Hell, I was no competition biker, but when I was training for triathlons, I did my first century in under SIX hours. And that’s including a lunch break.
I just wanted to say that that was a fine post.
I believe folks in Paolo Bacigulpi’s (sp unsure) “Clockwork Girl” made EXTENSIVE use of bicycles in a post peak-oil civilization. It was not the complete social breakdown of the zombie apocalypse, but it was definitely some civilizational backsliding.
It’s been about 35 years since I read it, but Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach–though not, strictly speaking, post-apocalyptic but kinda close–might fill the bill.
BTW, what’s all this about bikes becoming unusable when the roads break down post-Apocalypse? True, nobody will be repairing them any more. OTOH, hardly anybody will be driving motor vehicles on them any more either. The only wear and tear they will suffer will be from weather and plant roots. Interstate highways in particular should remain usable for centuries.
Sorry but you are mistaken. Link. No rice paddies to be seen when these were in use. You can easily carry 100 lbs of gear on a well built commuter or MTB frame. I know becuase I’ve done it.
In a way, that book should have been post-apocalyptic. It was published in 1975 and set in 1999 in a breakaway nation that comprises Washington, Oregon and northern California, with San Francisco as its largest or one of its largest cities. I have to wonder how such a nation that had done away with or sharply scaled back eco-unfriendly heavy industry would have coped with the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. I’m guessing by 1999, San Francisco would not only not be rebuilt, but parts of it would still be on fire.
I enjoyed that series, I did think the whole bike thing was a little silly however. I am a keen cyclist, and have never had a driving lesson in my life. However I’m pretty sure in that situation I’d be able to work out how to drive a car and I’d just have my fully equipped bike in the back for emergencies.
I believe this was explained in The Road. It had been around a decade since the incident, and virtually anything of obvious value had been plundered long ago. They couldn’t even find shoes. The shopping cart was the only available option, and spare parts could still occasionally be found.
Bacigalupi wrote "The Windup Girl.. Clockwork Girl is a comic series. And yes, there were bicycles used in Bangkok in Windup Girl.
I used to ride 8 miles every day at lunch on bikes ranging from a coaster-brake Schwinn Racer to a God-knows-what, garbage-picked 12-speed. Forty minutes, working out to 12 mph, and I was over 300 lbs of solid flab at the time. Okay, the Schwinn died when I tried cresting a bridge astride rather than walking it the last ten yards, but it was carrying the equivalent of two or three normal people and I was putting all my strength and weight onto that pedal. Bent the frame and stripped the rear end, I did. The only other hill in that part of Cook County was a path with switchbacks out of a toboggan slide and I calculated that the effort needed to lift the 12-speed and me that high and that fast was nearly three horsepower. It survived long enough to to get stolen. But my point is that even a fat slob can put some serious miles behind him on bikes that looked post-apocalyptic.
I wasn’t sure if this counted as a post-apocalypse novel until someone mentioned The Stand, so I guess “death of millions via plague” does indeed count in this genre.
The Girl Who Owned a City, by O.T. Nelson–a book that IMHO is begging to be made as a Middle-Grade/YA film–takes place after an unnamed plague has swept the world and, for some reason (waves hands wildly) only spares kids under 13. So all these children are left to fend for themselves.
Bikes are extremely important since the kids are too young to know how to drive, so these are their main transportation (other than skateboards, I guess). Most of the kids are terrified and start looting stores and empty houses for stuff to eat. Gangs of the oldest survivors roam neighborhoods and steal from everyone. The eponymous heroine, Lisa, is 10 or so, and she’s in charge of her own house and taking care of little brother Todd, who’s, uh, 6? 7? Pretty young.
Anyway, Lisa and some of the other kids ride their bikes pretty far to find supplies. She’s the only one who stays away from the obvious candy and “fun” foods and is takes things she and her brother will need, long-term.
The bikes are their only vehicles until Lisa finally finds a source for tons of supplies that no one’s thought of, and she wants to carry more than her bicycle’s basket possibly can. That’s when she decides to learn how to drive, even though she can barely reach the pedals. Of course gas is at a premium, but she organizes the other kids trying to find cans of gasoline in their garages (used for lawnmowers).
Anyway, sorry for going on and on. I do like the story very much–not keen on its repeatedly pushing Randian values, but still, it was my first dystopian novel as a kid and it was an interesting premise, watching kids having to learn and adapt, first to deal with their parents and older siblings dying, and then having to survive in a Lord of the Flies-esque situation.
As I said, it does astonish me that it’s never been adapted except as a graphic novel, especially now that dystopia and YA are so huge. Why not a middle-grade dystopian film? Is it not attractive because the kids are too young for a romantic subplot (although there are the tiniest hints of crushes forming as Lisa and her classmates turn 11 or so)? Then again, I can imagine the fanfic being pretty damn icky! Well, they could easily age Lisa up a bit to 13, although the older they get, the less difficult it is to imagine how long it’ll take the world will return to normal.
Soooooo, um, yeah. That’s my dystopia-bike story contribution.
The hero and company traveled by bicycle in various bits of Gordon R. Dickson’s Time Storm. He preferred cars, though.
**The Giver ** (at least, the novel, I haven’t seen the film) uses bicycles a lot.
On The Beach features bicycles as well as horse and buggies.
The protagonist in his Wolf and Iron started off travelling by bike as well, I believe.
h10 n1 has a community that uses bikes as “police cars”.
Yes – good old Jens Larssen: he’s got his bike, he’s got his rifle, he can fearlessly go almost anywhere. One reason for his being sent on his “odyssey” as above – ostensibly, to look for possible alternative sites for the USA’s atomic-bomb programme – is to get him out of the way; he’s angry and embittered about the series’s (human) hero having taken his wife off him. Poor Jens – I always feel that he got a decidedly raw deal.
Also in DTF – a number of references to more-perceptive-than-the-average individuals, in potential “death zones” in the first days after the Change, getting an inkling of what seems to be going on, and “getting the hell out of Dodge” by bicycle.
Speaking of Turtledove, his recent Supervolcano trilogy maybe isn’t truly apocalyptic but after the disaster (Yellowstone erupts and blankets several States in ash; civilisation staggers badly but doesn’t actually collapse) bicycles become the most reliable way for civilians to get around.
There’s a reason that cars and trucks replaced horses so quickly in first decades of the last century.