We Are In The Post Oil Disaster, Since 1970

I think the rational answer to the current ongoing Peak Oil disaster is the following:
1) Victory Gardens.
2) Solar powered water heaters and fridge battery backup.
3) Bicycles
4) Local job you can get to by bicycle
5) No debts
6) Deep pantry
7) Community ties helping your neighbors do 1-6 so blackouts and gas rationing doesn't make them break the law on their neighbors.

Those who have the knowledge (land, and water too) should do the homesteading and vegetable farms, selling to local farmers markets in town or wholesalers if you don't mind losing the profits. Milk, cheese, eggs, wool, these are good local crops that sell for a premium right now. Someday there will be so much competition the profits from "organic" will vanish. Everybody will be doing organic. Pesticides are from oil. Oil is going away. Do the math.

Someday soon we'll all be eating a lot of eggs for primary protein, but primary carbs are often grown large scale and delivered by truck or train (rice, wheat, potatoes, even corn). Mechanization, even post oil, is efficient for those crops. Not for veggies. Local veggies are key because they make the imported carbs taste better and less bland, so you don't lose your appetite out of boredom.

Finally, people need to bicycle at least once a week. Everybody should. Get used to it, keep your strength up. Adjust and kit out the bike so everything fits and works and is comfortable. Someday getting spare parts will be difficult, expensive, or impossible. Do the maintenance yourself so you know how, and see where its wearing out, and what must be done to maintain it. If you wait longer, you'll learn it for a lot more expense. Eventually fixing up your bicycle is something everyone will do, like mowing their lawn on Saturday used to be. Since we won't have lawns (in the West) and replace that with veggies, the really big thing will be solar powered water pumps and drip irrigation. Saves a ton of time compared to a water bucket.

Give serious thought to how you'll store your gasoline ration, and how to keep the fumes from blowing up your garage when your water heater pilot light turns on. That would be bad. And probably fatal. Figure out and decide whether you can get groceries via car once a week, or if you need to mount a basket or panniers to carry them by bike instead. Or even a trailer. I have seen folks with small cars mounting smaller trailers for things like building supplies (concrete, lumber, dirt, appliances). It is cheaper than dealing with the poor fuel economy of a truck, you just need space to store the trailer. And know how to drive a trailer. Less obvious than it sounds. There's a lot of dumb in this modern Nerf(tm) world. When it comes time to replace your water heater, make sure its got an electric immersion heater loop that you can power via solar panel waste energy for when your batteries are charged up. This will save you a lot of power and make you feel more human. Cold showers are not fun. Hot showers = Civilized. You want that. Especially after getting all sweaty riding your bicycle home from work.

Right now, bicycles are cheap, the cheapest they will ever be. In a few years, when gasoline rationing results from the current President's policies of offending the world (and OPEC), you will be riding a bicycle most of the time. You won't enjoy it if the bike fits badly, breaks down, or otherwise doesn't work right. The right handlebars, the right seat, the right pedals, and not too expensive either. Remember that it will almost certainly get stolen by someone desperate or mean so make sure you can replace it easily. Someone desperate enough to steal your bicycle is someone vicious enough to stab you with a screwdriver, so don't own a bike worth dying over. Maybe build a spare instead. Or save money for one. Bicycles will always get stolen. It's just their nature. They come with wheels, and battery powered cutoff saws mean they're never more than 120 seconds from freedom into someone else's hands. An expensive bike is just hubris. The gods have to punish you. Thus ride cheap but well maintained. Ugly/heavy bikes are stolen less often.

Right now, slick tires make you go faster (less rolling resistance). When the roads go, you'll want knobby tires. Have both. I also recommend wider wheels, not narrow ones. They absorb bumps better and because they're lower pressure also go flat less often. The increase in rolling resistance is SLIGHT, so you're about 1/2 mph slower, but since you're not stopping to fix a flat every few miles, you get there faster. That's years of experience, btw. Thank me later.

Enduro bike with street tires

If you have the money, see about getting an Enduro motorcycle with both kinds of tires (slicks for now, knobbies for later). Road repair was a nice upside of our temporary oil age. Those are going away again. No, I'm not joking. We're going back to gravel roads, and those overgrow fast if not maintained several times a year. They also rut and washout in rainstorms, thus the motorcycle. Enduros are just about impossible to get stuck. Worst to worst, you can lift them out of the mud with your hands. Can't do that with a jeep. A bicycle uses no fuel, so a mountain bike as a backup to the motorcycle is needed. Just a lot more work to get somewhere.

Enduro bikes have long suspensions and their exhaust pipe is up high so when they fall over, provided you get your leg out of the way, they won't be badly damaged or inoperable like your basic motorcycle is. Enduros come in 125, 200, 230, 250, 350, 400, 450, 600, 650cc engine models. Higher cc engines use more gas but are in turn usually quieter and have more torque to pull hills, require fewer gear changes. Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki make some of the most common models, but Honda has them too. KTM makes good ones, but they cost twice as much. I suggest getting used to save all that money for the upgrades and spare wheels/tires you can have mounted and balanced, ready to swap. Read up on it. Some knobbies have innertubes, and sometimes they also use a Mousse, which is a squishy foam pad inside the tire which won't go flat but can't be used on pavement or it overheats. Popular in the Dakar Rally, not sure how durable in the real world. Read up. Ignorance is no defense. After all, Nerf(tm) World is over. That was a fantasy of the 1990s, like Self Esteem based education. We can't afford that kind of nonsense anymore. Nowadays people die. Deal with it.

I really do think that we're at the tail end of the Oil Age, and even if there's no disasters, we're in Demand Destruction mode. Eventually, you will be the demand that's destroyed, probably by Federal or State mandatory rationing. Gotta keep fuel available for the Limousines, after all. They're BETTER THAN YOU. Just ask them. Ahem.