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.

  • CanadaPlus
    2·
    8 小时前

    The reason I brought up riveting is because you can do it with basic hand tools (and an open fire for hot riveting). If some kind of welding would work, yeah, do it the normal way. You aren’t going to have propane, though, and insulating gasses might require some ingenuity.

    If you can hand file a bearing that runs reasonably smooth, I’m impressed as hell. Definitely somebody can - the first lathe got made somehow - but it’s definitely not me.

    Wood might be an option, and bamboo seems like it would be a decent option. Once you’re talking wooden sprockets and chains, I’m guessing your going to end up with a pedal wagon more than a bike, though, because it’s going to be pretty heavy.

    • grue@lemmy.world
      2·
      7 小时前

      The reason I brought up riveting is because you can do it with basic hand tools. If some kind of welding would work, yeah, do it the normal way. You aren’t going to have propane, though, and insulating gasses might require some ingenuity.

      Nobody rivets a bike frame because it’s made out of hollow tubes and rivets are designed to pinch flat things together. Rivets are just the wrong tool for the job.

      Of the metal-melting joining methods, I guess brazing is probably the most low-tech. Maybe propane would be a problem and you’d have to use some other fuel instead (maybe wood gas?), but it’s been a thing since 3000 BC so I’m sure an enterprising person could figure some solution out.

      Alternatively, the flux coating on a stick welding rod is apparently made mostly of cellulose, which is less exotic than I expected.

      If you can hand file a bearing that runs reasonably smooth, I’m impressed as hell. Definitely somebody can - the first lathe got made somehow - but it’s definitely not me.

      Behold, a lathe:

      This stuff isn’t as high-tech as you think.

      But never mind that; depending on what scenario we’re talking about it seems likely some machine tools would survive (e.g. in rural areas, maybe), so the trick would be to find one and get it running.

      Once you’re talking wooden sprockets and chains,

      I am not. I’m talking about, say, salvaging sheet metal from abandoned cars and stamping chain links out of that. Nobody wants a wooden chain; if you’re that hard-up, you’d probably be better off trying to go for a belt drive or shaft drive. Or hell, even a penny-farthing!