Solarpunk Travel

In The Stand, one of the characters rode a motorcycle but then stopped because he kept having visions of crashing and dying alone in a ditch (there was also a bunch of other psychological trauma involved). He walks for hundreds of miles after ditching his motorcycle and then one day he suddenly stops and thinks "why the fuck haven't I been riding a bicycle?!" And then just laughs at himself.

I mean, I am not suggesting the purpose of an 1000 mile range e-bike is to be the best vehicle to carry someone 1000 miles, rather I chose an absurdly high number to suggest an electric bicycle that basically has infinite charge for what you are using it for. True if you are just cruising long distances a more dirt bike/motorcycle construction makes sense, but then you have a heavy ass vehicle you can’t carry over obstacles.

Yeah but if you are going to jump an alien river then you have to wear a cool outfit while you do it.

If that’s the case, pedalling doesn’t make sense except for exercise.

Exercise is incredibly important though? An electric bicycle having peddles that maybe helps you charge up the battery a little bit if you push extra hard makes perfect sense.

Maybe the pedals aren’t needed but especially in terms of a bicycle being used in harsh conditions having a pedal system as a backup just seems like a silly thing to forego.

For the most part, people don’t care about travelling, they just want to be at their destination.

The only reason this statement doesn’t seem absurd on the face of it is that we all live in car brained cultures where getting anywhere is a miserable process of sitting in traffic on endless concrete highways and stroads. This is an absurd statement though make no mistake, people love traveling, people love moving when it is pleasant to move. I don’t disagree that a lot of sci-fi is incredibly shortsighted and doesn’t understand this fundamental thing about humans, but really this is a thing even children understand about humans.

The thing is, whether we get Star Trek transporters and hover cars or we get an apocalypse with scarce resources, in either future, electric bicycles will be everywhere. If we can just teleport where we want to go like Star Trek than practically the only form of transportation people use will be electric bicycles because it is a pleasant and simple thing to ride a bicycle for an errand or to commute a small distance. If we live in an apocalypse, guess what everybody is riding bicycles there aren’t going to be cars and motorcycles and oil (you think making an electric battery in the apocalypse is hard, try drilling for oil) or even big heavy electric cars.

The problems that bikes and ebikes solve at the moment tend to be solved in futuristic stories, or in post apocalyptic stories, they don’t matter.

This is where your thinking really misses the mark, in futuristic settings “solving” the problem of transportation would actually lead to even more widespread depression, isolation and mental health/quality of life issues than everybody driving around in cars already creates (which is a LOT). There would be an immediate pressing need to reproduce the human experience of travel, and the easiest way to do that is to jump on a bicycle.

For things like hills and keeping up with traffic ebikes are a game changer. I literally couldn't go on half the trips I take without the motor