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3rd Voice is a webcomic in a sort of post-apocalypse setting and the main character Spondule rides a bike. There’s a lot of action and the bike works well in the story–faster than running, but still able to take pretty tight turns.
This looks rad!
Oh man I haven’t caught up on that in months, thanks for reminding me about it!!
Dutch city bikes will be the most suited for the post-apocalyptic world: nothing to repair, protected chain, robust luggage racks… they’re unbreakable.
Gotta fish them out of the canals first though.
Just like with bog-corpses, the canal environment will be what protects until they are dug up again
it’s their natural habitat
The indy movie ‘Turbo Kid’ had bikes. Would recommend a watch.
Fuck it, you’re the third person in here to do so. So I guess I’m watching it this weekend.
well yeah, what use is a bike with no pedals?
The pedals still exist, but they have been put to the metal
Dark Angel is about a bike courier in post-apocalyptic Seattle.
I came here to mention Dark Angel. That was one of the things that really sold that show for me. They made it seem so natural. The economy collapsed, so now a lot of people switched to bikes.
was that the jessica alba one or the one about the dude in a wheelchair with the exoskeleton?
I remember something like that
Holy shit, that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time. I have vague memories of catching the ends of episodes.
The Expanse spoilers ahead
Spoiler
When earth gets hit by the asteroids Amos and Clarissa ride bikes back to Baltimore because of the ease of maintenance of bicycles over any other vehicle.
If you think about it bikes are perfect for a post apocalyptic scenario, specifically mountain bikes.
- They use standard parts that you can find in an any abandoned bike store or department store
- Great for rough terrain that hasn’t been maintained
- Significantly less moving parts and easier to maintain than a car
- You wont get trapped inside a bike
- You won’t run out of fuel
- If the apocalypse started recently and infrastructure is still usable you might be able to use ebikes that can go absurdly high speeds
Now lets imagine how it effects the story:
- You can dramatically show someone tired desperately trying to bike faster than a zombie crowd
- You can show cool scenes with people on bikes swerving through a crowd of zombies
specifically mountain bikes.
- They use standard parts that you can find in an any abandoned bike store or department store
“Standard” in that there are multiple incompatible “standards” for wheels, hubs, chains, cranks, chainrings, shifters, derailleurs, derailleur hangers, brake mounts, brake fluid, handlebars, seat posts and probably 50 other things I’ve forgotten.
And department store bikes ignore most of those standards and do whatever is cheap.
I’ll stick to Decathlon MTBs. Decent enough and veeery widespread here across Europe, probably a better than 50% chance of breaking into a house and them having one of those in the shed/garage. Decathlon itself has hundreds of fully assembled bikes in their big stores. Finding replacement parts would be a piece of cake.
You won’t run out of fuel
depends on the availability of food vs fuel, which is easier to acquire on the way so you don’t spend too much fuel just carrying required fuel.
No worries with blocked roads either. Can just squeeze through most gaps. In the worst case scenario just lift the bike over any cars.
- Zombies are also on bikes
Now that something I would stop to look at… Dangerous
- You wont get trapped inside a bike
Bold claim
I meant not in the same way you can get trapped in a car
Bikes aren’t great for tough terrain. They mostly require roads or paths. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland there would be a lot of those. But, the good thing that is that when the terrain isn’t suitable for biking, you can get off and push the bike, or if truly necessary you can carry it. Meanwhile, if a highway is blocked and you’re relying on a car, there’s no way you’re moving the car to the other side of the blockage.
The main benefit is that the parts are standard, maintenance is pretty easy, all the parts are sitting there, easily visible, so you can spot the problem and fix it. And if it’s unfixable, it’s pretty easy to swap for another part. Also, a bike with degraded parts still does a job. If you don’t have working brakes, you can drag your feet. If you can’t shift gears, you can just use the bike in whatever gear it’s stuck in. If the wheel is dented, as long as it still rolls, you’re probably ok. Pretty much the only things necessary are tires that aren’t completely flat and a drive chain that has at least one working gear.
The issue is tires. Rubber wears out, old rubber oxidizes and breaks down, etc. they’d last for a while, but within 10-20 years they’d be pretty much useless for transportation, unless someone figured out a substitute.
They are precision machines though, and could be repurposed for water wheels, windmills, and other geared machines.
If you’ve ever been to Mexico, one of the most common things you’ll see is a shop with Vulcanizadora in big letters by the side of the highway. They’re tire repair places that use the vulcanization process to cheaply repair tires.
You can also use the process in reverse to generate useful rubber from a used tire. In the modern world with global supply chains etc. most tire “recycling” is just burning the tires for energy. But, if it were important to get the rubber out because the post-apocalyptic world is short of rubber, that’s entirely possible. It wouldn’t be cheap or easy, and you wouldn’t get anywhere near 100% of the rubber back. But, in a post-apocalyptic world there are bound to be mountains of used tires that you could feed into the process to get some new, fresh rubber.
Wait, are you telling me they actually REPAIR the tires there?
There are places advertized for “vulcanization” here in romania, but here, all that means is that they can mount and balance tires…
I think it depends on the place.
I think in the big cities, like Mexico City, it’s just the name for a tire repair shop, where they balance and replace tires. They don’t actually do vulcanization anymore. But, I think in poorer or rural areas, they actually still do repairs using a vulcanization process.
I think that’s because they used to do that in Romania but had to stop so those businesses pivoted to s different service
I suppose you could probably create wooden wheels with hide leather treads.
saddle up the bone-shakers, we’re riding to iron town
Boneshaker (or bone-shaker) is a name dating from the 1860s for the first type of true bicycle with pedals, which were called velocipedes by their manufacturers. “Boneshaker” referred to the extremely uncomfortable ride, which was caused by the stiff wrought-iron frame and wooden wheels surrounded by tires made of iron.
Ow! My Balls!
You could and they would suck off road.
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This is what annoyed me about the recent Mad Max movies – the brand-new knobby tires on every vehicle. I get that they were shot mostly with practical effects and needed good tires for safety, but it’s just such a jarringly unrealistic element to a post-apocalyptic scenario. IIRC the original Mad Max had lots of shitty, bald tires because that’s all they could actually afford.
The real answer is that it’s not as interesting to film and write a story around. In cars, they’re louder and faster. You can set up scenarios for injured passengers and gunners. You can build up tension with zombies smacking the windows.
Bikes are too practical for action flicks and harder to mount cameras to for 3rd or 1st person chase shots. Not impossible, but also not something that relates as much to the general carbrained audience.
Some of the replies here speak of difficulty for spare parts. But it’s pretty easy to stock up on basic components and repairing is way easier than a vehicle. Also, you don’t need to look for fuel constantly. In a post apocalyptic world, fuel would be quiet scarce without a steady stream of production and would likely be more useful for electric generators or heating in winter. Vehicular travel would have to be hauling lots of cargo or people to be worthwhile to burn all that precious fuel.
That being said, it’s entirely possible to make a damn good zombie flick with bikes being a more prominent mode of transport in certain settings. New stunts and different terrain.
Not every post-apocalyptic film has to be an action flick. There are loads of films which have the protagonists walk for days without ever encountering another person. I think bicycles would be a perfect fit for that kind of film.
Car product placements pay more than bike ones I guess lmao.
In post-apocalyptic films? I’d rather say the writers are too carbrained.
Turbo Kid has a lot of bikes
I came here just to mention turbo kid. Fuckin awesome flick.
I loved Turbo Kid. Its such a great post-apocalypse film. But I couldn’t help but wonder how they kept the bicycle chains lubricated.
Bike chains can retain up to 82% efficiency completely unlubricated, though they slowly take damage.
Weird factoid about chains
I’ve also successfully lubricated one using vegetable oil in an emergency, it worked shockingly well
I’ve used WD40 on a bike chain before. It’s amazing how angry that made the bike techs at my local shop. I suspect vegetable oil would make them kill and eat me.
Vegetable oil is relatively safe, if a bit messy. WD40 actually has solvent in it that can damage plastic and other synthetic materials.
I’m not sure I understand. They aren’t running Tour de France races, they are using them to transport resources and themselves. I feel like nearly any greasy substance will do? It might not last as long or work as well, but it will work. I’m not an expert in chain lubrication, but I think tires might be a bigger concern.
This comment reminded me I needed to re-lubricate my bike chain, which I hadn’t done for something like 7 years, so I did that and took it for a spin. Got rid of the squeaking, noticeably smoother and easier pedaling, but a relatively minor difference.
But yeah, if you can’t get replacement tubes, that’s a different story, I have to replace those once or twice a year or the bike is not going anywhere.
For sure! But like another comment says, bikes just used paraffin wax for chain lube for a long time. Although not very easy to make at home, we have a fuck load of candles in this world already.
I think bike tires would be a relatively easy to solve problem tbh. Really just need flexibility.
What is the solution? It seems like inflatable tubes would be difficult or impossible to make without access to equipment or materials. Supposedly they do sell foam inserts that can be used instead of inflated tubes, but I got the impression from the reviews that they are basically unusable, and those might also be unavailable. I guess wheels before tires used to be wooden, but biking on wooden wheels sounds like it wouldn’t work very well.
Wood tires are actually better than people think, and bikes did use them. You can texture the wood or coat it to give it more grip, even put spikes in it. Otherwise something flexible, doesn’t need to be air filled really. Or we can make tubes from the intestines of our enemies. Like air filled sausage for your bike.
I love the soundtrack in this movie, especially during the bike chase scene!
I’ve been watching through all of the walking dead, because I gave up early on at the prison and all of the coral yelling
I think it was like past halfway through the series where they finally show them using bikes. and then it was only for like one season and they moved on to animal husbandry in a time skip, and I guess just didn’t bother with the bikes anymore?
the first episode rick grimes uses a bike. then a horse
ok I did forget about the very first episode where he uses a bike for a very short period of time
i always remember cause of that meme saying rick grimes stole that zombies bike
lmao I forgot about how he got it, thank you
Good point. Now I gotta add tubes and tires to my prepper stockpiles. Chain oil, too.
Zombie stories always have cars. You think maintaining cars is easier? At least most bikes have pretty standard parts.
Seriously - when I was a kid and just rode the old BMX around the neighborhood it was enough to hose it down every year or two, then douse the parts in some WD-40.
When I started cycling more as an adult I quickly realized that I needed to learn how to maintain my bike (and that WD-40 is no good). Now, I spend so much time keeping the bike tuned and running smooth. All the drive components, tires and brakes need constant upkeep and replacement.
Those degrade over time, though. After ten years, you’d have trouble keeping your bike running.
But a car’s 10 year old tires would be perfectly fine though?
The maintenance is easier than on a car though.
I’ve seen ten year old tires new in package. they seem fine enough
Sounds like a good reason to get used to doing plain parafin chain dips. That’s what I do and it’s so simple and effective. I just have a bag of candle making parafin blocks and mini like 1qt slow cooker.
That won’t help with the tires and inner tubes. And where are you getting the wax?
Tires and tubes are ultimately for comfort. We can go back to making wood tires, they worked for a looooong time.
Can ride on rims for a long while. The Japanese did it when they invaded Singapore.
I’m just talking about chain oil, I don’t have a solution for anything else 🙂
Parafin seems easier to make at home since it’s has been used for candles for a long time (since like the 1800s). Plus you can salvage candles in a pinch, and dipping a chain hardly takes any Parafin from the pot so the same pot will last decades. I’ve been using the same Parafin pot for about 5 years and the level hasn’t noticeably changed.
Not to mention that using a dry lube like parafin greatly extends the chain life because it doesn’t collect dirt and sand that increases chain wear, and you wouldn’t want to have to find a new chain.
Just follow the bees
Tires last a very long time. Tubes can be repaired over and over with patch kits. Chain lubrication helps keep the things running longer, but you can go a long time without lubricating your chain, and if you ever do need to lubricate it, you don’t really need the specialized bike-specific oil, just any light machine oil.
A typical bike emergency repair kit fits in a small pouch under the seat or inside the frame.
There are some specialty tools you need if you are doing advanced bike maintenance, but I do most of my own repairs and I’ve never used half the tools in my lunchbox-sized tool kit. I know how to use a chain whip, but I’ve never actually needed one. I’ve never needed a bottom bracket tool or a crank puller. For the most part, the tools you need for bike maintenance can be found in basically any toolbox.
Tires last a very long time. Tubes can be repaired over and over with patch kits.
I thought I read somewhere about Dutch people using lengths of garden hose as ersatz tires during WWII.
“In the dark future where world economy fell apart and all forms of energy are exhausted, spokes is the only currency…”
They where used as quiet fast movement in World War Z
It’s a high risk, high reward travel in a zombie apocalypse.
You’re body is exposed to grabby biteys, it’s quite easy to take a tumble (roads won’t be well maintained, zombies won’t move out of the way), you are limited by your health (injury and exhaustion), and your carry capacity/content is limited (can’t carry a long or heavy thing easily)
However, as you said, quieter than most other modes of transport, much faster and more energy efficient than foot, don’t have to worry about fuel (other than your bodies).
I think I’d use them, but I’ve assed off enough times downhill mountain biking and a few times in town (bus cutting blind corner, people being careless getting out of cars) that I’d be very wary
Well… if there’s one thing you don’t have to worry about in the apocalypse is getting doored.
Yeah, instead you’ll get zombied. Like biking through town, technically, people are trying to avoid you… This wind be the opposite
and your carry capacity/content is limited (can’t carry a long or heavy thing easily)
You’d be surprised what you can tie to a bike with some rope and determination
