I agree that roads and rubber may present challenges, but there are folks who are starting to manufacture bicycles out of wood, which wouldn't require as much industrial production.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/save-a-tree-by-buying-a-wooden-b...

Yeah but oil won't disappear overnight. Even 40 years after the US peak in oil production, the US is still producing 5 million barrels per day, (closer to 4 million in lower 48). This means that even in 50 years, our cars may not burn gasoline, but the plastics may still be made by oil.

My point is this. Oil won't just disappear, it will take a long time for peak oil to really gather foot, of which our society may be able to adapt.

Also, rubber may be made by oil, but there are alternatives to oil in producing bicycles. Can anybody give me a reason why a bicycle today cannot be made with non-renewable resources? (Rubber can be made naturally and so can plastics. The steel/aluminum could be recycled using renewable energy).

We rode bicycles on the roads of 1910 (and even back to 1880 or thereabouts). My guess is that it will take roads about a hundred years to decay back to what they were in 1910--which wasn't much.

The roads were so bad during the First World War that when a young Eisenhower led a convoy of trucks from West Coast to East Coast it took several weeks. My recollection is that it took them 59 days, but that can't be right. Maybe it was only 39 days, but it was such a prolonged period of time that Ike began to visualize the Interstate Highway System, which was largely built during his terms as president--1952-60.

Bonus points for anyone who knows Google well enough to find out the exact number of days the convoy took.

I know that states and counties are broke. But mending roads with low technology is labor intensive; it will create a lot of jobs and be very popular politically. Remember the good old days when chain gangs paved roads? (See "Cool Hand Luke.")

There is a huge scaling factor to bicycle infrastructure. You need much narrower roads to support the same human throughput and these roads need to support much less weight, making their foundations less thick. They don't necessarily need to be paved to function well. Compared to cars, bicycles require 1/200th of the materials, fewer/no precious metals (they're even making them out of bamboo now), less rubber, less maintenance infrastructure, and a lot less of things I'm not thinking of right now. If there is anything that is part of our energy scarce future, it is the bicycle. Every mile we do by bike now is a teaspoon of oil that gives us more breathing room down the road. Scale that by a billion people in industrialized countries and it gives more lives a fighting chance down the road to feed themselves and soften the blow of agricultural contraction. Pushing bicycling now also pushes infrastructure toward walkable distances in North America.

I'll be curious to read other posts. If the bicycle isn't a key bridge technology (if for nothing else other than giving North American oil consumption a haircut) then I think there is almost no reasonable hope for non-apocalyptic scenarios. Then again, I enjoy cycling, and I've commuted by bicycle (when not living in a city) for 10 years. Is commuting by bicycle that inconceivable to the average person---even on The Oil Drum?

I will say it again and again.... this is not a technical problem, we have everything we need to move beyond oil as the dominant factor, ( and as the latest Jon Stewart video so aptly suggests we HAVE had everything we need for 20,30,40,50+ years) and still can not, will not do it.

What we don't have is a way to get from here****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** to there.

AKA!!! "the bottleneck"

What needs to be focused on is the bottleneck as that, and only that, is what will determine the future of humanity.

Everything else is internet based circle jerking.

Around here, dirt track does not bother people on ordinary bicycles. I must get mine fixed and get using it. As for supplies from overseas the world had a system before oil, it was called sail. Perhaps Tony is working on a new, post oil project.

NAOM

Cobblestones, brick, wood, etc are all locally-sourced road surfacing solutions that have been used in the past. As someone else here noted, a bicycle weighs vastly less than a car (and outrageously less than a loaded semi) and the roads need not be built to withstand extreme weight & stress.

Brick-paved roads were used as early as 3000 BC according to the Wiki.

A person pedaling a bicycle travels more efficiently in terms of calories expended per distance traveled when compared to a person walking.

Just because present-era bicycle (and bike component) manufacture makes use of horribly integrated global supply chains doesn't mean it must necessarily do so in the future, or fail outright.

We need better bikeways. A Class 1 bikeway is defined as an eight foot wide path that is separated from motor vehicles. In my mind, a Class 1 bikeway is a flat, glass enclosed, path with a nice view, that slopes gently in the direction that I want to go. With bikeways like this, many people would ride bikes. This could be the local transportation system, shared with pedestrians and skaters, connecting with a multi-modal public transit.
---
http://www.fpdcc.com/tier3.php?content_id=68 [class 1 bikeway]

This highlights the difference between anti-technological and technological post peak visions. It is possible to imagine that the resources needed for manufacturing bike level technologies can be procured in a society with a much lower level of energy expenditure. Bikes seem something possible in a solar/wind/hydro economy. I suspect the embodied energy in a bike is much lower than a car.

But it's a good question to think about.

Why are people not flocking to bikes? Habit is a large part of it. Rationally, one can't defend a car over a bike, the economics are incredibly lopsided in favor of the bike. Yet, here in an urban area where everything is withing easy biking distance (2 miles or less for most people) it is little done.

Physically, the great majority of people can ride a bike and for convenience riding right to the door of your destination is far better than hunting for parking and then paying for it.

But, I can say from personal experience that it is hard to mentally put oneself on a bike when all one has ever done is drive. I only did it after a friend I considered a bike nut nagged me into it and I was converted. Barring very high gas prices, I don't see the automotive herd moving to two wheels no matter how many nice bike routes, lanes and parking bars are created.

As anyone who has spent time in another country can attest, people do what they see others around them doing. It's only when Americans can see how others live that they open their eyes to how exceptional (I mean extravagant) the United States is when it comes to transportation.

Roads so bad they cannot be used are a very long way off because folks have shown already how very much they are willing to spend to drive. Expect tolls to be charged long before any roads become unusable.

IMO there is not one futurist, Greer, Kunstler, or anyone else who has even a tiny grasp of what it might be like.

Please people...I know there is increased traffic here on TOD so I think it is important to stress. Just because these people were the first to write on this subject do not give them ANY credibility. They have no clue, no track record beyond the fact that, yes it is the end of this paradigm. They are as clueless as the next guy, and the next guy is also trying to make a buck off all this $hit going down just like everyone else.

What is most likely to happen is the worst of what has historically happened if we don'r stop wishing upon some fantastical future scenario that these people have pulled out of their a$$. I'm talking full out war....no holds barred...ugly beyond anything we have seen because we now have...............................HIGH TECH WEAPONS>>>>>>>> WooHooo!!!! TECH RULES!

Oh, never mind this inconvenient little fact. Lets contemplate a world of gardening, raising goats, sewing leather, suckling our sweet little young 'uns. Bull $hit! We might never get to that point if we don't demand a stop to all the madness.

The bottle neck will decide whether or not there even IS a future so lets focus on the bottle neck and make sure we at least have the options that we love to discuss here on the internets.

Why do I feel so busted? Perhaps because my choice of bicycle is akin to choosing a Hummer. Big tires and lots of resources. On the other hand I have almost 3500 miles on the bicycle, with no signs of letup. I do not know if I ever had to replace a bike tire due to even wear. How many miles can they go? I do not know what is worse, my resource wasting bike or a van posing as a helicopter.

90% of my photos were taken on bike runs.

From today's bucket- Lucky guess.
First bike pictures @ http://s892.photobucket.com/albums/ac126/tinfoilhatguy/Gulf%20Shores%206...

A typical steel bike frame weighs between 4 and 5 pounds. We could recycle the steel in our current car fleet for centuries and not reach peak bicycle steel. That 4 or 5 pound frame will last decades with appropriate care. The bike I ride daily is 40 years old. It shows modest wear. It still has the original wheels and most of the original drive train. You break the bearings out (hubs, crank, pedals, headset) once a season, clean and re-grease the races. It's not a big deal. Servicing requires 2 or 3 wrenches. The wrenches are older than the bike.

There is no shortage of these machines. Every garage or backyard shed in the country has one sitting in the corner. Many garages have several bikes. The older bikes are usually as good as the newer ones, in fact, they tend to be lighter and have better commuting geometry.

What has changed is the electronics. The LED light (dynamo powered) that I've added has a 100,000 hour life span.

In my view, you make a modest transportation investment once and you're done.

Personally I think the idea that peak oil will permanently do in civilization as we know it is absurd. Personally I would be quite pleased if it pushed us
from cars back to public transit & bikes, the auto is just a plain waste of resources (not just energy) for much of what its used for. But doubt even this will happen. Electricity can replace oil for the vast majority of its uses, for the remainder there are bio-fuels and hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen may make
an excellent airliner fuel due to its low weight.

It seems to be political "common knowledge" since the 1970s that solar, wind and batteries can never replace oil. Yet despite utter lack of energy policy for 30 years, we now have very efficient solar panels, windmills the size of jumbo jets, batteries and motors so good that they completely bury gasoline race cars. Not only will oil be replaced, its replacement will be an anti-climax.

Thats not to say the end of the oil age won't be messy. Price shocks will likely cause multiple waves of recession, but eventually oil power will give way to electric. People will ask one thing when its over, "Why did we wait so long?".

Started a facebook group for "The Electric Age"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128249800541568

Just to repeat from others.

Roads - The sidewalks of today are generally good enough. If not, then any of a variety of materials (brick, concrete, cobblestones (2 blocks from me), coarse sand in some areas, manure & clay mixed, gravel) can be used. Look a light duty 2' wide path (one way) separated from another 2' wide path (other way) is all that is really needed. 1% of the materials of the average residential street.

The impact on the road from traffic is the 4th or 5th power (sources vary) of the axle weight. Bikes have no axles so x2 to compare to cars and trucks. Then square and square again. Even heavy weight riders plus bicycle weight (say 300 lb) have effectively zero impact on the road compared to even a Prius. A Prius without groceries plus a bike = the impact of a Prius with groceries. (that 4th power thing).

Bike traffic has *NO* impact on road durability ! Even 1990 Chinese levels of bicycles have NO impact. One garbage truck would have more impact than 100,000 bicycles.

Tires - Natural rubber. A US university had breed a variety of milkweed that can produce natural rubber commercially. They are trying to start the industry. During WW II, occupied Europe used wood and cloth at times.

Metal fabrication - Small electric arc furnaces can recycle steel and aluminum as needed. See SUVs as source of centuries of raw material. Bicycles are all "hand scale". One man shops makes custom frames today.

I think titanium may find an increasing role in bicycles post-Peak Oil. Pretty durable, strong and light.

Alan

Bicycles need not be made out of metal or carbon fiber. See
http://www.renovobikes.com/

Even with narrow touring tires, its amazing where you can go on a bicycle. Old roads that are reverting to weeds aren't that impassible - as long as the path isn't covered with fallen trees, etc. Mountain bikes can go almost anywhere - gravel roads are no problem!

In terms of keeping these running - its amazing how long you can keep a bicycle tube going with patch kits when necessary. I suspect that tires will remain available. Bikes themselves can be kept running for years. Certain items such as chainrings, etc. lend themselves to small scale manufacturing scenarios. Bikes were built by hand in small shops (such as the Wright Brothers of airplane fame) long before the Schwinns and Raleighs evolved. Trek started in the late 70s as a small shop in a red barn making an affordable hand made frames of various types and sizes - long before they became the multinational Honda of bicycles. There are still hundreds of small scale manufacturers offering custom bicycles.

Biggest impediment to bicycling in western Washington is sharing the road with cars - especially the ones with texting drivers! The shoulders are narrow. Personally I'd like to see fewer big cars and trucks on the road - and was hopeful when gas went to $4 a gallon. Just a few more years.....

Check out these wooden bicycles!
http://www.renovobikes.com/these-wood-bikes-are-up-to-190/

This is a non problem for all the reasons stated by all the respondents. If bicycles become a problem we might as well just commit suicide. A casual visitor to this site might conclude that the writer of the main post has gone off the deep end.

The Tour de France (started 1903) was ridden for years on steel bikes with wooden rims and one gear, on unpaved roads.

Bicycles can be made with steel frames and steel components. Aluminum and other materials are common on modern bikes, but no aluminum is required to make a bike. Remember that bikes predate cars, and the widespread availability of paved roads, by decades.

There is a place where, just a few decades ago, the streets looked like this:

Sort of.

A different set of constraints (e.g. "no, you can't buy a car"), but maintaining some means of getting around by bicycle might be possible in an oil-constrained society.

I don't believe that bikes will be general transportation in northern climates. Snow, ice, rain, wind, cold, heat and exertion required will stop the majority of people from using bikes for regular everyday transportation.
On the other hand, as long as it is possible to convert crops to ethanol and biodiesel ON THE FARM the rural communities will continue to use internal combustion engines to power their cars and trucks.
The only real problem we have is too many city people - And NO, we do NOT need them on the farm. Farm work will continue to be done with internal combustion engines using liquid fuel (see above for transportation).
I expect that nature will deal with the large excess of city people in her own unpleasant way regardless of what governments do.

Thanks to everyone for explaining why bikes will definitely be around for a very long time. I'm currently riding a vintage bike that would definitely off road. In fact, many of the streets in NYC can already pass for gravel roads. My mountain bike can take pretty much anything. And you should really check out some of the adult trikes and cargo trikes. Those will be a lot more efficient than setting aside vast acres for growing pasture or food for horses.

Questions

1. Why do roads get so little discussion in planning for the future?

Around here (Wisconsin) roads get lots of discussion: Huge freeway widening project even though the state is struggling with a deficit. All kinds of local "road improvements" despite crushing property taxes. We have something like a 20 year road construction plan. Now, if you meant why there is no planning for an oil constrained future? That is simple - little recognition of that potential. Besides, other technology will replace oil long before any shortages occur (they all believe).

2. Can you see a way to make a version of bicycles work with a version of roads, long term?

Certainly. National, mandatory commitment to mass transit and things like neighborhood electric vehicles; 40 mph max speed limit enforced with governors; hugh taxes on ICE personal vehicles; full cost for gasoline plus taxes to fund mass transit; stop all heavy trucking that could go on rail; allow Jitney Cabs everywhere; etc. Then, shut down half the roads or lanes and parking lots and reuse asphalt to maintain ped/bike lanes and trails. Lots of other strategies that we will never do in time.

3. What do people do in lesser developed countries do now with respect to bicycles and roads?

I've biked in Ireland and France. I worked in India and visited lots of other countries. Most of the places I've been to have replaced most biking with cars - a few exceptions. Parents in western Ireland (where I'm most familiar) often will not allow their kids to cycle to school because it is too dangerous. The kids all seem to know the exact date when they will get their drivers license. In India, scooters and motorcycles are ubiquitous and now they will have a super cheap car from Tata. It seems to me that if there are good roads, there are more cars and fewer bikes.

4. What role do you expect bicycles to play long-term?

What I would hope for and what I expect are two totally different things. I would hope that places like the US would begin a meaningful transition away from its car culture and build an infrastructure that supports all kinds of transportation alternatives - see the book "Plan C" for specifics. What I expect is a muddling through the bottleneck with all kinds of unplanned consequences - most of which will not be very bicycle friendly.

One thing we do know is that wheeled modes of transportation are nothing new. With all the people in the world that now know how to use wheels to get from place to place things will never be the same again, even if you have a massive die off of 99.99% of the worlds population which gives you something like 700,000 people left, I'd be willing to bet that all but the babies know what a bicycle is and what could be done with wheels.

The chances of 99.99% of everyone dying off is slim, so we aren't going to worry about loosing the knowledge.

1, Roads are so much of our framework that few people even think twice when thinking about the future, and roads not being there. Knowing a bit about the designs of the past and how we do things, I figure that most people can't really tell you how roads work. I have designed foot paths, and have studied the designs of more complex systems that we call Highways today. Roads are hard to maintain after a certain level of complexity, and almost everyone knows about potholes and washouts, but they rarely have to think about them. So they don't think about them. It is hard for people to get a grasp at how complex a building project most roads and paths really are, they are just too common place for most people to not take for granted that they will be there, far into the future.

A Road has to be planned like you plan anything in Landscaping, with attention to the details of time, and weathering. Once you figure out you want to get from point A to Point B, you have to figure out the best way to get there. I have done a fair amount of trail blazing, walking/hiking in places that had no trails to begin with, you have to scope the lay of the land, know a lot of things about how the future will play into the landscape features. Most people don't plan that far in advance, but the skills can be taught. One thing you have to be careful of is taking what looks like the easy route. Water flows in the easy route, so you have to think that any future path/road has to combat that fact.

I guess I could write several volumes on the subject, so I won't bore you with it all. The key point is that most people aren't trained as planners. Most people use the roads and paths we have today and pay little attention to the details, that those of us who have built the systems they use, do. The details overwhelm people, so why worry about them, they have to pass the buck to someone else.

2, Sure, I can see paths and roads being built into the future very long term. We'd have to go back to the basics that Rome was good at long ago, and anyone who has done any bit of trail Blazing or landscape construction or design will be able to map out for people things that need to be thought about. But most of the roads of the future might not have the benifits of massive machinery to help move and dig and build. Hand labor makes road building a hard job, and scale will be an issue, So will maintaince. You'll have to have a lot of people skilled at how to take care of their sections of the roads nearby. It will be more common knowledge like gardening and sewing and cooking.

ONE thing we will have more of in the future, is people who have vast storehouses of general knowledge, not as many people who know everything about one subject and nothing about anything else. Generalists, people will have a general working knowledge of how to live on their own again, or else they will have more and more failures going on it their lives. That is not to say they can't live around others and might also be experts in certain feilds, but it should be common sense that you'll need to know a lot more than most people know today, about such things.

Maybe I am wrong, I kinda have this need to know a lot about a lot, but then my dad and mom are both that kind of people. But so are almost all of major people in my formative history. People who knew a lot about a lot of different things. Some of them still were experts in certain feilds.

So yeah I can see a long term solution to wheeled self propelled transport and roads/paths.

3, There are a lot of odd contraptions that are wheeled people movers that fall under the classification of bicycle, and up to 3 and 4 wheeled human powered devices. Just look at any city in Asia to see all sorts of things with wheels moving all sorts of loads. In the USA we seem to have used cars so much that we forget that in most places they have to still move goods by hand, and they will do it however they can as best as they can.

Roads are mostly built up from walking paths. If you have to put more and more traffic and weight on the paths you have to change their structure to build in the needs you are adding to them. Foundation building is important when making a road for cars and trucks, you have to fight against wear and tear, and the elements, and lots more planning has to be involved. If you are just moving people by walking or simple wheeled carts or even animal travel, you don't have to build up the foundations as much. So it all depends on where the roads go, as to amount of work needed.

4, Having plant fibers as wheels would be something to think about, I can almost see people going back a few years and having wooden spokes and steel wheels, like old buggies and wagons. But you'll still need to have somesort of chain drive or belt driven system if you want to use human powered bikes in the far distant future, without any oil imputs. So given that man is an inventive creature I figure bikes that we see in the Third world today will be around a long time to come, just using the waste stream of today for a long time in the future. It'll be a while before animal travel will have to be used as our only means of faster than foot travel. I can almost see a sand surfer wheeled cart with wooden wheels and canvas sails 1,000 years from now on the sand dunes between trade cities.

I don't think bicycles will be a washout in the future. We might not have the same numbers as we once did, or will, and roads might not be decked one on top of another and under the oceans and rivers like they are now. But we will be able to bike to farmer X's house to get in a good home cooked meal from time to time.

......
One reason JHK might not have used bicycles in his book as he wanted to cut off a lot of the ties with the past. And Bikes are seen as an industrial construct, not a made by hand item. Even though all the contraptions of the turn of the century were made by hand. And a lot of the bicycles today can be made by hand.

Somewhere I saw a bamboo bike, maybe a google of it would help people see that man is not limited in materials.

Our high tech world forgets that we started from the low tech world that made stonehenge.

Charles,
BioWebScape designs for a better fed and housed future world, today.
Hugs from a trike owner in Arkansas.

The authour evidently has no experience riding bicycles for transportation or she would know that perfectly smooth roads are not needed, nor any time spent in Third World countries where bicycles (and everything else) are maintained using scraps of this and that with great creativity.

She also seems to imagine that oil will completely disappear, that if we're not burning it, it simply won't be used at all. Which is like imagining that if woodfired stoves become rare, nobody will have wooden furniture or houses any more. It's quite possible for us to have not a drop of oil burned, and yet still have plastics, synthetics, pesticides and so on.

Kunstler's book did not mention bicycles because Kunstler is nostalgic for the days of the Wild West (as he sees them), where men were men, and women were passive sex slaves, and there were no pesky foreigners or that annoying rule of law and democracy.

This is where I have to step back.

To me it feels alarmist. It assumes such a hard landing that I can't see bikes as being a big worry compared to the other problems we would be having.

I think before something like this happened, it is more likely that we wouldn't need bikes en mass anyway. I can easily picture, before this, a system of travelling merchants and services who finally find a way to trek over the hill. Maybe they will take orders online, or will we not even have communication then?

We are clever bastards. I can't even begin to tell you how clever we are. I'm not speaking of the god in the machine; I'm talking about a smoother transition to a new equalibrium than a jarring lurch that automatically has us helpless and suffering. We may find full employment and a robust economy as we spend years and years transitioning to a new form of stable society.

I am willing to entertain the possibility of a crash landing, but I hope many entertain the possibility of a smoother landing.

I don't often post but I thought I would add my two pence worth to this one.

You know, not everywhere has the same attitude to cycling. I am living (by choice) in a nicely tucked away part of Hungary as part of my own personal Peak Oil preparations. The village has some three hundred souls living in it.

I am guessing ball park figures here but I would reckon that the ratio here of walking:cycling:car use is of the order of about 40:40:20. The local cabinet maker lives about thirty seconds walk from the pub. He cycles it. It is the normal to see all the old girls in the village make the daily trip to the village shop. About half walk and half cycle.

Many of the cycles here are of communist era vintage. They continue to be serviceable. My good friend here has a bike that he bought about five years ago. He just gave it a good makeover - new Bowden cables, etc, etc. It has twenty seven by one and a quarter inch tyres. I have read that the last production bikes made with that size were way back in the 1980s. He does have a problem getting tyres but the ones he has on the bike now have been on it all the five years he has had it.

The local town is ten kilometers away, with a couple of good stiff hills to get out of the village. I try and limit my trips to town to once every four or five weeks and I also try and cycle it whenever I can, depending on what I need to transport, and weather. I'm just coming on sixty three, with an arthritic knee. I don't get off the bike for the hills. With a bit of luck and a fair wind I'll still be doing the same in ten years - might have to go down a couple of gears though :)

As oil depletes it will simply be forced upon particularly the west to reduce the amount of oil used for transportation, both personal and delivery of goods by road. When I was a teenager there was not a single car owner on the street where I lived. Not one. The last time I had occasion to go back there by car there were times when I had to park the car on the next street. So many cars it was impossible to park.

I foresee that the infatuation with car ownership and the car culture will end. On what timescale I do not know. But I agree with commenters here that cycle ownership should be able to continue many, many years into the future.

Rickshaws in Bangladesh

Hard to survive on 500 Taka
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfFT53RxQlM

No streetlights:
Riding a rickshaw in Dhaka, Bangladesh at night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs5838RCf4U

Dhaka Old Town
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LHMKqZwjLg

Interview with Rickshaw puller
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxMF0w98tlU

Hi all.
Gail know her demographic.
45 years plus male ex-hippies.
Not enough testosterone to get into flame wars.
Reasonably educated, concerned granddaddies scanning the horizon for dark clouds at 3am.
Just like granddaddies have always done.
I feel at home.

Bicycles again.

A footpath is a path made by feet.
It wonders through the bush around a long gone tree. No-body knows why the bend is there. It just is.
You cycle down the path, around the corner and, woopsie, into a herd of elephants.
What to do?? Throw the bike on it's side and pretend to be dead.
The matriarch of the herd comes across and thinks "Mmmm. Pretending to be dead. Better get into the mood."
The herd covers you with branches to show respect for the dead.
True story.
Is'nt real life much better?

Wait a minute - how long have we had the wheel? Several thousand years ?

The fact that we went from mainly four wheels on carts, pulled by animals, for carrying stuff, to two wheels on bikes, mainly for carrying people, doesn't mean that the wheel is going to leave us.

Maybe we'll bridge the gap back to four-wheeled carts (more stability on bad roads) with tricycles. Maybe some areas will keep paths in pretty good shape - although where there is heavy rainfall, road surfaces of all kinds take it hard.

There are unpaved road surfaces in Namibia, for example, that get graded extremely rarely, since the lack of rainfall doesn't alter the road surface much. It may be dry and dusty, but pretty well-compacted. Unless, of course, there is a flash-flood.

While it may be necessary to use salvaged materials, or materials produced locally, such as bamboo, there will be wheeled vehicles.

http://www.bamboobike.org/Home.html

Addendum : roads traveled frequently will probably end up being better-maintained than those traveled infrequently, because there is incentive to do so.

Maybe we'll go back to paving with stone or brick. Pavers are better at absorbing rainwater, as they allow rain to percolate into the ground, between the gaps, rather than running off into the sewers from our existing impervious surfaces.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads

There's much more flexibility in choice of material when one doesn't have to take thousands of pounds of weight in cars and trucks into account.

Addendum II : it would be great to get freight off the road into railcars, as one way of extending road longevity.

Thanks for the plethora of excellent ideas and information. I'm convinced that the bicycle probably has a long future ahead, even for intercity transport. Just two points of clarification: First, I wrote this piece as a thought experiment, not a predication of the future. I am asking, "What if...?" My concern is focused on the complex and lengthy logical systems that we rely on for everything bicycle related. Certainly, the know-how and even the materials for building and maintaining bicycles and bikeways aren't going to disappear. But reconfiguring our systems to do all that if we are obliged to do it on a much more local and regional basis won't happen with a snap of the fingers. The transition has the potential to be a very disruptive process.

Second, to those who are wondering about my relationship to a bicycle. I ride nearly every day in all four seasons on a cheap Giant comfort bike that I use to do 90 percent of my errands. For those who think cold weather is an impediment to cycling, I point you to my many fellow Michigan residents who snowboard, ski, and snowmobile in very cold weather with absolutely no complaint about the cold, that is, after they drive to the ski or recreation area in their petroleum-powered cars. Although there are only a few of us cycling in winter, I see no impediment to a vast expansion of winter cycling where I live. One just has to dress properly.

For those of you worried about your bike tires, there are spares available. This bike is really for sale new. You too can cruise urban style for only $649 + shipping and tax.

http://www.bicycledesigner.com/defaulthome.asp?Navigation=bicyclesnaviga...

I think the small steering wheel allows controlled turning with handcuffs on.

cross country on a pedal / solar machine ... starts tomorrow

http://www.wix.com/trivelo/the-trivelo-project

http://www.wix.com/trivelo/the-trivelo-project

http://www.youtube.com/user/TriveloProject

This is the problem I have with most oil drum posts/comments. You take peak oil and extrapolate that to doomsday. No science, no evidence -- just arm waving and jumping to conclusions. I think many here sound like a bunch of religious nuts.

Someone makes an off hand comment about prioritizing roads and bikes, and you jump to the conclusion that there won't be any roads. WTF????

Just like you hear the phrase "peak oil" and you suddenly think that means there's no more oil, no more economy, no more money and no more food. Why bother considering how higher prices TRANSITION to different uses and methods?

Does anyone know why you would want "hydrolics" on your pedal trike? Can you "hop" a pedal trike? Leave it to the Southern Californians. These bikes would get looks anywhere. You might get bike jacked or profiled by bike most cops, but you would get looks.

http://www.bicycledesigner.com/defaulthome.asp?Main=/customize.asp?PartN...

This is a great article. I've been a lurker here since 2005. I cannot add any useful input to the petroleum engineering discussions but have certainly learned a lot from them. Comments from posters like AlanFromBigEasy, Westexas and others have helped me to see the need to localize, enconomize, and produce (ELP) and contribute to my local community.

I've taught a number of bike safety classes to local bicyclists and have put together a class to show cyclists how to build their own bike lighting systems http://wbwc.org/bikelighting-workshop/BikeLighting-workshop.pdf. Unlighted cyclists are a big problem here.

A concern of mine is about winter cycling in the northern areas (I'm in Ann Arbor). Winter is no problem for me until the temperature drops below zero (farenheit) and younger riders can do much colder. Clothing can be added in layers as the temperature drops.

The problem is road and pathway snow clearance. If there is limited or no fuel (or money) for big, expensive road clearing equipment it will be very difficult to bicycle. I have to ride paths that aren't cleared: pedestrian and bicycle traffic rapidly packs the snow into humps that make bicycling nearly impossible. I ride 22 miles (11 each way) to work every day. In winter I use studded tires, they do not help on heavily packed snow ruts. If I couldn't ride in bike lanes that are cleared by the road commission I would probably have to walk.

We have several people locally that hand shovel the snow from a 1/4th mile long bike path so that it can remain passable through the winter. I suspect this will be needed more and more as road maintanence budgets are cut. Much like other comments to this article about hand powered road maintanence, I'm certain we will have to work out human powered snow clearing. You really develop an appreciation for how much energy is embodied in gasoline when you try hand clearing 8 inches of new snow from a long path!

This website has helped me transition from despair at the coming events into a position of taking action to do something positive. I work on bicycle advocacy locally, trying to get conditions improved so that people don't have to feel so afraid of being 'flattened' while riding a few miles to work. After a number of years of effort we have managed to move to a 'Silver' level cycling community. It's not a easy task but it gives me a sense of doing something that I believe can actually help. As the quote in the upper right sometimes says: "Every time I see a human on a bicycle I don't feel such despair" or something like that.

As far as bicycle choices go: my 2 cents worth is that I agree that modern bike designs have a number of significant improvements over older units. Lately I tend towards utilitarian bikes that I can ride to work and then pick up 40 lbs of groceries on the way home with. I am concerned that the interchangability of modern bike parts is much lower than older designs. Every year some new component group comes out that is incompatible with any older models. I have about 12 bikes, most are older, and the parts cannot be interchanged between the older and newer models. For example, from 6 speed freewheel up to a 10 speed casette. And the shifters that go with them, all totally non-interchangeable. I think the problem is worst with the ultra-expensive bikes. The lower end models tend to use more basic components that are more interchangeable and remain the same for a number of years.

I offer many thanks to the people that maintain and contribute to this web site. It is an amazing community! I frequently send links to articles from here to my fellow advocacy group members. They often comment that how can such an appropriate link come from a 'petroleum' website. It's kind of fun to see the disbelief. I tell them how many posters here suggest that bicycles are a big part of the coming transition and if the people closest to the petroleum industry think it's time to start riding ("BP= Begin Pedalling" from an article here several years ago...) that we need to get that message out to our local community.

Pete

A few things to remember about bikes and roadways.

1. For bike roads to be practical they must be about 8' - 10' wide at a minimum and engineered for 40 mph travel. They cannot allow mixed use, such a roller skates, etc., anymore than public roads do now. It's very unsafe for mixed speeds. I refuse to ride on mixed use bike trails. Scary.

When the roads are free of motor vehicles, the rate of deterioration slows to a crawl. I've seen this first hand on abandoned roads when a new road is constructed around it. After 25 years, the old road is still serviceable.

Bridges are problematical. Corrosion continues. Lighter duty bridges can be made of wood, which is renewable, or stone, which, in some cases, has lasted since Roman times.

2. Roads with bike traffic only will wear out by weathering and unstable roadbeds. Water is the culprit here. Well engineered bike roads could last a very long while. Cobble surfaces can be reused by periodically reworking the surface and repairing the bed. With just bicycle traffic, they can last for centuries.

3. Feedstocks for elasomers are all around us. Anything organic can be reduced to long chain hydrocarbons with a little simple chemistry and adequate heat and pressure. A few tons of these materials can supply a lot of cyclists with good tires. Same with lubricants, paints, seals, and what have you. This technology is here and now. No need to invent something.

4. There is an enormous stock of metal ready for recycling. The tooling for this will not disappear over night. Production will be lower, but it is still perfectly do-able. A small machine shop running on wind or water power could continue to crank out bicycles for quite a long time. And the quantities involved will be consistent with a low-energy future. There's a lot less energy embodied in bicycles and their infrastructure compared to motor vehicles. A 3,000 lb. car represents about 150 bicycles. It will be much cheaper in net energy terms to continue with bikes. Bicycle technology could be with us for centuries in the future.

1. Why do roads get so little discussion in planning for the future?
You don't need such good roads at all. The roads won't disappear overnight. Roads can be maintained fairly easy by hand.

2. Can you see a way to make a version of bicycles work with a version of roads, long term?
My grandfather used to tell me how they drove bikes on wooden 'tires' during World War 2 when there was no rubber. The roads back then were unpaved and maintained by cheap manual labor. So, yes I do see a long term future in almost any scenario.
I’ve commuted 6,5km one-way daily for over 7 years in any weather on my second hand bicycle. The only repairs I ever had to do on my bike was to patch a flat tire. Never had any major repairs. I haven’t even changed the tires in all those thousands of km (250/year * 7yrs * 6,5km * 2 = 22750km). This is at 52 degrees North, so not even in a very mild climate. The little resources we need to cycle are very sustainable by any means.

3. What do people do in lesser developed countries do now with respect to bicycles and roads?
Travel as little as possible?

4. What role do you expect bicycles to play long-term?
An increased role. Through added technology where electric bikes, such as the one my grandmother of 80 is driving, taking an increased role compounded by large scale application of EV's. But I'm not much of a doomsday scenario kind-a guy.

Hi Kurt, and inspiring open-source forward-thinking global community,

Thank you for asking an important question. Having read through the comments, I'm glad to see that the majority of people seem to think that the answer is no, the 'post oil future' will not be bicycle free. According to the academic literature, bicycle usage is increasing rapidly in many places, notably Bogata, Paris, Barcalona and London. In my own city of Sheffield, the cycling rate has been increasing at about 7% per year, and the recent spell of warm weather has seen more cyclists hit the road than ever before. Main factors seem to be:

1) Recession - People are thinking "do I really want to continue spending x% of my income on a transport system that is fuelled by a finite resource, demand for which has led obvious catastrophes, and many less obvious problems". The bicycle is a cheaper way to get fit, from A-B, or high than gym membership, cars, or drugs/holidays.

2) Cultural shift - It feels like a cultural shift, which encourages lifestyle changes compatible with cycling is underway. This is, of course, subjective.

3) Health/environmental/equality concern. Some people like the idea of shifting to a transport system which is fair - there undeniably remain enough resources on the planet to allow everyone to cycle for at least 100 years. There undeniably do not exist the resources everyone on the planet to own and drive their own car. While for many, moral issues are not important (see 1 and 2), morality is still an important driver for many, especially those who subscribe, consciously or more commonly unconsciously (a sense of fairness) to one of the many incarnations of Kant's categorical imperative.

Bicycles require on the order of 1/100th of the resources of cars, so could therefore provide transport for ~100 times more people than cars could, given the same resource endowment. This is exactly what is happening: planners must make the choice between spending the next decades of fuel supply on powering fleeting car trips, or a more sustainable transport infrastructure. The point made in an earlier comment about rate of road degradation is key.

Bicycling literature:

I regard John Pucher as the king of bicycle statistics and their interpretation.

Making cycling irresistible is an excellent introduction to the field.

Regarding question #4:

Bicycles and especially electrically assisted bicycles will not go away because they make energetic and hence economic sense. As long as resources are available for urban transportation infrastructure, there will be an economic justification for bike paths. The life cycle cost per mile for an electric bicycle is about 1/10th the corresponding cost for automobile operation. Infrastructure costs and emissions will scale similarly, since a bike is so much narrower and lighter than a car.
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/9h3f3kub8bcr/e33j0x/co2eandpermilevsspeed08...

Only a total "car person" could speculate that bikes require good roads to be useful. I have biked for 3 years at 40-50 miles/week in a rural area on a rigid mountain bike(no front suspension) circa early 1990's. Half my rides are paved but not well maintained, the rest are trails and dirt roads. Even on the very worst tracks it is usually possible to skirt the craters, and it would take many decades for a paved road that is not being pummeled by car traffic to descend to this level. Furthermore, while riding the roughest tracks may not be fun for some riders, it still requires a lot less energy and time per mile then walking. Such personal energy savings would be vital post collapse, especially if you are not eating well, and working hard. Parts availability is problematic but considering the millions of unused bikes in America and assuming a partial die off the situation could be extended a long time.(assuming someone makes tires). Tool up now. Perhaps there will eventually be more bikes in cities as scavenging will be easier. Assuming such scavenging, a bike far exceeds the ridiculously low eroei of horses. Parts last a really long time, if reasonably maintained. Weak point is chain. In my 3 years(7200 miles) have relaced 9 speed chain twice but rear cogs and front chainwheels still perfect. This possible if you keep chain clean/lubed and replace when stetched 1/16-1/8" even though it works fine. Chains are cheap, easy to stockpile. Old rigid simple mt. bikes are the way to go. Remember how the Viet Cong beat us useing bike transport of incredible loads thru incredibly tough terrain. So Kunstler is wrong, I think or hope. Aside from tires, I've heard the only other weak point of bikes is the bottom bracket because there is so much variation between bikes and for last ten tears it's been all non rebuildable cartridges. If there are any pro mechanics out there that could tell me what the most common cartridges were for 1990's and post millenium mountain bikes please tell me so I can stockpile some. Knowing your experience level would help. Keep my rural neighborhood riding post Peak/collapse, perhaps.

The Swiss Army Bicycle

http://www.yellowjersey.org/swiss.html

Do you think it needs a smooth paved road ?

Alan

My old Raleigh 10 speed (now 12, for an older body) with Reynolds 531 steel tube frame, is 40 years old.

I just noticed the comment counts. Bicycles-220 Oil Spill-250. Maybe there is hope after all.

"Will the post-oil future be bicycle-free?"

No.

The classic Roman road would seem eminently suitable for ruggedly built bicycles.

Third try. Bicycles came in on the coat tails of established railways in America, helped move the Electric Street Railways out of the picture, and themselves were shoved aside by Henry Ford's contraption and cheap oil.

Wise bicyclists will divide effort, work on re-established railway footprint to guarantee "Societal & Commercial Cohesion as the oil economy constricts highway transport. A word to the wise.

See Christopher C. Swan's web page "Suntrain Transportation Corporation" and book, "ELECTRIC WATER" (New Society Press, 2007). See also 'tahoevalleylines" postings for other railway subject leads. See ASPO Articles 374 and 1037. It is going to require steady and resolute replacement of railway service links in order to preserve the Union of States. Bicyclists must organize, and establish "Railway Subcommittees" for their respective locales. See spv.co.uk for US Rail Map Atlas, and learn the rail footprint extant & dormant for your respective locale. See also "Official Guide" of the Railways circa 1920-1950.

Reformed Army/Guard railway logistics units will play a part in rehabbing dormant branch lines, beginning with Agricultural traffic lines. American Short Line Rail operators will assume operation as the military units move on to next job on list. Well, what are you waiting for? Everyone has to help, this is an emergency in progress, and it won't fix itself! Talk about the Oil Limits at the Chamber of Commerce, family gatherings, class reunions, etc. Learning rail footprint nearby gives you a talking point when the room is at the panic point -it soon will be- when Federal Executive Emergency Orders for motor fuel rationing come at us.

Good Article

Aw shucks, as a biker for many years, and bike commuter, I really wanted to add something to this thread, but it looks like everything has already been said!

I purchased a steel framed Trek racing bike new in 1985. They said that the campy components would last a lifetime, so I'm still in the process of verifying that claim. In the mean time I've fully invested in all the tools to tear it down to a bare frame, and have a stockpile of spart parts that will probably last two or three lifetimes - things such as bottom brackets, chain rings, freewheel bodies and cogs, etc. You can still get a lot of this stuff on ebay. I haven't seen anyone mention the need to obtain a supply of ball bearings. If you're going to have a degree of self sufficiency you need to find out what size balls are used in the various components, and keep a supply on hand. It is a good practice to replace the balls when you overhaul the bearings. It will help make the components last a lifetime. You can get them online at fastenal.com Some tools that could be overlooked but you should have include a caliper to measure small parts accurately, taps and dies, and various small files. I use these infrequently, but when you need it, there's no substitute.

I'm in no hurry to go carbon. Sure you can save a couple pounds of weight, but most of the people I see buying carbon bikes could stand to lose more than a couple pounds off of their asses! I tell people that I slow this bike down more than it slows me down. A well made vintage steel frame is going to last a long time and will survive some abuse. In some cases if it gets bent, you can just bend it back. Not so with a carbon bike. It doesn't bend, it just breaks.

The biggest drawback to a steel bike is corrosion. If you're going to keep it for many years, you need to have the tools and be able to take it apart and do maintenance. Steel frames will rust from the inside out.

My other bike is a 1987 cannondale mountain bike. The aluminum frame is immune to corrosion, so that becomes my foul weather commuter. I've also worked out the procedures for using it for food shopping, and carrying other moderate loads. One of the most incongruous situations I found myself in was earlier this year, our minivan was broken down and waiting to get repaired. I could really live without a car, but with a wife and kids it aint gonna happen - yet. Anyway, at the same time, we were perilously low on heating oil which would mean no hot water. I carried a 5 gallon steel container in a plastic milk crate mounted on the rack on my trusty cannondale. Two trips by bike got me enough fuel for us to get by for a while. But riding a bike carrying fuel for hot water gave me something to ponder while making the trip.

Green things are starting to become trendy and I see people jumping on the bandwagon in a way that they probably can't sustain. My philosophy about bike commuting is that you're not going to save the world, but you might save yourself. It takes a totally different outlook on life - you can't be in a hurry, you have to adapt to weather and other circumstances you can't control, you have to have a measure of self reliance, you have to be willing to be an outcast in this gas guzzling world, and you have to face your mortality. All these things work together to transform you into a better person. And what's the worst thing that can happen? You get squashed by a truck, and die or get maimed. If you can accept these possible outcomes, nothing else can hurt you! (Thanks to Seneca for that)

Hope this helps

Ever heard of a "rail to trail" ?

I ride 14 miles each way on a dirt path just for exercise.. no need to maintain.. you must not get out much or are one of those road bike snobs who don't bother to wave to someone on a mountain bike..

Wow! Very bleak future indeed for bikes you say. That certainly can be argued. I personal think we have a bright future for bicycles, electric bikes scooters and any other form of similar alternative transportation.

The world is changing to new forms of green transportation and the bicycle (an alternative styles of bicycles) are playing and will play an important role for the commuters of the world. Here are some bicycle statistics the show usage, production, sales, imports, exports that you may like to take a look at >>> http://www.ibike.org/library/statistics.htm.

We are NOT going to see the dismal future you forecast. We will move forward with new technologies, we will adapt to change and we will keep our civilization in tack and prospering for many, many, many years to come.

You do make a case for depleting natural resources. And, yes, we do need them for manufacturing purposes for bicycles, but our natural resources are linked to everything that we need to sustain life, and yes they are depleting at an alarming rate. That's the BIG PICTURE!!!

We need solutions and they will come but the bicycle is already a big part of the overall solution for maintaining a balance life as we know it and (know it) into the future. This link will show you new forms of bicycle transportation that are already being introduced into our market place in a big way and will continue to. >>> Electric Bikes Scooters Alternative Transportation.

Wow! Very bleak future indeed for bikes you say. That certainly can be argued. I personal think we have a bright future for bicycles, electric bikes scooters and any other form of similar alternative transportation.

The world is changing to new forms of green transportation and the bicycle (an alternative styles of bicycles) are playing and will play an important role for the commuters of the world. Here are some bicycle statistics the show usage, production, sales, imports, exports that you may like to take a look at >>> http://www.ibike.org/library/statistics.htm.

We are NOT going to see the dismal future you forecast. We will move forward with new technologies, we will adapt to change and we will keep our civilization in tack and prospering for many, many, many years to come.

You do make a case for depleting natural resources. And, yes, we do need them for manufacturing purposes for bicycles, but our natural resources are linked to everything that we need to sustain life, and yes they are depleting at an alarming rate. That's the BIG PICTURE!!!

We need solutions and they will come but the bicycle is already a big part of the overall solution for maintaining a balance life as we know it and (know it) into the future. This link will show you new forms of bicycle transportation that are already being introduced into our market place in a big way and will continue to. >>> Electric Bikes Scooters Alternative Transportation.

"Sufficient" energy solves most of the issues being discussed here.
With sufficient energy and ingenuity humans could probably figure out how to fabricate everything from C02 from the air or sea (or coal etc.) along with hydrogen from water and minerals from rocks.
Build it from the basics.

Enhanced geothermal could be the key.
It's when you drill into hot rocks and pipe the heat from below to a generating plant on the surface.
MIT / Government panel estimates there is 2000 times (yes, that's times) "all" the "primary" energy used in the US (2005) available within the US in enhanced geothermal. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/geothermal.html
http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf (ref page 18 point 2)

Primary energy is the raw energy inputs to our systems, for instance, the coal used to fire an electric power generation plant is greater than the electric power delivered, so the primary energy is the coal energy in. (Conversion being around 40% at best)

The same MIT / Government panel also concluded more work could move this up to 20,000 times the primary energy use in the US in 2005.

This enhanced geothermal energy is going to last till the earth's core cools, a long long time, probably multiple millions of years.
Geothermal runs day and night, no problems when the wind stops or the sun goes down. Very clean.

Given the oil industry's ability to drill deep into hot areas and then drill sideways to and hit a pipe drilled in the opposite direction, one can could likely avoid fracturing the ground to capture the geothermal heat from many many locations. Fracturing can cause earth quakes and movements, mostly small but disturbing to the locals.

The real danger of getting of back to the desperate situation described by some above could be things like.
1. Major meteor hits Earth, few survive.
2. Viral infection wipes out 99.9% of the population.
3. We nuke ourselves with all the bombs we have.
4. Yellowstone goes off.
5. A black hole the size of the sun streaks through the solar system and screws up our nice orbits.
6. We overpopulate the earth to the point everything breaks down.
8. The Sun decides to get unstable and varies output.
7. We are too dumb to do something sensible like enhanced geothermal.

And more ...

For the above 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. ... some enhanced geothermal plants could perhaps be kept going to give a basis of starting over without loosing everything.

With sufficient power and smarts we could make rubber tires from CO2, water and rocks.

-----

Globalization victimizes bikes and the bicycling industry like everything else. In Davis, Ca (the biggest cycling town in the USA) garbage "bikes" from Walmart/Target/China are displacing the high quality US made bikes, and bike companies, and bike shops. These "bikes" literally fall apart, and are in the landfill in a year. No parts are servicable, repairable, or long lasting. Carbon falls under "disposable," but the worst offenders are the crud kids and teenager sized bikes. Just try to get more than a year from one, and then it's off to Walmart to buy another one.

Don't think you will be able to live in a post-oil world by bike, if don't fight to save quality bikes and companies now! Next/Huffy/Magna/Schwinn(sadly) will serve you as poorly as your disposable razors, iphones (where is your old ipod now?) and plastic furniture.

Go buy some real cycling equipment from an independently owned local bike shop. Support a local bike builder. Artisan bike building is exploding, just in time. Learn to ride, ask advice. Buy some quality items not for light weight, but durablity. You won't be able buy much MadeInUSA anymore, but by helping local shops and builders, those guys stay afloat today, and maybe they will help you outwhen you need a bike to live in the future.

I've got two bikes: a 12-speed MTB of some make I can't remember, and a single-speed Malvern Star road bike. The Malvern Star is going to get a hub motor, and it'll be my 'wet weather' bike, as it has mudguards (can you even buy those anymore?). I currently use the MTB for odd jobs and going to and from work (unless it's raining). For loads heavier than what can go in a backpack, the Malvern has a rack, and I'm going to get The Girl's father to weld me up a trailer that I can insulate, so I can cart groceries.

I barely use the car anymore.