I sold the car. A year on two wheels in a hilly, humid city

In January last year I sold my car, a 2011 Corolla with a dented boot and 240,000 kilometres on the clock, for $6,400. I bought a second-hand cargo bike for $3,100 and promised my partner I'd give it twelve months. It's now November, and the bike has done 4,180 kilometres.

The hills are real

Brisbane is not Amsterdam. It is hilly, it is hot, and for about four months of the year it rains in the afternoon with a violence that makes cycling feel like a dare. The first week I arrived at work so sweaty I had to sit in the bathroom for ten minutes before I could face anyone.

Two things fixed that: an electric motor, which I added in March for $1,200, and the discovery that the council's bikeway network is far better than its reputation. The Bicentennial Bikeway runs along the river almost to the city with barely a car in sight. Most of my commute now never touches a road.

The money

I kept a spreadsheet, because of course I did. Over ten months, running the car would have cost me about $5,900 in fuel, registration, insurance, servicing and parking. The bike has cost $640: two tyres, a chain, brake pads, a new battery charger and a lot of chain lube.

The surprise wasn't the savings. It was how much of the city I'd never actually seen from inside a car.

Groceries fit in the front box. So does a five-year-old, who has opinions about route choice. For the handful of trips where a bike won't do — a flat-pack wardrobe, a wedding in Toowoomba — we've used a car-share eleven times, for about $480 in total.

What I'd tell you

Start with one trip a week, not all of them. Find the off-road route even if it's longer. Buy proper rain gear, and accept that some days you'll get wet anyway. And keep a towel at work.

I'm not selling the bike when the year is up. My partner, who drove me to the station "just this once" in a thunderstorm in February, has started looking at cargo bikes of her own.