In The Post Oil World, We'll All Be Cyclists

Bicycles. Mountain bikes, specifically, are the future of the post-oil world.

Yes, we have oil left, expensive oil that will poison people to extract through Frakking methods. The Saudis dumped oil to drop the price and bankrupt the American frakking wildcatters. They buy up the companies, and the drilling leases with them, and when they stop the dumping, the Arabs end up owning our oil (for maximum irony), and control how much is pumped out, and the money goes to them, not us. And gets sold to the Chinese, not us. So kiss off your paved roads and get read to pedal on gravel. Get ready for knobby tires and dust and mud.

City streets of the future

Its hilarious to even consider a future with electric cars. There isn't enough lithium for any but the very rich to own them, and probably a lot of the lithium will be seized for military and emergency services use, not you and me. Even electric bicycles are unlikely. Biofuel powered scooters and motorcycles are more likely, but eventually even that won't be available, so you end up pedaling. Few parents want to imagine a future where their kids grow up to pedal a bicycle to work, if they have a job, because the communists won back when they were voting stupidly for greed and selfishness, in the narcissist's age (now).

Someday we'll be pedaling to the market. Someday we'll pedal everywhere. Even on vacation. Road trips will come with panniers, and various stops at good restaurants along our journey, like they do in the UK. We won't have much choice. It is pedal or walk.

The whining from the commuter cyclists who put themselves in the path of distracted drivers and are SHOCKED to be run over, rather than ride down the side street, all quiet and peaceful, and instead demand that OTHER people should be responsible for their own hubris. Yes, cyclists have human rights, but the only cure for stupid is death, and most commuter cyclists are Darwin Awards. They could be writing to the highway department requesting a bike path along the frontage road. That is safe. Have them build bridges and such to insure they connect properly through the various passes. You can't legally cross the Sierras on I-80 by bicycle, after all. There's no continuation roads in the critical places. Only a few miles, actually, but they ought to be built for the future. A road that's off away from the big trucks and speed demons. That's why I-40, which is a frontage over the Sierras through Old Donner Pass, covers MOST of the distance. Other parts were paved over and renamed as 80. Just finish the frontage. Make it legal for slow motor scooters too. With a 35 mph limit. That's sensible and slow enough. Of course, there's a number of roads from Blue Canyon west that need to be connected up, possibly following Bear River canyon. That's a region north and below I-80 which is insufficiently paved. It could use some housing developments too. Its interesting enough, since that's the origin of the US EPA, thanks to the damage of hydraulic mining there. The land is scarred. It could be turned into a park.

So take the ruin, put in some basic roads climbing up the canyon, hopefully paved, and sweep them every month by truck, so people can bike it, and be tourists across these mountains. If it lets slow scooters and bicycles, those will work fine. And have it stop at a couple of eateries along the way, though passing through Colfax and the rest of I-40 as it crosses Donner Pass has plenty of places to stop or stay the night. Campgrounds too. They have those every few miles through the pass. And in the future they will be quiet.

Why am I so sure the roads are going away? Asphalt is tar. Tar is oil. Oil is money. You don't pave the roads with money, when only 1% of the population are rich enough to own electric cars.

I suspect that towns will probably pave their own streets, minimally, and at great expense, probably with concrete for the most part. We have more natural gas, which is how you make concrete, and can't export it like oil. But outside of town? It will look like this.