Episode 16: Bicycles As A Prep

We examine the often overlooked but vital prep, the common bicycle.

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Transcript

spk_1:   0:00
Oh, this is spice.

spk_0:   0:01
It's a salty welcome to another episode of the three B Y podcast in honor of being in Iowa today, the Midwest bicycle capital. We're going to talk about

spk_1:   0:13
bicycles as preps.

spk_0:   0:15
I've often shocked to people who overlooked the power of the ubiquitous bicycle as a prep. It just it amazes me, in fact, the situation where people will be building bug out bags. I'm not opposed to bug out back. Obviously, you know, they talk about spending all this time building a bug out bag. Did you care? Put on your back and then you slowly walk somewhere when, At the same time what you could do is build a bug out bag, put it on a bicycle so you don't have to carry the dumb thing and get there in 1/4 of the time

spk_1:   0:57
on the why bother. Entry bicycles are the single most efficient machine ever devised. That's human powered for getting people and some loads from point A to point B, with fewest calories in the highest speed.

spk_0:   1:13
Yeah, I mean, bicycles are great and we're gonna go over, you know, obviously you know people, everybody else by speed from got one of your garage and frankly, there's a good chance you don't write it and we're gonna talk about that. It's

spk_1:   1:27
also a good chance it doesn't fit you

spk_0:   1:29
very good chance it doesn't fit you. If you don't write it, it probably doesn't fit you. So let's go. Let's just briefly get into bicycles themselves and their usefulness as a prep. So we have. We have two kinds of bicycles in our house. We have bicycles that we can use his preps, and we have bicycles that are we love to ride but are totally an entirely useless of the problem.

spk_1:   1:54
My road bike, not a preppers

spk_0:   1:57
machine. It's a truck, but down Wst Woman specific design It's It's

spk_1:   2:04
a road bike.

spk_0:   2:05
It's road bike. 6 50 wheels fast, fast, fast, good climb like a goat.

spk_1:   2:11
Small, fast, delicate. It wouldn't be incredibly sturdy. No good to ride on a wait and has terrible traction on bad roads, wet roads and impossible on gravel. All those things make it a bad prep. Actually have used it as a prep. Once my car refused to go salty is car was off with salty. I had to get to work okay, I can ride the bicycle as a prop to work, and that was fine.

spk_0:   2:43
Works about first studio works. Ah, a two lane highway about 25 miles for her to get to work. And, uh, we don't normally right on that highway because it's very narrow and lots of hills, and it's very difficult to see. Just you don't feel safe riding on that particular road. So that's not an everyday ride, for we have roads we ride on, but they're blocking traffic.

spk_1:   3:08
The last time I got run off that road by a car is going to be the last time I got run off that road by a car. The biggest problem for me is not the hills and not the road itself. It's It's one of those roads where drivers feel entitled to not have to slow down, so they'll do anything to avoid having to slow down until they can pass safely.

spk_0:   3:30
We haven't we have another road nearer tea leaves. Our town goes a different direction. That is great for basically, you look very, very hilly. And even though those tight turns, because everybody in town uses that as the road they walk on on the road they bicycle on. It goes out to a new area where people are used to seeing cyclists

spk_1:   3:52
and lots of farmers with slow equipment, which requires the same sort of driving.

spk_0:   3:56
So

spk_1:   3:57
roads often used by farmers or good roads for cycling often.

spk_0:   4:00
So, yeah, we're good shape on that was forest echoes, but as a prep, not so much. Now I have a bicycle that that I bought because well, first of all, I've always wanted a trike, an adult trike. I've always wanted one, and I bought a Werksman brand on leave. I had to tell a brand because they're very well made Werksman brand industrial tricycle. And this tricycle has a no overall weight limit of it can carry £500. I know I'm a big guy. I'll wait £500 away. We're near £500. You put you know as much is that? I mean, you put as much as you stop on this on this tricycle on it, and he won't squad it. They won't do anything to it's designed for it. So we got that is perfect. We got a situation where you have to haul water we can haul water, we go the grocery store. Parker. She's in the back of it if the grocery store happens to be not a real grocery store, but you have to go pick up stuff from somebody's house anywhere around, we can go do that on the bicycle or the tricycle.

spk_1:   5:04
In the unlikely event we had to do more larger scale planting outside of town, you could put a bunch seat in that sucker and your water jug for the day and a couple tools and be able to get out there four times as fast. And with the quarter of the work as everyone else,

spk_0:   5:20
you could actually set a supper, me and her, both on the on the tricycle and take it somewhere. So we got this. We've also got each of us has at least one I think I actually have to. She has one loaded touring bikes. What a loaded touring bike is. His bicycle made. You see the people doing the cross country tours with the pan years on the front, the pain years on the back, and that's a loaded turn back. That's actually my regular bike. That's when I ride on a big guy and I like to have a really solid bike on me.

spk_1:   5:53
Pan years being the big side pockets, you attached the rails and the hang one on each side of the bicycle over the front or the rear tires that could hold a decent amount of weight. And they are nicely balanced.

spk_0:   6:06
So yeah, we do those. And to me, that bicycle, right? Get we just describe a touring bike is the answer to live. I got back now. They haven't. You could get in different kinds of touring bikes. It was like we have what your road based but you can get also get on all terrain based touring bike, which is much more of a mountain type bicycle. It isn't truly a mountain bike. You're not gonna go single tracking with it.

spk_1:   6:37
They don't know that is some. We're

spk_0:   6:39
not going to go down off those Harry crazy trails of Moab or you're gonna be hocking yourself off the side of a mountain with it's not a downhill bike. You're not gonna be making big leaps and jumps with which you can go on some pretty remote trails with this bicycle and I'm gonna tell you. It's just so much, even if you have to push it. It's so much easier pushing a load on a bicycle and letting the bicycle carry the weight than it is to carry the weight on your back.

spk_1:   7:08
That's how the Vietnamese supplied the, uh, North Vietnamese army through most of the Vietnamese war is trains of guys with bicycles carrying munitions and things over the mountains. The

spk_0:   7:19
Ho Chin Minh Trail was a bicycle path, you know, even though they didn't write it most of time to their bicycles were so loaded, they're using it. The bicycle as a cart. So whenever I see people talking about their bug out bags, I I could understand, you know, doing it. Get home bag, keeping your car. We keep one of those way. Keep a three day get home type bag in our cars. I get that something. It's easy to carry. But if you're gonna bug out, bug out. Why would you bug out and limit yourself what you can carry so on your back when you can actually take a lot more vital stuff? Important stuff put on your bicycle? I don't know. I don't understand the the lack of the inclusion of the simple bicycle in most people's property plans.

spk_1:   8:10
So here's the biggest difference I see between why my road bike is not a prop, and my touring bike is not even though they're both basically built for riding on the road. The touring bike is a heck of a lot more starting. Downside of that is it weighs more, but it's gonna weigh more because it's a lot more sturdy. It's got wider tyres so it can handle a lot more types of road surfaces. It handles bad road surface is much better, and you could put knobby tires and things on it, so it doesn't matter if it's rain. I've written it in a little bit of sleet or gunk on the road, which is dicey, but it's much more workable with that kind of tire. It's okay in mud, but mostly it's about being okay and gravel roads, or when you run into a little drunk. One big improvement of bicycles over automobiles when you're using it to try and get from one place to another in an emergency situation is if there is one of these bridges out over the little bitty streams I have before I had to get somewhere. You pick up the bicycle, put it on your shoulder, walk in and out of the little stream. It's not much fun, but that is entirely impassable in a car. So you got sturdiness. You want the wider tyres. You want a frame that you can attach racks to and hang the pain years from, because that's a much better balanced and workable way to carry a weight on a bicycle, trying to do it with the weight on your back. You're a lot more likely to tip over because the center of gravity is way too high. Um,

spk_0:   9:52
one of the things that we did when we looked at our at finding the place we knew we were gonna find some place next door to where we lived. We didn't want someplace right next door where we live because of me, it's not, you know, we wanted a little a little distance, but delimiting thing on the place. Waas. It had to be easily within a day's ride or less on a bicycle, and even though it's not right next door, it's easily within a day's ride. Not even not even a day's ride from where we if you're fully loaded, it might possibly be a day's ride. But we've written twice a SW far, three times as far in a day. My personal best is 100 and 27 miles in a day, and hers is 100 a

spk_1:   10:50
167. I remember because I felt, um, all

spk_0:   10:53
167 miles in today, it's hers. Yeah, that's a whole different story that we're not really telling the podcast, but they didn't go 167 miles in today.

spk_1:   11:02
You don't have to be an uber cyclist for this to be useful for, You know, these are useful for getting around town, either when cars aren't working or parking isn't available or there's no gas or there's been any M P that's fried the electronics. It's very useful short distance transportation for all those purposes.

spk_0:   11:25
Now we're not. There's a 1,000,000,000 resource is on bicycles on the net, so we're not going to really go into that. But what we are going to do, we're gonna talk about two things that I think every prepper who's serious about using a bicycle should pay attention to

spk_1:   11:42
Which tree did you have in mind?

spk_0:   11:44
The bicycle needs to be one off good quality and two it needs. And this is the more important to it needs to fit you.

spk_1:   11:58
Okay, We're gonna talk about three things eventually. But hit those two first

spk_0:   12:01
one, it needs to be of good quality. You could go to Walley World and you can go to target. And you can buy a $60 bicycle. If all you're gonna do is tool around your neighborhood, you might get by with it, especially if you're five foot seven anyway, £160.

spk_1:   12:23
Because that's who they're designed for.

spk_0:   12:25
Exactly. But if you're not five foot seven and the veto weigh £160 those bicycle are not going to fit you so. And also those $60 bicycles are a joke. Absolutely junk. The wheels don't hold up, they rust. They're just thrown together in China. Just don't do that. If you're serious about using a bicycle as a prep, you don't have to spend a ton of money. You could end up with a heavy bicycle, but one that's a good quality. Um, bicycle designer and former race or Keith Bontrager famously said, When it comes to bicycle design, light sheep strong pick too because you don't get three, you don't get three if you're a prepper. Cheap of strong is what you go for because you don't really need light because you're gonna use it to.

spk_1:   13:29
If you haven't bicycled a lot, let me tell you, a big man will, or somebody carrying loads on a bike will lose spokes off the wheels and lose bottom brackets, which is where the pedals attached to the bike more often than you would guess. Yes, salty has gone through lots and lots of both of those pieces. Learning this

spk_0:   13:51
I'm a big piece

spk_1:   13:51
of information. And I being a much smaller individual, have gone through precisely none of either.

spk_0:   13:58
Yeah, I got through bottom, right. My my legs are pretty powerful. So I go through bottom brackets a lot. In fact, I actually went to the bike store several years ago and because I have always had trouble with wheels because I write hard I hip hop. Hola, Papa spoken so with the bikes for several years ago. I told you. Okay, I don't care about the money. I don't care how heavy they are, but I want a set of wheels where only two things on this planet survive the apocalypse. One is cockroaches because you can't do anything about them. And two is this set of wheels you're gonna build for me. That's how strong I want them. Because I'm a big guy and I need to carry a load. It's got to be strong.

spk_1:   14:50
I personally think of those as his cockroach wheels. But oddly enough, they fit his loaded touring bike almost as if we had a plan,

spk_0:   14:58
almost as if we had a plan.

spk_1:   15:00
And I

spk_0:   15:00
don't want to be able to drop 152 £100 on that bicycle and not have my wheel explode.

spk_1:   15:05
And while you're at it buying a good bike bye at an extra set or two of the consumables you're gonna need

spk_0:   15:13
Oh, yeah, and carry on with you.

spk_1:   15:17
Tools, spare tubes,

spk_0:   15:20
spare tubes, patch kids.

spk_1:   15:22
Yeah. Uh,

spk_0:   15:25
well, go ahead and admit that we write our bike in the summer quite a bit on the Katy trail. Okay, we do. We're in Missouri, Missouri. It's picture goes halfway across. Almost always.

spk_1:   15:37
It's a gravel rail. trail. It's

spk_0:   15:39
a gravel rail trail, recreational trail, and, uh, you talk about people who you could tell people who aren't preppers. Uh, I carry extra bottles of water and I carry them with me because I put them in the pan year of the bicycle. I take Carrie actually sealed water, water bottles, and they're not for me. They're for people I see on the trail who are halfway between two towns. These towns are 8 to 10 miles apart, but it's a pretty good walk in the summer when it's hot. Who didn't think to bring water?

spk_1:   16:18
Oreo past the people who are standing there looking hopelessly at a bike with a flat tire because they have the sort of wheels that require a wrench to get off. They don't have the wrench, they don't have a spare tube, they don't have a pump.

spk_0:   16:30
And they want to know how your heart is. The town.

spk_1:   16:32
Yeah, it's a very long walk for you, and there's a mosquito infested swamp along your way. So sorry for you. Yeah, some of those people we can help with our spares, but not all of our stuff fits generic. Katy Trail Bike you might run across. So have spare consumables,

spk_0:   16:51
air all the tools attempted to get the tires off

spk_1:   16:54
spare links for chains. So if you break a chain, you have the means to fix a chain. I know how to do that. Have ah, Luke for the chain because you're gonna want to keep the equipment good shape. You didn't need a lot of that. All that stuff takes not much money and not much space. But it will make a considerable difference if you end up having to use the bicycle for an extended period of time.

spk_0:   17:19
So my advice is, if you've got a bike in the garage and you just don't write it because it doesn't fit, then you can consider that to be a push a ble real barrel type thing that you can rig racks to prepping wise. But if it were me, I just get rid of it. Get yourself a decent bike. They're decent bike. Something like a hybrid bike that can have a back rack. You can get these bikes for a couple $300 at a bike shop that fits you. Certainly less than $500.

spk_1:   17:57
Hybrid bikes are sometimes called disease bikes because a lot of people use them on charity rides to benefit various diseases like the infamous M. S 1 50 right rides. They are hybrid between something you'd use out on the trails and a road bike. They're kind of ah, gravel road bike or rough pavement kind of bike. They're good answer is a fight.

spk_0:   18:25
I use one of them as my around the town bike.

spk_1:   18:27
We'll make sure you've got one that's got the attachment points so you could put Iraq on it and actually have around

spk_0:   18:34
Just put it back on the lever. It's

spk_1:   18:36
much more balanced that way. If you've got a kid, you need to carry around. Make sure you've got the right kind of bike trailer.

spk_0:   18:43
Yes, trailers are great to have. Anyway, Even if you don't have a kid, who did you haul stuff in them?

spk_1:   18:49
That would be one of our Perhaps if we didn't have the truck.

spk_0:   18:52
Yeah, it still might be one of our perhaps one of these days.

spk_1:   18:54
Sure, because I don't

spk_0:   18:55
Even if you're planning to bug out into the wilderness, you could still use a bike. Trevor, look up, Bob B o B bike trailers. They make my Bob bike trailers for mountain bikes for a single track, mountain biking for you know everything but hocking yourself off the side of a mountain. And, yes, there are people who do that.

spk_1:   19:15
I haven't actually gotten one yet for the far corners of the place, but I have seriously considered it because it's a way to get my tools to places where the pickup truck or whatever won't go.

spk_0:   19:26
So we just wanted to give you a heads up on bicycles. Is there anything else you want?

spk_1:   19:30
Dad? Yeah, I know how to write it and make sure it fits. You

spk_0:   19:34
make sure it fits. You

spk_1:   19:36
actually can't ride a bike. It's not much of a problem.

spk_0:   19:39
We didn't really go into how to fit a bicycle. We know how to do it, but it's a whole big long subject. There's there's there's a zillion YouTube videos on it. If you want to try and do it yourself,

spk_1:   19:55
goto a bike shop, but

spk_0:   19:56
goto bike, shop, even Google bike shopping and get fit. Even if you don't buy the bike, let me charge a little bit for the fitting, but get fit.

spk_1:   20:04
They'll show you how to fit the bike.

spk_0:   20:06
Exactly. And then get an idea of what you want. You watch Craigslist for good bike. Good. Let me give you a couple names, a few names, brand names that really like,

spk_1:   20:15
but are in no way financially associated with other than we've given the money,

spk_0:   20:19
right? Um, some good names are specialized. Giant. She rides a giant all the time. Um, there are two types of Schwinn. They're the type of Schwinn that they haven't. Wal Mart. And then there's the type of swim they have a bike, stores, They're different bikes. They have the same name, but they're completely different bikes. And here's how you can tell the difference between the two. The sh wins they sell at Wal Mart, coming one size. If the Schwinn that they sell it, the bikes for comes in multiple sizes. It's the better quality. They're not made in the same factory. That the same name on him. The swim name got bought out by up six bicycles years and years and years ago. And they're the same people that make Murray and coffee and a lot of the other. You know, junk bike aims at that Wally World in other places like that spent, so they're they're horrible bikes. So Schwinn, if it comes through a bike store if it comes in multiple sizes, is a good bike. Track is a good bike. Raleigh. If you can find him anymore, I don't know if they're still being made, but you see a lot of Raleigh's in the used market, especially if you could find an older Rollie there last forever. Her porch bikes when she rides around town is a Raleigh, and it's it's our duty as a rental bike on the Katy Katy Trail for 10 years before she bought it.

spk_1:   21:47
It's hard service, right? They're being looked out. Kids,

spk_0:   21:50
dust and dirt. People don't care about him. And so

spk_1:   21:54
bonus wouldn't you, your lord, and to ride your bike and getting comfortable with using it as a prep, you're improving your health, and that is a significant value prep. We will spend more time on a later podcast,

spk_0:   22:08
so we're gonna go that we're gonna do a lot of health stuff in the future. So there you go, bicycle. Think about it. Consider it. Start looking around. Summer is the time to buy cried. It's fun, and it's something the whole family could do together. So

spk_1:   22:23
and to teach us self reliance.

spk_0:   22:25
And it's good for your kids, too. That's right, and it's a good thing to work on with them, teaching them out and changed tires and stuff like that and do for themselves. So she thumbs up on bicycles and then we're gonna call this podcast and

spk_1:   22:40
have a lovely day. See

spk_0:   22:41
you next time.