Here in post-collapse Argentina, I semi-regularly attend a free bike repair workshop run by a bunch of anarchists who occupied a pizzeria abandoned in the collapse, twelve years ago. They turned it into a library, a community garden, a clothing workshop, and a bike kitchen. So I have some insights to offer:
1. It's remarkable how quickly bicycles can break down, especially when they're not made to be ridden (US department-store bikes, all Argentine bikes) and when you repair them with improvised tools and improvised or substandard components.
2. There are a fair number of specialized tools that you need for bike repair that are pretty hard to do without. You can maybe cut a cone wrench from a flattened spoon, and you can "press" out chavetas (cotters) with a hammer and chunk of steel instead of a cotter press, and you can true your rims on the bike if you have to, but how are you going to unscrew your freewheel without the right shape of freewheel extractor? Or break your chain without a chain breaker?
3. A bit further afield, you have to patch or replace your inner tubes when they spring leaks. But it's increasingly difficult to get working vulcanizing fluid for patching after the economy collapses; that shit doesn't have an indefinite shelf life. Ultimately you need to put together some kind of chemistry lab, using chemicals of unknown quality, in order to renew your supply of bike patch kits.
4. More generally, bicycles, like other industrial machinery, are allergic to entropy. The crucial resource needed to repack your wheel bearing balls isn't the steel to make the balls or the dead cow to grease them with; it's the knowledge about which balls are the right size, and which ones are already subtly cracked. Buy them in bulk and they cost a fraction of a cent. Install a ball of the wrong size and you could wreck your cones or your hub or even your body.
So I think bicycles are an important part of post-apocalyptic transportation, but keeping bicycles running without an economy populated with specialized equipment, materials brought from far away, and people with specialized knowledge could be quite challenging indeed.
You make it sound like cars are somehow easier to repair. They are fantastically more complicated in comparison, with specialized tools required for particular models.
How popular were bikes in Argentina before the collapse? How popular after? They haven't really taken hold in the parts of central America I've visited even though the weather is almost always suitable and the roads aren't that bad. People just take the bus, drive their car, or at worst, a small motorbike.
It's like bicycles don't even come up as an option.
Speaking as someone who lives in the bike theft capital of North America, it's possible they're too easily stolen and therefore people don't bother buying them in the first place. Cars are harder to steal since the police will at least pretend to investigate an automobile theft. They're also tagged with license plates and VINs to provide a small deterrent to theft in the first place.
> You make it sound like cars are somehow easier to repair. They are fantastically more complicated in comparison, with specialized tools required for particular models.
Having rebuilt a Vanagon engine, I agree that cars are dramatically more difficult to maintain and repair.
> How popular were bikes in Argentina before the collapse? How popular after?
They're not very popular, although much more popular than in the US when I lived there. I don't know how popular they were before the last collapse; I assume about the same. Mostly the people who ride them do so because of some kind of antipathy to motorcycles. They are cheaper than even the cheapest motorcycles.
I should point out that if you have an income, bike repair services are cheap and abundant here in post-collapse Argentina, if often of low quality.
Is the collapse still influencing you in everyday life? I wasn't quite aware of that (sorry). For example in Sweden all signs of it seem to have long gone, then again it's been quite a bit longer in the past.
Because the world is a complicated place and I am ignorant, I was confused by this remark. So after ten minutes on wikipedia, I thought I'd share what I learned, to contextualize DeepDuh and kragen's references to economic collapse.
Note that I am not an expert, this is just what I gathered from WP and a few other sources.
Sweden had a financial crisis in the early 90s (perhaps 1990 to 1993). This was partly due to a real estate bubble in the 80s which collapsed. Unemployment "soared" (from ~2% to ~10%, which many countries would be fairly happy with). The central bank at one point set overnight interest rates at 500% (!!!). Yikes. At one point the federal deficit was 15% of GDP. Sweden recovered through the mid-90s. Their unemployment rate continues to be much higher than pre-1990, but they've run a budget surplus most years since 1998 (everyone is envious).
Argentina had a completely unrelated crash, about 10 years later. It started in 1998 (by which point Sweden was firmly recovered). There was an IMF bailout, but Argentina couldn't hold up their end of the deal, and the bailout collapsed. 20% economy shrink, 25% unemployment, peso devalued by 75%, rampant poverty, holy crap that sounds really really not fun at all. In 2002, there was a two week period with five different presidents, what the hell. Macroeconomic indicators start getting better by 2002; the government has run a small budget surplus for most of the time since then, and unemployment returned to the single digits by 2007 (still worse than a lot of countries, but 7% today is a hell of a lot better than 25% in 1999).
And that's what I learned this morning. Who knows what the afternoon will bring?
Thanks for the input. I didn't have the exact timeframe in mind either, I just knew it was longer ago at a time when I wasn't yet interested in political events ;-). Also, I wasn't quite aware that this stuff isn't common knowledge outside of Europe, so thanks for the reminder.
The GDP has recovered, the provincial currencies and barter meetups have fallen out of use, and most of the asambleas populares have become irrelevant. But the retirees are still being paid a pittance, the government still can't sell bonds at a reasonable price, the creditors seized a Navy boat in Ghana a couple of months ago, and there are still people sleeping in the streets and recycling cardboard from the garbage for a living. Also, I think adverse possession is much more difficult today.
The bike kitchen I'm talking about is La Fábricicleta, and it's hosted by the Asamblea Popular de Villa Urquiza, which is dominated by anarchists and is one of the few asambleas that hasn't become irrelevant.
They are more complicated to repair. But they are also more resilient. Broken glass is less likely to disable them.
If you have a fairly new car and you can get fuel, you might be able to travel thousands of miles without a repair. And they come with a spare tire. And you can carry tools and extra oil and a mechanic.
FWIW, you can carry more spare inner tubes on a bike than spare tires on a car, and although I've had bike inner tubes punctured by goatheads, maladjusted brake pads, tacks, and a burr on a spoke nipple that cut its way through my improvised post-apocalyptic rim strip made of electrical tape, I don't think I've ever had a broken-glass puncture.
I think both bikes and cars have highly variable resiience to hostile conditions. You can get bikes with big fat BMX tires, put Kevlar strips and thick inner tubes inside, and pour in a bit of Slime, and you probably don't have to worry much about punctures or pinch flats or blowouts, unless you have misadjusted rim brakes like the ones I mentioned before. And there are plenty of cars that aren't fairly new and can't travel even dozens of miles without a repair.
The last puncture I had was on the rim-side of the inner tube and probably was there when I bought the bike. Before that ... I think that was years ago. Most touring bikes these days also come with tyres that have a puncture-preventing layer [1]. Racing bicycles are probably not well-suited for post-apocalyptic duty.
But as far as repair equipment goes, I think I think a bicycle repair kit (should be good for half a dozen punctures and they last years) and a multitool (for removing wheels and the like) should suffice for a lot, even if certain occasions need special tools.
> Most touring bikes these days also come with tyres that have a puncture-preventing layer
And "airless" tires are starting to appear as well.
> Racing bicycles are probably not well-suited for post-apocalyptic duty.
Probably not, a touring or XC-type mountain bike is probably a better idea (or an hybrid, more efficient than an XC but with more "all terrains" abilities than a straight touring bike).
Airless tires are quite a lot older than pneumatic tires, actually. But the introduction of the pneumatic tire made bicycles practical for a much wider range of people and uses.
Yes, I meant airless tires which can actually compete with pneumatic on efficiency and comfort, obviously you could always have a back-breaking full cylinder of rubber.
Oh? How do those work? Obviously they're physically possible (you could fill a tire with Utility Fog) but I didn't realize they were yet technically feasible.
Although they still have the issue outlined in http://www.livestrong.com/article/222689-airless-bicycle-tir... (on the subject of the previous airless generation, using flexible foam instead of rubber fill): shocks can't be spread around as they are in pneumatic tires (where the tire gets overpressured all around and most of the shock's energy is spread around the tire unless it's so big it reaches — and damages — the wheel's rim)
Here in Amsterdam it looks like bikes don't really need that much maintenance. People mostly use "old-timers" - single speed, backpedal brakes, enclosed chain and low pressure 35+mm tires all help to improve the reliability. My friends don't maintain their bikes at all and they are driving them in the town with water and snow and salt everywhere until they get stolen.
Yes, the reliability of Dutch bikes is legendary. Beyond the features you described, I think there are other features that are less obvious that also contribute to reliability: good tolerances on bearings, good steel for bearing balls and axles, and perhaps other things I don't know about.
You can get a free wheel off with a rock and a nail, and break a chain with a rock and a knife. I've done both when stuck in the middle of nowhere without the appropriate tools.
Maybe it depends on how your freewheel is attached? I'm thinking of the ones where you have a splined tool you slide into the middle to twist it counterclockwise; I'm not sure how you'd twist that off with a rock and a nail.
2. There are a fair number of specialized tools that you need for bike repair that are pretty hard to do without.
I have every tool needed to repair my bike - I put it together from a frame and parts - and I'll bet that quite a lot of other cyclists do too. I could easily carry them all on my bike, too.
Quite a lot do, although even more don't. I regularly carry a multitool, cone wrenches, a universal spoke wrench, and an adjustable wrench, but not a file, freewheel spline tool, grease, chain tool (foolish, I know, I just haven't bought one yet), kerosene, vise, welder, taps and dies, that huge-ass wrench for tightening the headset, or heavy hammer, all of which I've needed at some time or other.
1. It's remarkable how quickly bicycles can break down, especially when they're not made to be ridden (US department-store bikes, all Argentine bikes) and when you repair them with improvised tools and improvised or substandard components.
2. There are a fair number of specialized tools that you need for bike repair that are pretty hard to do without. You can maybe cut a cone wrench from a flattened spoon, and you can "press" out chavetas (cotters) with a hammer and chunk of steel instead of a cotter press, and you can true your rims on the bike if you have to, but how are you going to unscrew your freewheel without the right shape of freewheel extractor? Or break your chain without a chain breaker?
3. A bit further afield, you have to patch or replace your inner tubes when they spring leaks. But it's increasingly difficult to get working vulcanizing fluid for patching after the economy collapses; that shit doesn't have an indefinite shelf life. Ultimately you need to put together some kind of chemistry lab, using chemicals of unknown quality, in order to renew your supply of bike patch kits.
4. More generally, bicycles, like other industrial machinery, are allergic to entropy. The crucial resource needed to repack your wheel bearing balls isn't the steel to make the balls or the dead cow to grease them with; it's the knowledge about which balls are the right size, and which ones are already subtly cracked. Buy them in bulk and they cost a fraction of a cent. Install a ball of the wrong size and you could wreck your cones or your hub or even your body.
So I think bicycles are an important part of post-apocalyptic transportation, but keeping bicycles running without an economy populated with specialized equipment, materials brought from far away, and people with specialized knowledge could be quite challenging indeed.