Because most post-apocalyptic media is individualism wish fulfillment porn. In most of those stories, the world has been destroyed because being that way serves to elevate the power and agency of the hero(es). Look at how bad ass they are to be able to thrive even in a world that bad!

Mowing down zombies in a Winnebago tricked out to be a rolling prepper bomb shelter is empowering and fun. Squeaking down a deserted highway in a rickety ill-fitting bike, knees akimbo, does not cut quite as dramatic a figure even if it is infintely more realistic.

This is basically how Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts starts. :P

South of the Mason Dixon line roads require annual landscaping to prevent overgrowth.

Much like technology is spread very unevenly, post-apocalyptic is spread very unevenly. There is a large subculture of urban explorers on youtube, interesting stuff to watch. Interesting to see them explore sites abandoned around the turn of the century, driveways / roads and such are essentially impassible.

There are exceptions. Youtube abandoned mine explorers visit sites abandoned a century ago out west and other than the occasional landslide desert roads can remain clear for a century or so. Of course without massive fossil fuel burning, Vegas can't exist, so great roads aren't very useful without any population to travel them... Similar problem with the deep south USA, before air conditioning the number of people living down there was low.

And a bike doesn't need a road 2-rod wide. Just a path as wide as a bike tire. Even a good shoulder. And cement roads can last far longer than asphalt. Definitely situational.

Anywhere a car could go, a bike could go further I think.

The road in question was closed as a result of a 1983 earthquake. Part of the road is now used as the Crater Rim Trail, and if you pan around a little bit, you can see just how close the trail is to the current rim of the crater. I don't know how long ago those pictures were taken, but my recollection of the road's condition circa 2005 when I hiked the trail wasn't all that much better.

While the parts of the ex-road that are now used as a trail are in decent enough condition, the parts that are not are not in any condition to be used as a path. Admittedly, this is the windward side of Hawaii (and hence very conducive to fast growth), but the usable lifespan of an unused, unmaintained asphalt road should generally be figured in the region of a few decades at most.

Doesn't it run from energy generated by the Hoover dam?

Without it, in a fast unplanned event at least, humanity would face a very big population reduction.

Yes, but I don't think they're doing much of that in the immediate area around Las Vegas (which is what the parents of my original comment were discussing).

Bikes are present (and maybe even integral to) some post-apocalyptic films like, Testament, Turbo Kid, The Stand. There are some media with no gas powered cars, like Adventure Time, and probably more.

However, for better or worse, Mad Max set the trope that the fight for fuel is often an interesting conflict. It's easy for a gas hungry viewing public to understand, at least!

I imagine Aston Martin sales will bump up after the next Bond film gets released. What if Bond got around town in a Bianchi?

Plot hole.

Which now begs the question: where did they get the oil from, to feed into their refineries.

would allow Turner to pilot the jet that would carry Mitchell

to Hosaka's Mexico City compound. The runner was a wild-

eyed, sun-blackened man Lynch called Hariy, a rope-muscled

apparition who came cycling in from the direction of Tucson

on a sand-scoured bike with balding lug tires and bone-yellow

rawhide laced around its handlebars. Lynch led Harry across

the parking lot. Harry was singing to himself, a strange sound

in the enforced quiet of the site, and his song, if you could

call it that, was like someone randomly tuning a broken radio

up and down midnight miles of dial, bringing in gospel shouts

and snatches of twenty years of international pop. Harry had

his bike slung across one burnt, bird-thin shoulder.

"Harry's got something for you from Tucson," Lynch

said.

"You two know each other?" Turner asked, looking at

Lynch "Maybe have a friend in common?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lynch asked.

Turner held his stare. "You know his name."

"He told me his fucking name, Turner."

"Name's Harry," the burnt man said. He tossed the bicy-

cle down on a clump of brush. He smiled vacantly, exposing

badly spaced, eroded teeth. His bare chest was filmed with

sweat and dust, and hung with loops of fine steel chain,

rawhide, bits of animal horn and fur, brass cartridge casings,

copper coins worn smooth and faceless with use, and a small

pouch made of soft brown leather."

-W. Gibson, Count Zero.

And a modern 'regular bike' is maybe 100x better than the original wooden, wooden-wheeled non-steerable chainless coaster bikes they started with. Made of local wood that could split and swell and snap at a bad bounce.

I don't know about that. I pretty much grew up only having crappy second hand bikes and spent more time riding through forests and trails than streets. There was a couple summers where pretty much every day was wake up, get on yhe bike, meet my cousins and friends and spend all day riding through the forest.

I never had an actual mountain bike, or even bikes with working brakes sometimes, i've taken bmx's through mountain trails, bikes where the chain pops off every half hour, some pretty sketchy bikes. Street riding actually freaks me out more. I don't like being on roads and sharing lanes with cars. Give me a rough forest trail on a bike any day over that.

>Here's a more interesting question: why are bicycles nonexistant on post-apocalyptic stories?

Bikes are pretty handy in Cataclysm DDA for town raids.

I guess a logical, in universe reason could be the extra calories spent on riding a bike wouldn't be worth burning in an environment where food is scarce and conditions may be brutal.

The speed of a bike ride is roughly proportional to the smoothness or the trail. So to be economical, the bike would need to beat walking etc. So a smooth(er) trail would be a win.

That said - you don't need modern car-caliber roads.

I've ridden 10's of miles on packed dirt trails (in upstate NY, near one of the canals) and it worked great. Smooth, level, no sharp corners, and waaaaay cheaper than paving.

In a post-apocalyptic world, bicycles would definitely be a great way to get around. The roads would get cracked and overgrown, but with moderate traffic, they'd develop into smooth single track trails. What to do once you run out of tires and tubes would be the bigger problem.

I think cars have 100X the moving parts, and 100X the issue. Bikes would outlast cars by a decade, minimum.

Maybe. The article didn't touch on more modern developments, like suspensions.

But not all ancient roads were all that bad. Cities specially. You can ride on dirt just fine. Which is arguably a more realistic use-case, riding on cities.

I guess the idea that cars would be around after the apocalypse comes from the diesel engine, which can basically run on vegetable oil.

You can't make gasoline as easily - or extract oil.

Not tires that don't turn into chewing gum in hot weather, or under hard braking, and don't freeze and crack in cold weather.

In Stephen King's The Stand, at least one of the groups of survivors tools around on bicycles, mostly because of all the gridlock of abandoned cars on the highways.

Bikes remain useful, even if they aren't up to modern road-bike standards. So useful, I think we'll see them for decades with ever more creative solutions to the problem of Bike Shop Closed, Oh What Will I Do?

Without the tech, you can't even make a bicycle that can be ridden on a level, shiny smooth, concrete floor.

Couple reasons by my guess: * Bikes aren't cool. Cars are cool, horses are cool. Bikes, trikes, scooters, etc., aren't cool, and don't provide much besides efficiency. * Terrain - as you say, roads are an issue and require maintenance. Trees drop some branches on the road? A car could push it (maybe), horse could walk over it, while a bike has to be carried. Not much fun, and probably makes up for the efficiency you get from riding it. * Carrying stuff. Hauling things in a car? Easy. Horse? Easy. Bike? Hope you have a backpack, and you're probably still capped at ~40 pounds. And the more weight you have, the worse a time you'll have on rough terrain or falling.

• Good luck getting your car around a fallen tree. A bicycle is far better in this situation. In what situation would you risk serious damage to a car by driving into a tree?!

• Bicycles used for transport (as opposed to sport/exercise) have a rack over the rear wheel, which can support two or three pannier bags. On a flat journey, it's easy to carry 20kg+ of goods this way.

I get the impression half the comments on here are from people who've never actually used a bicycle.

The children seen here on mum's bike weigh more than some straw and pots: https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/28/...

So does this woman sitting on the rear rack: https://arnejj.org/wp-content/uploads/Foto_Bruntlett_Buildin...

This girl carried her dad for 1,200km, and my guess is the Indian roads aren't as smooth as I'm used to: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/more-sports/cycli...

But maybe you meant baskets like this: https://previews.123rf.com/images/cataplines/cataplines1204/...

Or like this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CIXaZeJWcAEcxrF?format=jpg&name=...

Carrying weight in pannier bags on the rear rack is much preferable to wearing it on a backpack.