherlands...fuel was @ $12 a gallon and no shortage of bicycles in amsterdam.....consequently netherlands has some of the highest fuel prices in europe.

A litre is $1.9 here at the moment.
Diesel's cheaper.

The farmers would riot if diesel cost more than petrol.

They have Red Diesel in the UK, too, but the EU is trying to phase it out so I assume it's not available here.

I used to use it in my narrowboat.

Bakken Oil in North Dakota in 2010 produced 110,000,000 Barrels of crude. The field is huge and covers western North Dakota and into Canada. It is a shale Oil Formation that until new horizontal drilling techniques was difficult to profit from the drilling effort. Now drilling can follow the deposit. A railroad has been built to ship the oil to refineries. Initial results in horizontal drilling have encouraged state regulators to raise the estimates of recoverable oil. Keep in mind that this is only the North Dakota results and do not include Montana or Canadian results. North Dakota with this field is producing 1/6th of the USA oil behind Alaska ,Texas and California. Since 1/2 of our Oil comes from oil deposits overseas we will need conservation, coal, natural gas. High milage transportation to work is a good Idea that may become an economic essential. Alaska ships about 600,000 barrels and day. Google and check it out. Will it save us from the end of carbon based fuel perhaps not but technology has once again stretched our horizon.

Reagan years...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984

I was operating an Exxon Service Station from 1978 til 1989. The shortage here began in early 1979 and lasted about 6 months. Jimmy Carter was the man. Ronald Reagan had NOTHING to do with any gas shortage, except maybe in the Soviet Union.

I am hearing predictions of $5/gal here. Today in Rison it is $3.02. That is Ethanol free. Up the road you can buy it for $2.89 with the ethanol. Works out about the same expense/mile.

Yes, I remember those good old days when gas was thirty six cents and I got paid two cents for every bale of hay I pitched. Wait a minute, those good old days are today. As long as I have a roof over my head and food on the table, I'm happy. All the rest is just gravy and I do like my gravy. I even managed to get a short ride in today so all is good.