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all 19 comments

[–]spiny_dogfish2011 Fuji Cross 1.0, 2008 Fuji Obey 12 points13 points ago

haha "Bye". fucking bike thieves

[–]chubbykipperLondon, Dahon Matrix 2011 4 points5 points ago

This has me in stitches, nice work :-)

[–]mrmyxlplyxCannondale F1000, Specialized FSR XC Comp, KHS Tandemania Comp 5 points6 points ago

That wasn't her bike! This is what her bike looks like.

[–]mship7.3 FX™ 2009 3 points4 points ago

Nah, he is taking her bike. It was the one she was using before she got attacked by a hoard of zombies and they eat her lower half. It had sentimental value because it allowed her to survive for a loog time, until a zombie jump out on her.

[–]silverslayer2008 Jamis Xenith Race 0 points1 point ago

It actually wasn't her bike. She just happened to crawl beside it after being eaten.

Source: webisodes from Walking Dead

[–]mship7.3 FX™ 2009 0 points1 point ago

I wasn't being serious in any way shape or form.

[–]kreaturesleeper -1 points0 points ago

Damn, that was a surprisingly intuitive analysis I would not have considered upon seeing this scene for the first time.

[–]foucaults_uvula 4 points5 points ago

I've often thought that a bike would be the best means of transportation in a zombie apocalypse: faster than the undead, requires no gasoline, easy maintenance, etc.

[–]Wibbles 0 points1 point ago

Other than not needing petrol I don't see any advantages. You're exposed to a zombie ambush, exhausted if you need to travel a long distance, and you're churning through a tonne of energy when food is scarce.

[–]thumper242'77 Schwinn Super Le Tour 2 points3 points ago

Not as much caloric energy as you might think when you figure that downhill is nearly zero, and flat is pretty easy.

I say this as a bicycling commuter though. Someone out of shape might be in much worse shape and in a lot more danger.

[–]Wibbles 1 point2 points ago

You're not going to be able to plan your escape down hill and on flat, you'll have to go where you won't get eaten. There will be hills, sprints (zombies) and regular clambering about to get around obstacles.

[–]thumper242'77 Schwinn Super Le Tour -1 points0 points ago

There is nothing keeping you on the bike.
If it stops being an asset, step off and run.

[–]Wibbles 1 point2 points ago

There is nothing keeping you in a car, if it stops being an asset step off and run.

...wait, isn't running what we're avoiding here? If you get attacked by a zombie in a car, you're at least in a car.

[–]thumper242'77 Schwinn Super Le Tour 1 point2 points ago

I spent the first half of my life in a wrecking yard.
Cars aren't that secure from brute force.
I would rather have freedom and self-propelled mechanical advantage.

It's clear with the variety of weapons and fortresses that everyone has their preferences though.

[–]foucaults_uvula 0 points1 point ago

Not needing fuel is a pretty significant advantage, I'd reckon. :) You're right that it wouldn't be optimal for long distances, but over the short haul it beats cars hands down: quiet, fuelless, reliable, and pretty fast.

[–]Stinkin_HippyRidgeback Horizon 2009 0 points1 point ago

this cracked article proves your theory. Bikes are the perfect post apocalypse mode of transport.

[–]kareemabduljabbq 0 points1 point ago

ok, so let me go on a tangent here.

zombies and the "apocalypse" are literary devices used as a critique for the times that we live in. zombies are in some ways linked to globalization and the anonymity and isolation of the modern world.

the reason you don't see practical applications of surviving the apocalypse in these things is because they aren't supposed to be thriving. Exactly the opposite, they have to be just barely surviving for the the literary premise to work.

The Road is the most transparent application for this. So much of the book is centered around describing how, in the face of utter deprivation, the surrogate of the child starts to lose his humanity piece by piece by piece, and how that idea, that "flame" as it is called, is carried on by his son, who pivotally tells his father that he killed the man who stole their shopping cart and he didn't have to. This is the moment the father dies and the son is left to "carry the flame".

what these kinds of retorts do is just completely and irrevocably ignore the meaning of these things, which, especially, I can say in the road at least, are utterly moving. Children of Men is another post-apocalypse with a unique premise that falls into this category which is totally ruined by people who are trying to tie it down to some real life tautology.

so bikes in zombie apocalypse movies aren't there as a practical form of transport because in certain ways these films are critiques of how we're tethered to gas consumption, how much modern conveniences figure into our lives and then suddenly are torn away from us, how certain things we thought were obsolete suddenly become essential (think the morse code in Independence Day). People in these movies are intended to endure the lack of the things that are essential to day to day life, and that gets emphasized when something high tech and super essential for modern life becomes a block of plastic.

[–]Stinkin_HippyRidgeback Horizon 2009 0 points1 point ago

Well argued and written. That's why they're not in fiction but you've missed the point entirely. We were saying bikes would be the perfect mode of transportation if a apocalypse really did happen.

The link to the cracked article, which is what your beef is clearly with, was just to prove a point. They remove a dependence on gasoline, they're far more efficient then walking and they're quieter then cars (which is a post apocalyptic world is a big advantage, not attracting either zombies or alerting every other survivor within 3 miles to your location).

[–]kareemabduljabbq 0 points1 point ago

oh definitely, but a critique of the excesses of modern culture is totally lost if you suddenly give these people a bike. people who are riding bikes aren't what the critique is leveled at.

being a bike rider, you are already the anti-hummer, anti-self reliance individual, which is exactly what zombies are supposed to represent, mindless masses who know nothing but to consume to perilous ends and who cannot survive without their subtending artifice.

these pieces aren't about practical solutions to surviving the zombie apocalypse, and because biking culture is explicitly a low tech solution to modern cultural dependencies, that's exactly why it is not utilized, there would be no drama if the zombie apocalypse was survived by self-reliant individuals who knew how to do all of the things that they forgot.

this reminds me a lot of the Danny Boyle sci fi flick, Sunshine. after watching it I was eager to read criticisms of it, and found articles detailing how it was impossible to restart a sun by taking all of the nukes on earth and exploding it so close to it.

for a more rudimentary understanding, it's like watching a horror movie, and then focusing on the inanity of two blonde chicks breaking off from the herd early on. Of course they're going to be killed, but you should naturally shrug that off, you're in it for the thrills, not for the survival sense.

it's like watching survivorman instead of Man vs. Wild. One is survival tactics inside of a survival situation, and the other is survival tactics removed from the danger of having to survive.