4 ms·

It really depends. In a lot of disaster novels, things like roads are destroyed or unusable (packed with crashed in cars). While a bike might seem convenient at

by cdcox 14y ago

It really depends. In a lot of disaster novels, things like roads are destroyed or unusable (packed with crashed in cars). While a bike might seem convenient at first, it quickly becomes an impossible burden at the first blown out bridge or packed highway intersection with a massive pileup. Similarly any 'road junk' from crashed cars or nature can easily damage tires. As others have mentioned, the resources to maintain bikes are not zero cost. Also, bikes rust in wetter areas fairly quickly if left outside/not maintained (your average chain is going to last ~ a year outside if not reoiled). Bikes, mile per mile are more dangerous than walking, this might be because of cars etc, but with cracking roads and overgrowth, the risk to riding a bike becomes higher than walking. A single screw up on a bike is survivable in the modern world, it is less so in a post-apocalyptic one. Bikes leave you vulnerable while travelling, you have to stick to main developed roads, you can only move so fast, you are easily taken out by a simple road trap. You have very little ability to 'take in surroundings' and you have to stop moving and abandon your bike to fight or hide. In a 'world gone mad' scenario someone on a bike moving overland is an easier target than someone on horse or on foot. Bicyling long distances sucks a lot, especially for people who don't do it a lot. It's brutal on the body, hard to cross anything with elevation, and hurts the body in unique ways. Your average person might give up cycling fairly quickly for this reason. Horses, at least, travel with you when riding on them sucks. Bikes don't work as well under non-ideal conditions. Heavy rain/snow/ice/elevation/heat all make bikes difficult to use or damage them. Skateboards solve a lot of these (as they are easily portable). But the risk factor gets higher. I'm not saying these items would be useless in a post-apocalyptic scenario. However, like most items, if someone wasn't extensively prepared to maintain and use them in a similar scenario, it's going to not work out for them except in the short term. (The same could be said about guns/cars/motorcycles).

kragen 14y ago
I'm not convinced. Horses, maybe, but horses are a lot of work, a lot more than bikes.
- cdcox 14y ago
  I agree, cars and horses fail in many similar ways to bikes. Feet can handle a lot. Horses and dogs take a lot of maintenance (more for horses obviously), but unlike a bike, car, or gun, anyone who owns one and thinks of taking it on a long trip is more likely to know how to keep it alive.
  - seanmcdirmid 14y ago
    More importantly, horses and dogs require minimal industrial infrastructure to maintain, which isn't true of bikes and cars. As long as you can feed the horse really, and all you need is some land with grass. Minimal tech is required to shoe the horse, etc....
- bdunbar 14y ago
  Horse have some advantages over bikes. They make more of themselves. And a horse is, last resort, dinner.
toast0 14y ago
Bicycling long distances may suck, but so does walking. If you can go about three times the speed of walking, you have a nice range of tradeoffs between get there in one third of the days of walking, or get there on the same day, but spend one third of the hours in the day traveling as when walking. Unless the tires are flat, you can also walk with your weight on the bike and ease the burden of walking somewhat.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Bicycling long distance on terrible road is many times worse than walking. As roads fall in disrepair, a bicycle's single advantage will wither.
  - andrewmccall 14y ago
    This isn't true. Many people bike on footpaths and surfaces that are completely unsuitable for motorised vehicles. Almost anywhere you can walk you could ride a bike and cross the terrain faster. If walking turns into scrambling or climbing the bike becomes a bit of a hinderance, but they're not that heavy and the benefits across most terrain outweigh the inconvenience. In fact on a bike you could probably avoid it altogether, not losing a great deal of time just going around. You're not likely to still be travelling long distances long enough after whatever event that the roads and paths are in such a state of disrepair. You'd be talking years for that to happen and you probably would have had to sort out some sort of place to live and grow food long before you had to worry about it.
    - ljf 14y ago
      As stated above, the other advantage of a bike that's often forgotten is that they are far better than a hand cart or wheel barrow for transporting stuff. If it's flat or down hit you can ride a bike carrying a huge load. If it's up hill you can drop to a low gear or just push the bike. For a few years now I've taken a bike to Glastonbury Festival - even in mud and hilly terrain I can carry everything for the 5 days on one bike, pushing where I need to freewheeling where I can. And get to site much faster than friends walking, and carrying far more. Similarly for years I would ride a BMX to the supermarket, then load up the handlebars with shopping bags and walk it home - no struggling with heavy bags, and no need for a car or even a bus (which still leaves you struggling from the stop to your house) - I can easily do a full weeks shop for 2 on a bike. Now I have a proper shopper with panniers and baskets - even easier - but handlebars are all you really need! For a guy that travels all sorts of roads on what is pretty much a racer check out: http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/ http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/
dietrichepp 14y ago
> Bikes, mile per mile are more dangerous than walking, this might be because of cars etc, It is because of cars. I went to FARS (http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS) and queried accident causes for 2011. 42% of the accident causes start with the word "motorist". Many of the other causes would also simply not exist in a world without motor vehicle traffic, e.g., "Bicyclist Ride Through - Sign Controlled Intersection" -- this means running a stop sign, and it isn't something that would kill you in a post-apocalyptic world. In fact, the only cause I can see which is clearly not related to the presence of motor vehicles are the categories "head-on: bicyclist" and "head-on: unknown". When I click on cases with causes listed as "Bicyclist Ride Out" or others like that, I see a form that lists a motor vehicle as being involved. I think you're missing the biggest point here, and that is the fact that biking burns less calories per mile than walking does. A quick Google search: http://www.livestrong.com/article/135430-calories-burned-biking-one-mile/ http://www.livestrong.com/article/135430-calories-burned-bik... http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm These sources say if you weigh 190 pounds, you burn 47 calories per mile on bike going 10-12 miles/hour, but at least 94 calories per mile when you walk 3.5 miles/hour. You cover the same distance in 1/3 the time and burning 1/2 the calories, or you cover 2x the distance with the same amount of energy, or you cover 3x the distance in the same amount of time for only 50% more calories. (Edit: I got the math wrong earlier.) The fact is, modern city-dwellers are simply not used to walking or biking long distances. Walking long distances sucks a lot, it's brutal on the body. Far worse, per mile, than biking. At worst, you can walk your bike and load it down with more than you could carry, or you could abandon your bike.

by cdcox 14y ago

kragen 14y ago

I'm not convinced. Horses, maybe, but horses are a lot of work, a lot more than bikes.

cdcox 14y ago
I agree, cars and horses fail in many similar ways to bikes. Feet can handle a lot. Horses and dogs take a lot of maintenance (more for horses obviously), but unlike a bike, car, or gun, anyone who owns one and thinks of taking it on a long trip is more likely to know how to keep it alive.
- seanmcdirmid 14y ago
  More importantly, horses and dogs require minimal industrial infrastructure to maintain, which isn't true of bikes and cars. As long as you can feed the horse really, and all you need is some land with grass. Minimal tech is required to shoe the horse, etc....
bdunbar 14y ago
Horse have some advantages over bikes. They make more of themselves. And a horse is, last resort, dinner.

toast0 14y ago

Bicycling long distances may suck, but so does walking. If you can go about three times the speed of walking, you have a nice range of tradeoffs between get there in one third of the days of walking, or get there on the same day, but spend one third of the hours in the day traveling as when walking. Unless the tires are flat, you can also walk with your weight on the bike and ease the burden of walking somewhat.

sliverstorm 14y ago
Bicycling long distance on terrible road is many times worse than walking. As roads fall in disrepair, a bicycle's single advantage will wither.
- andrewmccall 14y ago
  This isn't true. Many people bike on footpaths and surfaces that are completely unsuitable for motorised vehicles. Almost anywhere you can walk you could ride a bike and cross the terrain faster. If walking turns into scrambling or climbing the bike becomes a bit of a hinderance, but they're not that heavy and the benefits across most terrain outweigh the inconvenience. In fact on a bike you could probably avoid it altogether, not losing a great deal of time just going around. You're not likely to still be travelling long distances long enough after whatever event that the roads and paths are in such a state of disrepair. You'd be talking years for that to happen and you probably would have had to sort out some sort of place to live and grow food long before you had to worry about it.
  - ljf 14y ago
    As stated above, the other advantage of a bike that's often forgotten is that they are far better than a hand cart or wheel barrow for transporting stuff. If it's flat or down hit you can ride a bike carrying a huge load. If it's up hill you can drop to a low gear or just push the bike. For a few years now I've taken a bike to Glastonbury Festival - even in mud and hilly terrain I can carry everything for the 5 days on one bike, pushing where I need to freewheeling where I can. And get to site much faster than friends walking, and carrying far more. Similarly for years I would ride a BMX to the supermarket, then load up the handlebars with shopping bags and walk it home - no struggling with heavy bags, and no need for a car or even a bus (which still leaves you struggling from the stop to your house) - I can easily do a full weeks shop for 2 on a bike. Now I have a proper shopper with panniers and baskets - even easier - but handlebars are all you really need! For a guy that travels all sorts of roads on what is pretty much a racer check out: http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/ http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/

dietrichepp 14y ago

> Bikes, mile per mile are more dangerous than walking, this might be because of cars etc, It is because of cars. I went to FARS (http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS) and queried accident causes for 2011. 42% of the accident causes start with the word "motorist". Many of the other causes would also simply not exist in a world without motor vehicle traffic, e.g., "Bicyclist Ride Through - Sign Controlled Intersection" -- this means running a stop sign, and it isn't something that would kill you in a post-apocalyptic world. In fact, the only cause I can see which is clearly not related to the presence of motor vehicles are the categories "head-on: bicyclist" and "head-on: unknown". When I click on cases with causes listed as "Bicyclist Ride Out" or others like that, I see a form that lists a motor vehicle as being involved. I think you're missing the biggest point here, and that is the fact that biking burns less calories per mile than walking does. A quick Google search: http://www.livestrong.com/article/135430-calories-burned-biking-one-mile/ http://www.livestrong.com/article/135430-calories-burned-bik... http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm These sources say if you weigh 190 pounds, you burn 47 calories per mile on bike going 10-12 miles/hour, but at least 94 calories per mile when you walk 3.5 miles/hour. You cover the same distance in 1/3 the time and burning 1/2 the calories, or you cover 2x the distance with the same amount of energy, or you cover 3x the distance in the same amount of time for only 50% more calories. (Edit: I got the math wrong earlier.) The fact is, modern city-dwellers are simply not used to walking or biking long distances. Walking long distances sucks a lot, it's brutal on the body. Far worse, per mile, than biking. At worst, you can walk your bike and load it down with more than you could carry, or you could abandon your bike.