Sigh-Fi

Gotta fish them out of the canals first though.

This looks rad!

Oh man I haven't caught up on that in months, thanks for reminding me about it!!

Fuck it, you're the third person in here to do so. So I guess I'm watching it this weekend.

I came here to mention Dark Angel. That was one of the things that really sold that show for me. They made it seem so natural. The economy collapsed, so now a lot of people switched to bikes.

In post-apocalyptic films? I'd rather say the writers are too carbrained.

Bikes aren't great for tough terrain. They mostly require roads or paths. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland there would be a lot of those. But, the good thing that is that when the terrain isn't suitable for biking, you can get off and push the bike, or if truly necessary you can carry it. Meanwhile, if a highway is blocked and you're relying on a car, there's no way you're moving the car to the other side of the blockage.

The main benefit is that the parts are standard, maintenance is pretty easy, all the parts are sitting there, easily visible, so you can spot the problem and fix it. And if it's unfixable, it's pretty easy to swap for another part. Also, a bike with degraded parts still does a job. If you don't have working brakes, you can drag your feet. If you can't shift gears, you can just use the bike in whatever gear it's stuck in. If the wheel is dented, as long as it still rolls, you're probably ok. Pretty much the only things necessary are tires that aren't completely flat and a drive chain that has at least one working gear.

specifically mountain bikes.

• They use standard parts that you can find in an any abandoned bike store or department store

"Standard" in that there are multiple incompatible "standards" for wheels, hubs, chains, cranks, chainrings, shifters, derailleurs, derailleur hangers, brake mounts, brake fluid, handlebars, seat posts and probably 50 other things I've forgotten.

And department store bikes ignore most of those standards and do whatever is cheap.

• Zombies are also on bikes

No worries with blocked roads either. Can just squeeze through most gaps. In the worst case scenario just lift the bike over any cars.

If you've ever been to Mexico, one of the most common things you'll see is a shop with Vulcanizadora in big letters by the side of the highway. They're tire repair places that use the vulcanization process to cheaply repair tires.

You can also use the process in reverse to generate useful rubber from a used tire. In the modern world with global supply chains etc. most tire "recycling" is just burning the tires for energy. But, if it were important to get the rubber out because the post-apocalyptic world is short of rubber, that's entirely possible. It wouldn't be cheap or easy, and you wouldn't get anywhere near 100% of the rubber back. But, in a post-apocalyptic world there are bound to be mountains of used tires that you could feed into the process to get some new, fresh rubber.

I guess, but that would apply to cars and motorbikes just as much, if not moreso

This is what annoyed me about the recent Mad Max movies -- the brand-new knobby tires on every vehicle. I get that they were shot mostly with practical effects and needed good tires for safety, but it's just such a jarringly unrealistic element to a post-apocalyptic scenario. IIRC the original Mad Max had lots of shitty, bald tires because that's all they could actually afford.

I suppose you could probably create wooden wheels with hide leather treads.