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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 8:42 AM

    I just encountered #bikemaxxing as a phrase and am happy to peddle it.

    Bikes use a tiny fraction of the resources that go into a car: by weight relative to an average European car, in the region of 1/100th. With a human onboard they have an impact on the road surface that is by weight about 1/20th.

    As the oil economy descends into a pit of unaffordability in years to come, bikes will be a way to extend the use of roads. There will come a time where they are the most important mode of travel

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 8:47 AM

    …When oil affordability really drops off a cliff – and it will – bikes will suffer too. But because there is a lot less to maintain, and because they are mechanically simple, they’ll remain viable longer.

    For how long, who can say.

    But the age of the automobile is dying. It just doesn’t know it yet

    #bikemaxxing #bikeTooter

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 8:58 AM

    …Diesel is what the modern economy runs on. When there is heavy work to do, it’s done with diesel. The recent spikes in its price will be assumed to be a temporary blip precipitated by Donny Dumbfuck.

    But diesel production has probably peaked and is already in decline: mastodon.social/@urlyman/11633. Which means rationing of oil products is in our future. With that comes a contraction of every supply chain. Which means the cost of maintenance will rocket too.

    Less to maintain wins

    #bikemaxxing

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:09 AM

    …Diesel will become reserved for critical functions. Private diesel vehicles for road use (as opposed to farm equipment) will get written off. Gasoline cars will become prohibitively expensive.

    EVs will be expensive too, because the supply chains they rely upon are fossil-fuelled

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:11 AM

    …In the early 20th century, horses moved heavy shit, and produced a lot of shit doing it.

    But that was on the back of centuries of breeding horses to do it. Today, horses are a hobby and making hundreds of millions more of them again as draft animals will take a long time.

    Into the gap will step bicycles. Moving shit by bike will move from being viewed as ridiculous now to essential

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:19 AM

    …Governments won’t plan for this. And people certainly won’t vote for it, cos they LOVE CARS. But it or something like it will happen anyway.

    Because systems adapt to material conditions and then over time people say “Yeah, this is just normal”

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  • DavidSPionir@mastodon.online
    Sep 20, 2026, 7:44 PM

    @urlyman

    I agree but one thought - low tech big industrial diesel engines can run on very poor quality fuel (the main design requirement was to run on the left overs of coke from kilns iirc) so I can see alternatives being found like vegetable oil. Hopefully not causing a food shortage. Modern diesels found in private cars that need a quite refined fuel will as you say fall by the way side. That old Peugeot from the 70s will likely be converted to run on chip fat.

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:30 AM

    @fgbjr perhaps.

    Bikes require steel, which requires coal for the foreseeable future. The ‘rubber’ they need is these days mostly synthetic, which requires oil. The bitumen they like to roll over is an oil-ish product. It’s just they need a *lot* less of these things.

    Horses self-regenerate and self-repair and are adaptive to most terrains

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  • LovesTha🥧LovesTha@floss.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:37 AM

    @urlyman @fgbjr when the current amount of metal in a bike becomes a serious concern, wood/bamboo becomes viable.

    Yeah, we don't want to go metal free for the drivetrains, but that still let's us reduce the metal in a bike a lot.

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  • LovesTha🥧LovesTha@floss.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:45 AM

    @urlyman @fgbjr also, the steel all comes from coal, is not a fundamental truth. Just one driven by current prices.

    It will change, but so will the cost of steel.

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  • BimboBigTittyBimbo@autonomous.zone
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:41 AM

    @urlyman @fgbjr I can say with absolute confidence you do not need a bitumen road to have a comfy ride on a bike. Yes the issue of steel and tyres is unsolved in that assertion, but compacted gravel provides a very nice ride, and also allows for good drainage too

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  • EFEF@bsd.cafe
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:17 PM

    @urlyman plus with horses it would aid the fertiliser shortage. There are cargo biles but councils amd governments need to change [some/many] streets to being bike friendly keeping cars and lorries out inxluding deliveries, taxis and buses. Takes a lot of planning and a mind shift but do-able.

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  • LovesTha🥧LovesTha@floss.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:43 AM

    @urlyman we can replace a lot of diesel use with electricty. At least the vast majority of land based diesel use can be replaced that way.

    Those giant container ships are hard. Even then a lot of what they do can be changed to train when diesel is expensive enough. Sure, not China to the US, but a lot of current routes could be mostly by train.

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  • Davvadavva23@kolektiva.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:24 AM

    @urlyman
    Nice hashtag!

    When it comes to efficiency of energy and use of space the bicycle wins hands down over cars. I've not seen the 1/20th stat on road wear though.

    The only thing I've seen previously about road wear is the "Fourth Power Law". If it holds for bicycles, a 1000kg car causes 10000 than an 100kg bike and rider (if my math is right)
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_p

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  • Lukewlukewindsor@c.im
    Sep 20, 2026, 9:43 AM

    @urlyman this is why Mad Max is an entertaining fantasy/satire not a prediction - the future is bikes and it’s significant and telling that there are none in the mad max future timeline (to include them would dilute the commentary on gas-mania)

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 12:45 PM

    @camerontw interesting and thanks. Irrespective of how the maths actually shakes down (and I’ll dig out a counter narrative) it’s a good example of the monomania around carbon emissions.

    GHG overshoot is just one of many symptoms of the overshoot of Earth systems that sustain us.

    Current political and business culture is not remotely serious about the implications of carbon emissions, hence my focus above on affordability

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  • Theolodiantheolodian@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 10:53 AM

    @urlyman nice idea, great way to commit suicide in the UK unfortunately. Our next car will be an EV, but I don’t see ever being able to get rid of the car completely. We live in a city centre, it’s even worse in the countryside.

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 12:58 PM

    @theolodian I’ve cycled to get around for over 5 decades, in rural and urban settings, and I’m not dead yet.

    It doesn’t matter whether it’s a nice idea or not. The end of the carbon pulse will see something like these dynamics anyway

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  • Theolodiantheolodian@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 1:46 PM

    @urlyman I went to a cyclist’s funeral last year. I have never been to the funeral of a car driver. (As in being related to their passing.)

    Our gas heating is 5x the carbon of our total car miles, with a 2012 petrol car. An EV would bring our car miles to zero carbon long before it is safe to cycle around here.

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 2:37 PM

    @theolodian I’m not making an argument for what to do now. I’m suggesting how things will probably go materially.

    There are about 650 car occupant deaths per year in the UK, and about 80 cyclists. I grant you that per mile travelled cyclists are far more endangered, but there are many ways to die.

    As to zero carbon, that’s a falsehood. As I understand it, each car made, whether EV or ICE, puts about 4 tonnes of CO2 in the air just to come to market. For a bike, I guess it will be about 40kg

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  • Theolodiantheolodian@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 2:44 PM

    @urlyman I’m all for building cycling infrastructure, but it takes a long time.

    We plan to keep our car until it is 20 years old, barring any severe repairs required. Keeps that up front carbon cost down as much as possible.

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  • Theolodiantheolodian@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 2:48 PM

    @urlyman also, our kids aren’t really interested in driving. Nonetheless, they expect to need to get a license in order to have any career opportunities.

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  • Jonathan Schofieldurlyman@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 2:54 PM

    @theolodian that’s a reasonable short to medium term expectation. And I had to succumb to it aged 29 in 1993. Learning to drive was a condition of a job offer, because my bosses were car nuts. (I subsequently almost *never* drove for work 😆)

    I expect that by the time a 16-year-old is my age in 2072 there will be drastically fewer cars

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  • Theolodiantheolodian@mastodon.social
    Sep 20, 2026, 3:07 PM

    @urlyman these days graduate jobs don’t pay enough to move out of the family home. So if you want to get paid for that degree you also need a car.

    A lot of things will look very different in 50 years.

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  • EFEF@bsd.cafe
    Sep 20, 2026, 1:08 PM

    @urlyman impact is far less than 1/20 as it is not linear. Cars add acceloration, braking and cornering forces at heightened speeds. Bike also require far lighter infrastructure per kilo than vehicles with propulsion.

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  • EFEF@bsd.cafe
    Sep 20, 2026, 4:50 PM

    @urlyman @davva23 would think speed differences would increase the differemce further but 1/10,000 seems very reasonable.

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