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Roads Post Peak

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby AgentR11 » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 01:16:04

I don't know that I'd quite call my sports endeavors extreme, but I don't really disagree with your assertion either. I may need to put less "sport attitude" into my cycling on the road going forward; plenty of time for that in the gym while our industrial civilization wobbles along.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 03:22:41

pstarr wrote:
Beery1 wrote:
pstarr wrote:
This was a favorite of the Vietcong;
The indomitable 122 mm multiple rocket launcher.


How many of those did the Viet Cong have? How many bicycles?

I rest my case.
that's like saying the Vietcong won because they had a lot of chopsticks.

Have you seen the Vespas with the 75 mm recoiless rifle? The gun wasn't fired from the scooter, but it looks like it could have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa_150_TAP
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Lore » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 11:31:40

pstarr wrote:The lesson is not that the Vietcong were over- or under armed, but rather the USA's inability to understand their adversaries. Sure America had more awesome up-to-date military hardware but that mattered little in the jungles and hamlets of S. Vietnam. We were fighting for the hearts and minds of the people but used the wrong weapons--weapons. Should have bombed them with toys. Same in Afghanistan. We want their hearts and minds? Give them mosques.Our forces should be building mosques everywhere for everybody. Why do we have to kill them? In Iraq we could simply own the oil infrastructure with our AWACs and drones. Let the locals argue about the date palms.

You have to understand the ecology of the place. America is a huge frigid, scotching, hilly, place with over 300 million people crammed into giant suburban sprawls. And 1,000 miles from their food and resources. This ain't Tuscany. Few will have the luxury of biking to anything but the next food line.


Expect a few blow outs along the way to that food line. Maybe preppers with bicycles should start stocking up on patches? On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to ride my bicycle to a food line, you present a pretty vulnerable target. It's really hard to defend yourself over ruff terrain with both hands on the handlebars. Better learn to ride hard and fast if you do.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 12:51:29

Getting rid of interstate trucking will make the highways last at least twice as long. Roads that are not open to trucks go decades without being repaved.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby AgentR11 » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 13:00:34

Lore wrote:Expect a few blow outs along the way to that food line. Maybe preppers with bicycles should start stocking up on patches? On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to ride my bicycle to a food line, you present a pretty vulnerable target. It's really hard to defend yourself over ruff terrain with both hands on the handlebars. Better learn to ride hard and fast if you do.


I know yall are just ragging on bicycles because a very large portion of commuters really could bike to work if necessity kicked them hard enough in the teeth, and that kinda messes with one of the proposed impossible problems of peak oil... :-D

Still, I don't think we can get to the food line stage before the civil war stage; simply because SNAP is more efficient at rationing and distributing free food than food lines are; if the government were to want to pass out more free food; they'd just bump up the SNAP allowances. That's really the whole point of the program; it gets sold as a way to prevent the horror of hunger in America, but its real and simple purpose is to insure that the [loan -> plant -> harvest -> sell -> pmt on loan] loop never gets interrupted, causing food to rot and good farm infrastructure to rust in place.

If it got to the point where SNAP cards couldn't be processed, there would be no food lines to go to; and we'd likely be shooting each other for crumbs.

Now, about vulnerability and cycling, its quite true and blatant; what's not so apparent though is that cars and motorbikes aren't much better; short of being armored as humorously noted above; a one pound rock tossed at a vehicle driving at any speed at all will go right through the glass and smush the bones of the occupant. Basically, if we're in a lawless period, travel becomes exceptionally dangerous, regardless of means. Personally, I'm going on foot, looking like the poorest of the poorest; if I have to travel at all, which I wouldn't do unless life depended on it.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby PrestonSturges » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 18:34:06

pstarr wrote:The lesson is not that the Vietcong were over- or under armed, but rather the USA's inability to understand their adversaries. Sure America had more awesome up-to-date military hardware but that mattered little in the jungles and hamlets of S. Vietnam. We were fighting for the hearts and minds of the people but used the wrong weapons--weapons. Should have bombed them with toys. Same in Afghanistan. We want their hearts and minds? Give them mosques.Our forces should be building mosques everywhere for everybody. Why do we have to kill them? In Iraq we could simply own the oil infrastructure with our AWACs and drones. Let the locals argue about the date palms.

We go to these countries and spend so much money blowing stuff up that for the same amount of money we could have given every family a new house and a bicycle.

And rather than sending contractors, we should bury them under tar paper, plywood, sheet tin, insulation, and nails. They're resourceful, they'll figure out what they want.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby AgentR11 » Fri 30 Mar 2012, 18:38:32

Bah! The fluttering of the sheet tin falling would mess up the guncam video. Can't do a sales pitchcongressional hearing without the guncam video, no?
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Beery1 » Sat 31 Mar 2012, 10:58:39

pstarr wrote:Drape the bike in reactive armor


Which illustrates the disconnect very well - Americans only seem to be able to see war as a problem to be solved using technology. Clearly the mindset that lost the Vietnam war is still with us. As George Santayana said: "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Beery1 » Sat 31 Mar 2012, 11:02:53

AgentR11 wrote:Now, about vulnerability and cycling, its quite true and blatant; what's not so apparent though is that cars and motorbikes aren't much better...


Good point. People often say that cyclists are vulnerable, even though in terms of lifetime risk, cycling is twice as safe as driving. While it's true that a cyclist would be crushed if an out-of-control 18-wheeler ran over him, the same is true of an SUV driver. Airbags and a steel cage perform the same function as a cyclist's helmet - they mitigate minor collision damage. In a severe collision, airbags are useless and the cage crushes you.

People tend to vastly underestimate the vulnerability of cars, which probably has something to do with why so many people die in them.
Last edited by Beery1 on Sat 31 Mar 2012, 11:19:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Beery1 » Sat 31 Mar 2012, 11:13:00

pstarr wrote:America is a huge frigid, scotching, hilly, place with over 300 million people crammed into giant suburban sprawls. And 1,000 miles from their food and resources. This ain't Tuscany. Few will have the luxury of biking to anything but the next food line.


I live 10 miles from a major city and 10 miles from arable land. Anyone who believes that peak oil will result in food scarcity, and who lives 1000 miles from food and resources, is suicidal, unless they have already set themselves up on a farm and are producing much more food than they can eat.

Most US citizens live in a similar circumstance to mine. The US citizen who lives 1000 miles from resources is rare indeed. This ain't Tuscany; but neither is it the Antarctic.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Beery1 » Sat 31 Mar 2012, 13:36:03

Back in print - the revised version of The Bicycle in Wartime. I urge anyone who wants to know how underestimated the bicycle has been (and is likely to continue being) to read this book. It's the classic story of how the military has consistently misunderstood and underestimated the bicycle and failed to use it properly - and how those who did see its potential as a reconnaissance and load carrying tool have run rings around their supposedly better equipped and better supplied enemies.

Also, for those who might think it's just that I'm a rabidly pro-bike nutcase, apparently, the Pentagon is filled with a bunch of pinko pro-bike nuts too. Here's the result of the bicycle's successful use between WW1 and the beginning of America's involvement in Vietnam: Bicycle Troops. The Pentagon's official report (expanded and revised) on how the bicycle can be successful and how it should be used in wartime. Sadly, although analysts may have taken the bicycle seriously, the generals once again failed to appreciate them.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby Lore » Sat 31 Mar 2012, 22:42:28

Actually it's the analysts duty to try everything, even if it's an old thing.

To my understanding the primary use of bicycles during previous wartime was for courier duty, or for limited transport of troops from one field of action to another. Most of which was quickly superseded by motorized vehicles.

Although this is all an interesting side note, I really don't see how any of it is relevant to the difficulties and practical use of the bicycle in every day use on roads post peak.
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Re: Roads Post Peak

Unread postby sparky » Sun 08 Apr 2012, 01:51:27

.
Not quite ,courier duty was by motorcycle as soon as they were available, much faster .
bicycle troops were used by the Vietcong , the North Vietnamese ,the Tamil tigers and the Swiss army
this last organization replaced its 1905 model , MO 05 , by a brand new model the MO 93

the MO05 was a monstrous beast with massive weigh , and no gears to handle the mountain
the boys in the Swiss troops had most excellent legs , much famed by the ladies

bicycles allow an increased range and speed of deployment for light infantry

Sadly , in the same vein , the French army terminated its courier pigeon corps a few years back

Army are used to disasters and plan for the worst case ,
they do not assume that fuel ( or radio contact ) will always be available.
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