Early in the pandemic response in this country, transportation cycling has been held up as an emerging alternative in areas where public transportation was shutting down or scaling back. Since so many news sources are paywalled, I am not including links to footnote my assertions. Considering that gas pump handles have been rated as grossly infectious as the Broad Street community water pump that caused a cholera outbreak in London in 1854, you might want to consider cutting back on trips by car just to reduce your visits to the gas station.
In some places, people are being encouraged to go outside and get sunshine and healthful exercise away from crowds and indoor facilities like gyms and fitness clubs. In other places, the social distancing mandate amounts to virtual house arrest. This complicates your decision to bike or not. Check your local jurisdiction.
Here in New Hampshire, we actually have idiots suing the state because of the ban on large gatherings. Fortunately, the kind of people who would do that are the kind of people I routinely avoid anyway. One can only hope that they fester in their own Petri dish and leave the rest of us alone. Their suit has been dismissed by a Superior Court judge. No word on whether they will push it further. When they filed suit, the number of confirmed cases was 44, with no deaths. They cited this as a reason to carry on as usual, because so many other people had outright died of causes we consider routine, like car crashes, and influenza. Now confirmed cases stand at 78, still with no fatalities. But the day is young. Meanwhile, we are still free to ride or walk recreationally as well as for transportation.
Thinking apocalyptically, like the bullet-hoarders and panic-buyers of guns, I look at the bikes currently in vogue for their usefulness in the event of complete societal collapse. How easy would it be to rack this thing up and use it as your trusty mount through the savage landscape of a ravaged world? How long would it last without access to fresh hydraulic fluid, tire sealant, shock oil, and tinfoil chains?
Early mountain bikes were based on actual bicycles. They evoked the early geometry of safety bicycles from back when few roads were paved. They used the most widely available tire size in the world (26Xdecimal -- eg:1.75, 1.95, 2.1). This is different from 26 fractional (1 3/8, etc.). Until the explosion of suspension technology, the format remained the same even as the frame geometry tightened up to suit a sportier style of riding. Designers discovered that they didn't really need hugely long chainstays and super laid back head angles, although slack head angles have returned in the current era of motorcycle-based designs and long-travel forks.
Any mechanical transportation will eventually die out unless support industries manage to survive or reconstitute themselves. Even a chain for 6-7-8 speed wears out eventually. I wonder how long massively heavy one-inch block chains used to last? That was also before the age of derailleurs. As vigorously as I resist the over-engineered modern marvels of today, I don't pine for some 90-pound wrought iron monster fixed gear to tool around on. But that brings us to the rubber problem.
Early bikes used solid tires. Really early boneshakers used what were basically wagon wheels, with iron bands around a wooden wheel with solid spokes. Real sketchy cornering traction with those bad daddies, but of course no worries about flats. The next big innovation was solid rubber. High wheel "ordinaries" used that. As a friend of mine who rides such things observed, "we laugh at broken glass, but we're all in a dead panic when a squirrel runs out in the road." Hitting a darting rodent can launch a rider on a tall wheel into the dreaded header, a face plant from six feet up.
Scaling back to a partial apocalypse, or simply adopting the income of your ever more numerous working poor, you will be best served by a simple bike with a rigid frame and fork. This is by far the easiest to maintain, providing the most value for the dollar. A cargo bike might be nice for the big loads, but a trailer serves for the temporary need, and you can leave it home for more nimble cruising. Even a good set of racks and some panniers can increase your load carrying capability, as long as your bike will accept them. Anything too sport-oriented will not have the clearances and eyelets for solid rack mounting and stability with a light to moderate load.
Electric bikes will be tempting. They certainly have a place if everything doesn't fall apart. But in a real post-apocalyptic scenario your ebike is only as good as your charging capability. Since solar panels wear out and wind turbine blades fatigue and have to be retired, even "green energy" will become scarce. You really need to plan on muscle power alone. And various equines who might become more common again. But the rise of the bike in the late 19th Century gave people who couldn't afford to feed and house a large animal the chance to extend their cruising radius for little or no money after the initial purchase.
My own fleet has been selected with versatility in mind. While my early mountain bike acquisitions reflected the state of the art circa 1990-91, the bike I built around 1995-'96 already declined aluminum in favor of chromoly, and had a rigid fork because suspension forks were changing rapidly, and were still heavy and wobbly, even at the high end of the price range. The constant change makes any super-technical bike a poor long-term investment. But any manufactured item is only as good as the availability of parts. The industry can kill its ancestors and favor its short-lived children simply by stopping production of anything that fits the old stuff. Ultimately we will all be walking, and making shoes out of whatever we can find.
6 comments:
I am a fan of the old English 3 speed. Dead simple to maintain and extremely durable. Perhaps not the best choice in hilly terrain. Up until a few years ago, the tires were readily available at most large stores with a bicycle section. I can recall them being available at any hardware store with a bicycle section, however, that was last century and those stores are pretty much gone. I do possess a few late 80s MTB based bikes that are suitable for hauling loads under most conditions.
Aaron
Aaron -- We can still get 26-fractional tires for 590 and 597 ISO diameters. But you're right about 3-speeds being a bit under-geared for hilly terrain. Also, when an internally-geared hub finally does need work it is more complex brain surgery than a simple friction-shifted parallelogram derailleur. Nothing is perfect... My choices might be different if I had not moved to a hilly rural area. In Annapolis I did all of my commuting and errands on a fixed gear with a generator light, racks, and full fenders. Ultimate simplicity.
Both of my mountain bikes are rigid frame 21-speed (3x7) from the early '90s. Chains last a long time, I go years between new chain & cassette. After the apocalypse, I can press my dog trailer into service for hauling stuff if necessary - that sucker weighs more than either bike, and has a payload capacity >100 lbs. Hopefully, I'll still be able to scrounge 26" tires somewhere for the bike, and 20" tires for the trailer.
Of course, our president says the economy will be booming again before we know it. Given his perfect credibility, I can put apocalyptic thoughts out of my mind, right?
I have found the S-A 3 speed hubs to be exceptionally durable and dependable. I have one early 70s on a Raleigh Sports Standard that has well over 40,000 miles on it. I have swapped cogs on it a couple of times to better suit my riding style, replaced a few chains and probably used a quart of oil. I tore the hub down a few years back, just because. I replaced the pawl springs because they were a bit sloppy. I have used a variety of "tricks" to expand the gear range of the AW hub. Installed two cogs by leaving the spacers off, then you could manually move the chain over to switch range IIC you could get a 4 tooth difference and not have to change the chain length. For really steep hills you can always resort to "two-foot drive" or "Shank's mare". Current bicycle accumulation at my house is 30+ with the bulk being canned hubs. I haven't ridden daily in too many years, however, I may start up again.
Aaron
On the fixed gear I say that a rider has four speeds: sitting, standing, weaving, and walking. Because I use two-sided hubs, my fixed-gears have eight speeds. Those are slick tricks with the 3-speeds, though.
I have only done one rebuild on a Sturmey Archer hub. A customer with a beloved old English bike (I can't recall the brand) was willing to pay for the surgery. It was okay. But no one has asked since then.
When I was 12 years old a friend let me try out his newly acquired English 3-speed, what we called then an "English racer" and it was (in 1965) a revelation. My own bike was a balloon-tire bomber that weighed about 50 pounds fully equipped (it came with a fake gas tank, a rack and a fender-mounted battery headlight). Within a few months I had one for myself (though it was a Schwinn Racer, not the English bike I would have preferred, because the salesman had convinced my parents that the much heavier Schwinn was a superior product). I rode that thing everywhere, and I was happy to have three gears. I never considered it insufficient for going up hills--not knowing any better, I simply rode up them. Although I too joined the "10-speed" revolution in the early 1970s. I still have a fondness for this class of bike in all its forms, especially the big, heavy roadsters (they are much more fun than you expect, if you have never ridden one). The "sports" type -- the typical version -- is still what I think most people really need.
Post a Comment