Why aren't Bicycles used more in Postapocalyptic settings?

Tbf he has some interesting ideas but his lack of knowledge and unwillingness to research anything makes his shit pretty damn bad.

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Rules for bikes are lacking in gamebooks

Too easy to steal.

They are way too overpowered. A gamemaster has to go way outside of any sane setting to diminish the usefulness of wheel assisted man powered locomotion.

Also, they are not fashionable.

>most bikes aren't built for use on rock and mud and sand

This one disagrees

i don't understand how most anons say that Bikes aren't made for offroads, when OPs picture shows a military bicycle thats MADE for this pretty reason.

In the Zombie Survival Guide is has an entire section talking about how motorcycles and cars especially are loud and their gas requirement makes them useful for a short time at best, and that bicycles and the best form of transportation available long into the apocolypse.

He's still a hack, though.

Only most if you live in a heavily urban area where everybody has street bikes. Mountain bikes are a real thing and they fuck up some rock/mud/sand

Because americans have weird hang-ups about bicycles. It's the weirdest thing to get angry about, but there you are.

There were some pretty creative solutions after WWI caused a rubber shortage that would be applicable in the wasteland, I think

Because faggots died in the apocalypse.

The gangers in Mad Max were literally called Gayboy Berserkers

Because a lot of settings are built with some levels of rule of cool, and nobody looks cool when riding a bike.

Those are just plain old homosexuals, user.

>implying all apocalypses are zombie apocalypses

All "red" post-apocalyptic settings have an infinite supply of gas and cars to go with them. All the bicyclists got run over and cannibalized by roving gangs of psychos who materialized from nothing after the bombs dropped.

Bikes would be interesting in a "green" apocalypse, though.

This.

what do you mean by red and green?

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The real sticky wicket is the chain. Bike chains are not something that are easily manufactured, and they're fairly fragile as well. Every link has to be just the right size or you can damage the gears and/or kill the user. The entire reason velocipedes existed was because chains were so hard to make properly.

So they'd definitely exist, because I'm sure some of the old bikes survived. But they wouldn't be common. If you break some gearteeth or snap the chain or get a flat, good luck repairing that shit.

>Red

Desert post-apocalypse. Fallout, Mad Max, etc.

>Green

Nature has taken over after the apocalypse. Nausicaa, Stalker, etc.

>ever

Neither are most cars, but people still use them in post apocalyptic settings

inb4 depends on the setting

>everyone goes looking for cars and gas
>bike shops are untouched, salvage all the parts you need
>rig together a belt driven bike if needs be

t. never rode a bike in their life

>t. never rode a bike on shitty roads in their life

Weak-legged faggot

>the problem is needing more strength to peddle

Belt drive exists.
Shaft drive exists.

Mad Max doesn't have an infinite supply of gas, there's two whole movies about Bad Dudes trying to get gas from fortified refineries.
Fallout doesn't have any gas at all.

>and most bikes aren't built for use on rock and mud and sand.
Mountain biking was invented by literally riding heavy as fuck '50s beach cruiser bikes down mountains.

It's because the driving rules have tacked on bicycles to city streets. The bike paths are on the road and narrow so drivers have to be conscious about not hitting the slow as molasses bikes.

>Mad Max doesn't have an infinite supply of gas, there's two whole movies about Bad Dudes trying to get gas from fortified refineries.

So where are the refineries getting the gas from? How come Max and just about every other gang is driving around with big muscle cars?

>Fallout doesn't have any gas at all.

But they do have micro fusion cells and other energy sources to power cars and flying machines.

>nausicäa
>the only green parts are a few impratical montains and the wind valley.
>everything else is either dead deserts, futuristic cities or otherwordly jungles where everything wants to kill you.

>So where are the refineries getting the gas from?

They drill it. You see them drilling it, even.

Also as apocalypses go Mad Max is still relatively fresh, Max Rockatansky was still a cop with a family in a normal town in the first movie

the problem is that wheels are one of the shitiest way to use energy in order to move, some tests are being conducted on spider-like machines that are probably the future of engineering.

because post-apocalyptic settings aren't about practical realities of a post-collapse, it's a power fantasy.
It's why you see decadent warlords with slaves and scavenging badasses fighting cannibal raiders, not, y'know, small, isolated settlements farming what they can.
post-apocalypse would really be more like pre-us invasion Afganistan. Not a great place to be, and interactions with outside tribes would be perilous, but as a result almost no one does that and you just live quiet lives raising goats and food (since exporting opium isn't an option post-apocalypse)

They still get flat tires, meaning that they'll work out wonderfully in the short term but in the long term (years or even decades) they'll eventually phase out. Unless a reliable means to create BMX tires is (re)discovered.

Those are civvy Nazi's riding civvy bikes.
Now imagine EXTREME Nazi's riding EXTREME bikes, POPPING WHEELIES all over Ukraine. Wouldn't that be RADICAL?

Doesn't look that deserty to me.

>otherwordly jungles where everything wants to kill you

It's still a jungle full of living things. Why must it be inhabitable for humans to count? Besides, there are some people who live in there.

But for the purpose of the story, they're not rationing their fuel, they're not worried about how far they can get with what they get and where they might get more. Fuel is sought after by people, but it never really runs out during the 4 movies. So it's not an issue in that sense. I'm pretty sure that's what user meant.

>they're not worried about how far they can get with what they get and where they might get more

Again, two entire movies have acquiring fuel as the central conflict.
A third movie goes out of its way to show the production of methane as an alternative to gasoline.

Yeah, and did those armies after the fuel run out of it? Were the low on it and had to conserve it? Maybe don't ride around wasting it and use flamers, if that is the case.

It wouldn't be that hard to find abandoned bikes in major population centers. Also, even if you can't drive the bike because of a chain or teeth break, walking it about while it bears the weight of your gear is still useful until you find parts for repairs.

Fury Road was a campfire story and not a literal representation of actual events, and even then their waste of fuel can be handwaved by Immortan Joe being fucking pissed that one of his truckers betrayed him, kidnapped his wives and also his son and he had a steady supply of fuel through trade with Gas Town besides,

>Fury Road was a campfire story

Aren't they all?

I don't think 1 was.
There's an argument for 2 or 3, but Fury Road was expressly stated to be a campfire story.

And 2 is told by the feral child as an old man.

>why must it be inhabitable for humans
because that's its entire story point, even the clan living in here knows that they won't last long and most commit suicide in some heavily spoilerish way.
>doesn't look that deserty
meh, in BW the map seemed to be more deserty than that, and the few glimpses of other countries we see are all dead worlds.

>one-speed bikes
No thanks.

>because that's its entire story point

We're not talking about the story, we're talking about the different coloured post-apocalypses. Where does it say that green has to be inhabitable by humans?

americans don't like bikes. Mountain bikes or touring bikes would do fine but repairing them would be difficult. Eventually people would come up with creative solutions for the tires and chain.

That's the argument for 2, yes.
When I say "expressly stated" I mean the director literally stated that Fury Road is apocryphal and that he didn't want to get bogged down with the nitty gritty of canon.

Shaft drive does not necessitate fixed gear you dumbo

>Be Britsh
>Jap deploys Bikes against Brits
>Rubber stamped thousand times
>Outrun Brits so badly they lose several islands and military campaign

because realistically a group of people with machetes, saws, and lighters can clear a jungle pretty quickly of they wanted to.

>spider-like machines
What is this, Boston Mechanics shit?

I like where this is going OP.

On the issue of repair, It's FAR easier to jerry rig two proxy tired onto a bike than it is to make 4 proxy car tyres. Garden hose , zip ties and a bed sheet could do a decent job to get you to the next DIY shop. Plus every garage in the UK is likely to have a bike/repair kit/glue/something rubber to cut up.

Lisa had extensive use of a bicycle. Granted only one character uses it.

How does that answer the question?

No that's bicyclists as they tend to do stupid shit and get hit by cars running things for everyone. We don't really give a shit about bikes themselves one way or another

No, America as a whole is legitimately hostile to bicycles.

Like, cops demanding that cyclists remain in the bike lane at all times and laying fines on cyclists riding in the main road while at the same time using the bike lane as a parking space and forcing cyclists into the main road is a thing that happens and that's not even the worst example.

>bycyclists
You retarded bro?

american cyclists can't ride on the road? that's bullshit.

Depends on the jurisdiction.
But even in cities where they're allowed on the road, the overwhelming opinion is that they're taking up valuable car space and need to GTFO.

>nobody looks cool when riding a bike.

They'd be tame and uncool compared to other post-apocalyptic transportation.

>Mario karts
>Cool

You wouldn't want to ride a dune buggy around the outback?

We really need a comic about cute girls solving cute crimes on cute bikes. And we shall call it Vélo-City

>nobody looks cool when riding a bike.

I wouldn't want to use it as a form of transport in the ruined world, trying to find parts for it and maintain it. i wouldn't want to have to try and drag it up a small cliff or get it through a street covered in rusting cars.

Shitty roads haven't been an issue for bikes since the 1890s.

Pre-WW1 tests already demonstrated that keeping the horses was the retarded move.

Will Licenseless Rider finally be cool when he gets his license and can afford a bike?

>Pre-WW1 tests
Which tests? Horses were still used in WWII for hauling stuff.

>inb4 polish cavalry charge

>cops not shooting cyclists on sight for not having turn lights and aggressively extending their arms towards them.

How America has fallen.

The jungle in Nausicaa is unbelievably toxic to humans, and every time anybody's tried to clear it they've ended up doing more harm than good. The jungle being an anti-human zone is a major theme.

>Mario kart
>Not dope as fuck
dude mario kart was me and my father's game. the one upsmanship we had on it was amazing, it was great

>Which tests?

Couple of German trials horse vs bike concerning scouting and messenger duties. Dudes on bikes beat horses so hard it wasn't even funny.

>and every time anybody's tried to clear it they've ended up doing more harm than good

Well yeah, that's to be expected when the Jungle is literally sucking all the poison in the ground into the vegetation, so destroying it releases it right into everybody's face.

A biker on a bike, going 20km/h, will outpace a horse quite badly over distances of 10-20 minutes.
Even more so, as you go along, because the biker can keep his pace extremely long.

Cool.

I still really like equestrian post-apocalypse. One of the reason that Planet of the Apes is such a fun setting.

>Not being shiny and chrome.
What a faggot.

It really depends on the prevalence of roads after The Event. If you're a) hauling heavy stuff or b) heading through a forest, a bike is going to slow you down a lot more. There's two separate issues here, the inefficiency of the deformation of soft surfaces by wheels compared to legs, and the inability of bikes to easily overcome obstacles.

After the Roman Empire collapsed, everybody in North Africa went back to using camels instead of oxen-drawn carts. The reason for this is almost entirely due to the aforementioned soft deformation issue. The carts, while superior on a regularly-maintained road surface, were absolute garbage on soft desert, and downright impossible in the Sahara. If your local apocalypse destroyed all the roads, all wheeled vehicles, bikes included, become a lot less attractive.

If we suppose the roads have gone to shit but you need a vehicle to cover ground, carry your tent ect ect, I'd still go for a bike and pannier. A bike with slightly deflated tires/zipties on the tires can perform very well on weird/rocky/slippy ground and can easily be carried over the more choppy parts.Plus if you abandon it you aren't abandoning what is probably a car full of hard fought parts and petrol. A bike forces you to ba more paire down in what you carry with you, so you're less likely to be a target for raiders and less likely to get yourself killed trying to cram another bag of cheetos into your glove box.
In britain and mainland europe, you can ALWAYS find a good working bike to scavenge from , just go to any car park/garage/street and there will be at least 5 bikes to be had.

>I read Equestria post-apocalypse
if not for re-reading a second time i was going to call you a degenerate ponyfag. but that's not the case. reading comprehension ladies and gents

>The Event

Shut up, you'll make it happen again!

youtube.com/watch?v=0WsuaYh_hkg&list=PL3Dx8Yxab-uFpPdulB4g2rw5bpJIFlcPU

>the problem is that wheels are one of the shitiest way to use energy in order to move
There's a reason absolutely EVERYTHING in modern society that doesn't either float or fly uses wheels or treads. Wheels are by far the most efficient way of moving around, pretty much the only downside is their inability to handle rough terrain.

Hello good evening and remain indoors!

(Those sketches make me genuinely uncomfortable. They're hilarious but also deeply claustrophobic and creepy.)

Only on very hard, rigid surfaces. Rolling resistance is a major consideration, especially in a post-apocalyptic setting where manufacturing is usually a thing of the past.

Turbo Kid did this and it was fabulous.

You can't turn the bike into emergency rations though.

>They still get flat tires
I'll take 'what are airless tires' for 500, alex.