Why bicycles are better than cars in the apocalypse
When the world starts burning down in front of you, the last thing you want is to be stuck in traffic, idling away your expensive gasoline, waiting for the fallout to reach your rear tires. Running around doesn't seem like a good idea either. Unless you're the star of the treadmill, running around the wasteland trying to haul gear, supplies and foraged foods in your very expensive military grade backpack, you're going to need a functional set of wheels. Combustion powered vehicles are out because the simple fact is, there won't be any gasoline to go around. Sure you could run your own diesel fuel lab in the backyard but eventually even the sunflower oil will be gone and pressing new oil is just a waste of precious resources that are better used as sustenance rather than propellant. Every apocalypse-preppers wet dream is running around through the wasteland on a tricked out motorcycle or a zombie ready truck but the reality is much less appealing and sexy than looking bad-ass and loud on a Harley with a shotgun on your back, it's looking nerdy but quiet riding a transporter bicycle filled to the brim with supplies back to your base.
When SHTF, there won't be any open roads
In these types of situations a bicycle will undoubtedly be faster than a car. Sure a motorcycle is faster and can weave through traffic like a mechanical parkour athlete. But even motorcycles need to fill up on gasoline eventually.
The real issue: gasoline
Imagine prepping for so long you're absolutely prepared for everything. Your doomsday bunker is fully stocked, you have a complete off-grid power system and your ungodly huge ram-van is completely tricked out with wheel spikes, armor on the windows and a big ass over-tuned engine. Then the apocalypse happens and from one day to the other every gas station within reasonable reach has been emptied out.. But you've prepared of course! Every time you've filled up your gas guzzling wasteland machine you've filled up jerrycans for this exact moment! Sadly your gasoline has an expiry date on it. And your giant survive-all vehicle is a thirsty fellah.
Gasoline is going to be extremely scarce and without a capitalistic machine behind you refining it, it's going to dry out eventually, probably sooner than later. Then you'll have a five ton piece of metal standing around and rusting away. That's the sad truth. But what about diesel? Technically the same issue. Old diesel engines are very happy to take any combustible oil you can find laying around, but eventually even the McDonald's grease traps will be emptied out.
Making your own gasoline is a waste of resources
Sure, you could harvest a field of corn or sugar beets, painstakingly turn it into alcohol and run your gas powered explosion engine on it (most cars should run fine on 70% ethanol) but what are you going to eat? Making your own propellant in an apocalyptic wasteland is a huge, huge waste of resources. Most common used vegetable oils that can be turned into diesel or ethanol started out their life as perfectly nutritional foodstuffs. Think about corn, sunflower seeds, sugar beets and such. It makes more sense to dry out and preserve a field of corn or sunflower seeds to provide calories than to turn it into a measly amount of fuel.
Don't forget about the maintenance
In a world where everything new is made to break, cars are no different. Even the oldest most sturdiest cars will eventually brake down and it always happens at the wrong time. Apart from the fact that most modern cars are basically rolling computers with gas explosion engines inside of them, the amount of yearly maintenance should be enough to deter any wasteland dweller of wanting to sink precious time and resources in a vehicle more hungry than most
survivors.
Unless you know what you're doing, there won't be anyone to help either. Plus the fact that even the simplest car can require serious tools to maintain, the answers pretty clear. You need a back-up vehicle for your doomsday-machine.
Electric cars as an Apocalypse vehicle
Before you think I'm completely shitting on the EV: out of everything with four wheels, the electric car is honestly the least bad option. You can recharge it off your own solar setup, no refining industry required, and in some cars the battery can even pull double duty as a house battery, powering your fridge and your lights while it sits in the driveway. Bonus points for simplicity too: with far fewer moving parts than a combustion engine, there's simply less shit to break, and if you really know what you're doing, you can even repurpose the cells into a DIY powerwall.
But the same wasteland problems apply, and then some. Tires wear out no matter what powers the car, and when something eventually breaks, you're not fixing a modern EV with a socket set and a can-do attitude. Specialty tools, specialty parts, good luck. And here's the real kicker: unless you're rolling a barebones electric truck, the EV is the most digitized vehicle on the market. Some of these things literally need an app and an internet connection to even get off the driveway. No grid, no internet, no car. The most impressive battery in the world means jack shit when the vehicle it's bolted into is waiting for a server that no longer exists to tell it "yes, you may drive."
Meanwhile, a bicycle runs on the one fuel you'll actually still have: the food in your belly.
Bicycles are easy to maintain and parts are interchangeable
A bicycle has roughly three moving parts that matter: the wheels, the crank and the chain. Everything on it can be fixed with a couple of basic wrenches, a screwdriver and a chain tool. You can learn to fully service a bike in an afternoon. Try saying that about a combustion engine. The more modern bicycles will have fluid brakes and electrical gear-switches, but even the most Neo/Cyberpunk digitized bicycle can be stripped and re-built with good old-fashioned and simple parts.
Bicycle parts are also very standardized. Chains, cables, brake pads, inner tubes, bearings and bolts from completely different brands and ages often fit together just fine. There are literally millions of abandoned bicycles out there, which means the wasteland is one giant free parts warehouse. One donor bike can keep your ride alive for years. Where a car might need a specific part to be functional again, a bike just needs... bike parts.
Bicycles can go off road more easily than a car
When the road infrastructure is a parking lot, your vehicle's top speed becomes completely irrelevant. So the dirt roads, grasslands and back-country shortcuts will most likely be the way to get from point A to point B in an apocalyptic wasteland. Truth be told, taking a car off-road is a lot of fun and in general will do just fine. But once your four thousand kilogram truck gets stuck in some mud, you might be screwed.
A bicycle doesn't give a shit. Forest paths, fields, dikes, riverbanks, railroad tracks, a gap between two gridlocked trucks, down a staircase in a pinch. You can haul your bike over a fallen tree, carry it across a shallow river and ride on. Even if your bike gets stuck in the mud, it's usually not for long. Bicycle parts and tools are also small, light and easy to carry. So a puncture, broken chain or loose bolt is easily and most importantly quickly resolved.
Transporter bicycles can easily carry over 100kg
your dog, your whole damn loadout.
With front loaders, longtails and trailers, you can configure a cargo setup that hauls more than you could physically carry in ten backpacks. And since the weight sits low over the axle or on the frame instead of on your spine, you're not destroying your back while doing it. In a survival scenario, your ability to move goods efficiently is key to survival. 100kg of supplies moved per trip, powered by sandwiches., sounds like a good deal to me.
Bicycles are quiet
In an environment without civilization, noise kills. A roaring engine is a dinner bell for every desperate, dangerous or plain bored survivor within a few kilometers of your location. It announces "I have fuel! I have supplies! I have things you want and I can't hear you coming!" Congratulations, you've just rang your own dinner bell for others to come and feast.
A bicycle is simply quiet. The loudest thing about it is some mechanical noise and your own breathing. Sounds that won't travel as far as the rumbles of an engine will. Even EV's, although deadly silent, have the distinctive sound of rubber rolling over the road. With a bicycle you can slip through and past trouble without a single soul knowing you were there. In a world where staying unnoticed is staying alive, silence is your best piece of equipment.
Bicycles take up less space and are easily concealed
That armored van of yours? Everyone can see it. From far away. Everyone knows it contains something worth stealing, and it can't exactly hide behind a bush. You'll need a garage, a fortified compound or a truck load of camo to park it anywhere.
A bicycle takes up about as much space as, well, a bicycle. Lean it against a tree, throw a tarp over it, wheel it inside your shelter, stash it in a ditch or slide it under some bushes and it's effectively invisible. If you need to bug out through an area you'd rather not cross with a vehicle, you can carry or push the bike, or stash it and come back for it. Try doing that with a F-350.
Bicycle parts on their part also take up significantly less space than car parts do. You can easily store a lifetime supply of inner tubes, outer tubes, gears, chains, lube, tools, even whole bike frames. Image the amount of space a small car takes up in the garage, now fill that space up with spare parts. Are you starting to see what I mean?
To summarize why you need a bicycle in the apocalypse
under a tarp when you're done. Every problem the apocalypse throws at motorized vehicles, the bicycle simply doesn't have.
The apocalypse won't be won by whoever has the biggest engine, the loudest exhaust or the most wheel spikes. It'll be won by whoever can keep moving, quietly, sustainably and indefinitely, long after the last jerrycan has gone stale and the last EV has bricked itself. The guy on the transporter bicycle isn't the nerd of the wasteland. He's the guy who eats next winter.