One thing I always look at in post-apocalyptic literature is how they treat transportation: notably, are people still driving cars and how long can they do so and under what conditions?

Entering our current oil crunch, I think it's obvious how fragile the ecosystem around cars are, but just letting the car sit unused and untreated for as little as a month can start to introduce\ problems. The idea that you can just pop into a car that's been abandoned for 3 years, pull the keys out from behind the visor, and start driving is unrealistic.

• Best: The Postman. We're back to walking and riding horses.

• Good: The Last of Us, Season 1. People walk or ride horses, when our heroes DO find a working truck, it is treated as the jackpot it is--and I think it even had a spare gas tank in the back to maximize distance traveled to harvest gasoline. Realistically, gas as a fuel for fires would be a valuable enough commodity that it would have been scavenged, but they need to do some traveling and high speed dragons are not available in this genre (Reign of Fire aside).

• Worst: Jericho. Nuclear explosions in the US pretty much wreck everything and despite the town of Jericho being completely isolated, people just drive their pickup trucks around all seasons long without comment. Horses and bicycles are maddeningly present but rarely used. I think the show thought American audiences could accept a premise where the federal government collapses after multiple nuclear strikes, but not where people in Kansas got off oil dependency--that would be too out there.

Worst, Honorable Mention: I didn't watch past Season 2, but I understand the Walking Dead was product-placing current model cars every new season.

I think you'd see more bikes. A lot less upkeep than a horse, you can find them relatively easy, and they can sit in a garage for months or years and only need some minor maintenance to get going again.

Edit: I can't think of any books I've read recently that depicts primarily bike based transportation though. Probably because it doesn't look super cool lol

I think bikes would definitely be the go-to for utility and ease of repair... but there is definitely a missing cool factor missing for the hero.

I think wild horse populations would rebound quickly, depending on the nature of the apocalypse, making them easier to replace a few decades out.

I forget the title, but there is a zombie apocalypse book I read years ago where a man, his 1 year old son, and his neighbor escape their town on bicycles with attached wagons/child buggy. They do alright for the most part

And bikes are quieter than cars, too, especially handy around noise-sensitive zombies.

Absolutely! The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks dedicates a portion to transportation, and bikes are definitely the preferred means. Considering you can coast and conserve energy while still outpacing the zombies (assuming shambler's instead of sprinters), bikes are awesome.

I don't think horses are common enough to be a common post-apocalyptic beast of burden. Besides, the apocalypse itself would probably cause food scarcity, and feeding the horse would most likely instead turn into eating the horse.

But yes, some elite factions m8ght use them for riding, but I suspect it would be very rare. I think The Postman, despite being an awful movie, has elements of realism, in that Holnists (or whatever the anti-Kevin faction was called) would usetheir power to gain access to horses. Or maybe their founder owned a horse ranch during the apocalypse and that's why they're powerful.

I wanna see people wait months with a tiny solar panel trying to charge their ev so they can drive a couple of miles

Something else that’s often ignored in these scenarios is that gasoline is not shelf stable for very long. Without refineries or biofuel, most gasoline would degrade within a year from what I understand.

Most realistic would be horses, bikes, maybe biodiesel converted cars or motorbikes and a biodiesel creation setup.
I could also see electric vehicles with solar or constructed wind/water wheel power to charge batteries. But batteries of course degrade as well so that isn’t a long term solution unless you can make and repair batteries. Which is a stretch.

Being able to ride around on that much meat would be a demonstration of a stable society... but it really does depend on the apocalypse. Apocalypses that kill a large amount of people very quickly will have ample canned food for some time, after which wild animal populations would have rebounded, allowing hunting to be more viable.

And, yeah, you raise a good point... cavalry was as huge factor in military victories throughout history, even overlapping with small arms.

Cars made sense in the beginning, but after two or three seasons, finding gas that hasn't gone bad would be next to impossible.

Canned food or not, to project power by riding horses requires that there are actual horses nearby to steal/buy/domesticate. I live in the sticks, and horses are rare even here. You can be as powerful as you want, but you would still not be able to will abhorse into existence.

I think gasoline used to be more stable, but in 2007 the US gave in to the corn lobby and started adding corn ethanol to gasoline, which does limit shelf life. That's right, in the United States we take food and give it to our cars.

Motorbikes + biodiesel is probably as far as I´d be willing to go, but we're well back on the path to civilization at that point. You can kickstart a bike without a battery, too...

Rare, but you could find one. The real question is if you could KEEP one, as valuable as it would be.

But some apocalypses are set 20-60 years out. Horse populations double every four years. You could eventually have a large wild population of horses that could be captured and traded through informal networks, plus stable areas that are using and breeding horses for their obvious benefits.

Edit: I could tell the Postman had good bones and could recommend the novel it's based on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman

Not sure where you get diesel motorbikes, but ethanol is easily made gasoline replacement. And also propane while it lasts, because it doesn't go bad at all. Then when it's not around anymore, wood gas is an option

As long as you keep it well sealed, gasoline esp sold in summer should last some decent time, just like winter diesel (less wax to form precipitate). I think one of big problems would be bacterial degradation (yes there are bacteria that feed on hydrocarbons)

Looks like you’re right about ethanol affecting shelf life, but it goes from 3-6 months to around 12 months. So still an issue in longer term apocalypse worlds

https://universaltrades.co/blog/gasoline-shelf-life-guide-en/

Also, I don’t think setting up a small scale biodiesel plant would be out of the question for a large enough sect of sufficiently educated humans in an apocayse setting. But it’s definitely a step above something that a small homestead could reasonably expect to setup imo.

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Bio-Diesel

I did a search for a diesel bike and on a national bike sales data base and found nothing; you are more likely to find a horse.

The internet tells me gas can last conservatively up to 12 months, but ethanol no more than 3 months. Most post-apocalyptic narratives are built around travelling, and if people are getting around by locally-produced ethanol, you are doing more of post-post-apocalyptic story.

I was thinking of a situation where the people had enough skills and knowhow to make conversions of existing bikes.

https://www.motorcycles.news/en/biodiesel-harley-kubota-conversion/

In that situation, you might be better off converting to using propane or ethanol like you suggested depending on available resources and expertise.

Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re right about gasoline’s shelf life however. If stored properly AND stabilized it looks like around 3 years is the best you could hope for.

https://build-construct.com/practical-guide/gasoline-shelf-life-how-long-does-fuel-last-and-how-to-store-it-properly/

The problem with cars is primarily fuel. Gas is only good for a few months then it degrades fast. Now, they can be made to run on alcohol, but making enough alcohol to be feasible to fuel a car is a pretty big undertaking. Then you have things like oil, grease, and tires. Plus, modern cars are complicated and, honestly, pretty fragile once the roads start to degrade. Without maintenance, roads degrade pretty fast.

If you have to have an engine, motorcycle will be better,. but at the end of the day you still need fuel, oil, grease, and tires.

Horses are fine if you know how to ride and care for a horse. Horses eat a lot, not much of a problem, however, come winter time you're going to start searching for fodder. Horses require a lot of upkeep. Can you shoe.a horse and trim the hooves? No? Congratulations, your horse is now lame and the most humane thing to do is to shoot it. Horses are unpredictable and flighty. You might get lucky and get a calm horse that will comply with your commands, but I wouldn't bet on it. They are prey animals and they are jumpy as fuck. The amount of times I've had a horse drag me into the woods at full speed because it saw a stick that kinda looked like a snake is too many. If you must ride an animal, get a mule. He won't be as fast and might be more stubborn, but he also won't take you anywhere that will get you killed and he'll climb hills and mountains much better.

Bikes: Bikes are great and don't need much maintenance. However, once the roads are wrecked after a couple of winters, they lose a lot of practicality. Another problem is that they require you to up your calorie intake in an environment where that may not be possible or will at least be difficult. Tires are still a problem, but at least changing a bike tire is easy. One problem I see is that once the roads are potholed and grown over, off road areas are even more overgrown, granted, a good mountain bike will still make it through, but you'll be burning even more calories.

but you wouldn't be able to get methanol you'd have to use ethanol, and also perhsps make your own sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide (wood ash + slaked lime) not saying it's impossible but it gets a notch harder

Turbo Kid

https://youtu.be/yXD87sxHwk0

Bicycles

Now I have to update what I said about bikes not looking cool and heroic.

Obtain good-quality oil. The easiest oils to use for biodiesel are neutral vegetable oils like canola, corn, and sunflower oil

I think this where the crunch would come in. Biodiesels are economically feasible because of factory farming, which have massive carbon inputs. Could a small community farm enough biodiesel to make the investment in that bushy tech tree worthwhile? I tend to doubt it.

Does petrol go bad!? Lol I didn't know that, does it evaporate if poorly stored or something?

The conversion is a possibility, but mechanics also requires an eco-system of parts or at least machining. Let's say you're a machinist. How are you going to run your machines without electricity? With a generator, of course. But what if you need a part for that generator?

There's an ever-expanding web of dependencies...

And you can scavenge and modify, but rubber's another issue. It gets dry and brittle with time. Where are you going to get more rubber?

You can figure something out with enough time and effort, I guess, but that's time and effort likely spent elsewhere, especially if gas isn´t cheap. A lot about vehicles requires economy of scale and global supply chains.

For sure. And I’m not claiming to have all the answers or the best long term or sustainable processes. I think you could reasonably set up a still to make methanol:

https://www.sciencing.com/make-methanol-5396607/

Similarly for NaOH, though you’d need to source cacium hydroxide

https://theblogjournal.com/how-do-you-make-sodium-hydroxide-at-home/

I could see sourcing some of these more shelf stable components from places that apready had them, but as for what happens when those run out, yeah, you’re just going to have to find something else or find a way to make it yourself.

Yeah I’m inclined to agree with you. More likely to me would be sourcing and preserving some of those oils so you have a more stable mid term fuel source, but eventually when that runs out you’d need to pivot to other options.

Something like use cars and motorbikes for 1-2 years, then convert to other fuels based on availability and knowhow for the next however many years, then back to horses.

Cool. You can be Transportation Secretary for Schipelblorpia Enclave.

For sure!
Ideally you have enough redundancy in machining and power generation and such that you can sustain yourself for a while, but it’s highly likely that you end up needing a component you can’t replace or substitute that causes you to lose capability over time and eventually you backslide to something like American pioneer level tech plus a few things you can limp along with.

That said, with a water wheel and some basic hand tools along with a a lot of starting equipment, you might be able to maintain a few key machines for quite some time.

Having a working lathe and blacksmith shop with starting tools would get you pretty far for quite some time if you had enough people with some skills to use them.

But yeah, eventually you’re probably back on horses livestock power for the most part until you can build enough stability back up to start specializing and trading and such.

Lol. What an honor.

"Dies The Fire" SM Sterling.

One day the laws of physics change. Guns and electric power no longer work.

One of the first groups to gain power is a motorcycle gang that loots a bike store.

First book in the series is B plus, the rest get worse imho

Yes, surely a lot of what we would be doing is going backwards, to watermills and smithies; but I wonder what would be new, what little tricks and things we've learned that would be thoroughly modern.

Edit: I'll answer my own question: Photovoltaics last forever. You can rip 'em off abandoned homes pretty easily.

Probably bikes and walking honestly.

Big fan of Jericho and yea you’re right to call that out. Spoilers if you haven’t watched it yet but during the first season the main characters have to go and beg the town folks for gas from their cars to keep the generator at the HOPSTIAL running. Also many of the characters have farms of a variety of types but horses are indeed very rarely used it’s maddening.

It's been ages since I've seen Jericho and don't remember that subplot.

Ugh, so they acknowledge gas shortage to advance a short-term plot, but not enough to effect Skeet driving from his farm into town and back again several times every day....

I think bikes are also not very good since they need maintenance and parts, and it will be very hard to find those and they won't be produced anymore.

Not sure what happens to it chemically, but it doesnt evaporate. They sell fuel preservatives that make it last longer. But as a rule, shouldn't really use multiple years old fuel, unless you have some old bulletproof engine. New engines with their fancy fuel management systems and whatnot will just throw a hissy fit and die.

Even bicycles would be ruined quite fast. Bearings are quite intricate things, you cant really make one on your own very easily. Unless you have some excellent metal making capabilities and accurate lathes. They also need lubrication.

My dad does some bicycling and hes doing small maintenance ever 80-100km or so. Major maintenance once or twice a year. Involves lubrication, cleaning stuff, tightening things, changing parts..

Survival Family : People use their old bicycle to go in a road-trip away out of the city.

Not sure why bicycle is so much ignored in post-apocalyptic context when it's very efficient

Nah, bike parts last a long time and are relatively simple to fix or even make (as long as you're not talking about some dentist's $10k carbon road bike). My main (non-electric) bike is from the early '90s and is still on most of its original parts, except for stuff like tires, brake pads, and the chain.

Also, bikes have existed for 200 years, which means they predate things like, say, the assembly line. I'm pretty confident that even in a post-apocalyptic scenario you could scrape together enough of a supply line and basic tools to build them from salvaged raw materials.

of factory farming, which have massive carbon inputs

The fuel used to run the tractors can itself also be biodiesel.

Anecdotally, diesels can sit for a long time and be just fine. I suspect there's something a mechanic could do with an abandoned gasoline car as well. The limiting factor, if we're talking full collapse of civilisation, is refined petroleum.

During the world wars, there were people converting IC engines to run off of wood gasifiers. For that, you either need the skills and tools to reprogram engine timings, or a carburator, though. Diesels can run on vegetable oil, and EVs can run off a solar panel, or, if still running, a wind turbine.

Horses aren't cheap or free to run, either. No matter what, there will be less vehicles, the ones that do exists will tend to be heavily loaded to save money (like you sometimes see in the third world) and they're going to take longer to get where they're going.

Lathe + drill + foundry to cast a big enough chunk for the lathe and drill. Rivets for putting together the frame. (And some power source to run your shop)

Maybe an endmill or even CNC machine, if you're feeling fancy, or welding for the frame (someone else might know what exact kind of welding you need).

Also why they're still a huge deal in, like, rural Africa.

Most of how the world would look, if the industrial base and institutions were gone, can be predicted by looking at places where they were never built in the first place.

Judgement at Nuremberg, you see people riding bicycles.

In terms of quantity, it depends on competition from food production, basically.

Modern fertilizer and pesticides allow you to get a much higher yield on the same land, and modern farming vehicles allow you to plant and harvest whatever oil crops without an army of labourers. If you had a ton of idle land, because all the urban people are dead, it reduces to the second problem.

Pressing/steeping the oil out of it is another challenge. Probably surmountable, although it's still going to cost a lot more than it does now.

Horses can run off grass.

Solar electricity would still be an option. Lots of people will want electricity, so it's pricey, but if you're the only guy that can make essential machine parts you can probably afford it.

If you were a caveman starting over, a waterwheel has about the needed output. Heck, some of the first metal lathes might have run on those, historically.

Rubber might just be a wonder you'll have to do without, if you're somewhere temperate.

The amount of oil you need to lubricate something is much more doable, though. If there's not a drop of petroleum, castor oil was the historical choice, and animal fat is probably also thick enough to work.

Bearings are a massive chicken and egg problem if you don't have one to start with, but in this scenario you definitely start with them. You're probably not going to make the really fancy ones, but a basic roller, ball or journal bearing seems doable. They did it way back in the day, right?

Oh yeah, and it'd take many decades to breed more.

There's some around here, and if the apocalypse came I don't doubt people would be riding, but it'd be a one per few families thing.

Cattle would probably be the main beast of burden at first.