Lore wrote:You must be thinking of a very robust after structure post peak. Most all bicycle parts are made in Asia. What use to be a $60 Derailleur may cost you 4 or 5 times that to import in real dollars, but guess what, you don't have that kind of money because the job you use to have has been gone now for many years. As for making it locally, those factories that have energy to manufacture, are busy making solar powered pumps by government mandate.
They are made in Asia because of cheap labor; there's nothing magical about the parts in a derailleur, freehub, bottom bracket, or wheelset. There are a half dozen machine shops within 15 miles of my home that could manufacture those parts, if it were profitable to do so. If the fancy tech is not available, then fixies will rule. There's no getting around the fact that people know how to make the parts to a fixed gear bike. There's no getting around tens of millions of serviceable frames already in existence.
That said, the chance of me not being able to afford shipping a small part from Asia in my lifetime is somewhere between miniscule and zero.
As to mandated manufacture of solar powered pumps????? Could you possibly pick a more inherently inefficient product to build? If so, I can't see it. If you need a pump, and can't drag grid electricity to it, you use wind to lift and gravity to feed. If we build solar, it'll be massive deployments in uninhabited zones, or scattered rooftop types feeding into the grid in urban zones. But using solar to specifically drive a pump???? Ultimate mismatch of capability.
Now, if you are suggesting there will be no international commerce, no shipping, no rail transport; we then are well into the 90%+ horrific die-off zone, zombies and all. NYC is closing in on 10 million people. Without rail and shipping, they die, no ifs, ands, or buts. If they die, walkable towns, bicycles, and building density will be so far down the list of priorities that people will forget the concept. Not to mention, that if the jobs are all gone, then there will be no currency based commerce, and no reason to even walk in town, because, you won't be buying anything or selling anything anyway.
nb... If no one else is making bike parts, and there exists commerce to the extent that towns are walkable and have a reason to exist, *I* will make them and sell them!! WOOT! POST PEAK PROFESSION! (somehow, I doubt we get that bad off, but if we do, there ya go!)