cargo bug out bike 2

CARGO BUG OUT BIKE 2

I do not think bugging out is a great idea.  It is far better to be where you want to be, with hidden caches nearby that act like a backup to Home Invasion ( well, more realistically, Hovel Invasion ).  It isn’t always the best idea to trade bullets with others in a defensive position.  Sometimes it is preferable to run away, then come back and finish off the invader, ambush style.  “Bushwacker” might not be a compliment, but it is rather effective.  However, having said that, I know everyone’s situation is different.  It took me years to get off-grid.

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This I attribute to all those jerks who only advocated expensive property.  By the time I discovered property under $1,000 on E-Bay, only AFTER did I start reading a few authors on truly affordable land.  Then, of course, you can’t just drop everything and move.  You need to start investing and planning.  Well, if rent is coming due, there are no jobs and it is better to move now with some money left over, sure, you can go to your junk land on a wing and a prayer.  But usually, it takes some time.

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Some folks will never move, and that is fine.  One size doesn’t fit all.  Sometimes you are actually jumping from the pan into the fire if you move.  Hell, I’ve been Comfortable Enough plenty of times I had no desire to leave.  Everyone has their own pace on panicking.  Just because I holler, Da End Be Nigh, Yo!, certainly does not mean you feel the need to prep any faster.  I have the luxury of having already done the hard working panicking.  I can’t lose sight of how long it took me to actually get my head out of my ass and flee.

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So, realistically, it might be quite common that you are not where you want to be.  Bugging out might be the reality of your situation.  So here is one way to do so.  If you have a car, and you are ONLY planning on bugging out under an economic collapse ( NEVER!!! EVER!!! Do you bug out when everyone else is.  Too many cars and not enough fuel or freeway ), then this is no different than any other normal modern day move.  But if you think anarchy will descend quickly, here is your $70 BOV.

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A used bike, $20.  Two new Green Goop bike tubes, $15.  Two used duffle bags, $20.  Cords, bungees, pieces of pipe and misc., another $10-$15.  And that is the maximum you’ll be spending, more than likely.  You could get it for under a total of $20, if you find the bike at a give-away price and it has great tubes ( and you already own some of the other equipment ).  Then you just buy a can of Green Goop to add.  Just don’t cheap out on the tubes and tires, the heart of your system. 

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Now, again, this presupposes that you will need to carry a lot of weight.  I can actually see that, in my old situation.  I was living in Carson City, Nevada, and my land was in Elko.  Odds are I’d never need to Emergency Bug-Out, I would simply head up the hill into the Sierra’s.  But I did wargame the need to get up to Elko anyway, given the population down in my nicely watered location.  There were 60k population just in the city limits alone, and at one direction there was Reno just thirty miles away and the other direction Fallon Naval Base.

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The problem was I needed to get sixty miles between rivers. The stretch outside Reno up to the Humbolt river was where a lot of oxen died on the ol’ timey wagon train ( and furniture jettisoned ).  Not the most hospitable stretch to travel.  My travel-by-bike plans called for most of my weight to be water just for that one stretch.  It is where my Light Bike Traveling plans got into trouble.  But you also had the food issue.  Granted, beef jerky, peanut butter and Top Ramen will take you quite a way, but there always seems to be Too Much Weight there also.

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And what if it were winter?  You need even more food, especially fat, and you need a lot more clothes.  Suddenly, you can’t ride the bike, as there is just too much weight attached to it.  Yes, you could get a bike trailer.  The professionally designed ones ( not just a converted child carrier ) will hold hundreds of pounds.  And carry bulky items.  But now you are barely getting past walking speeds ( my long distance speed on a bike is 9mph.  Walking is about half that ). 

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And we wouldn’t want to be forgetting the passes you would need to navigate.  You need to go up several thousand feet getting over those.  Do you REALLY want to push a bike with trailer up those bad boys?  And, let us not forget, in this unfeasible but worried about scenario, I couldn’t drive because the VIPER teams ( remember those? click here ) had shut down transportation. I would be needing to bypass some checkpoints or other sketchy areas.  You cannot go cross country off road with a trailer.  And it would be hard to push just the bike, without modifications, off road.

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Better it was already set up to push by the handlebar and seat post extensions.  Millions of pounds of logistics pushed by bike with just these types of extensions helping to win the Vietnamese Independence War cannot be wrong.  They did the hard work of figuring it out for you.  Now, I understand how long it takes to pushing a bike, verses riding it.  And how much extra energy it might take.  But anything past about 200 miles and it gets to the point you are carrying far too many supplies to pedal anyway. 

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Unless you have the kind of body that can go long periods without eating while engaged in heavy labor, you will need a LOT of calories every day.  Even if you can replenish water every evening, you’ll still need quite a bit of that in your traveling time.  At least two gallons a day, which assumes NO interruption of refilling every night.  You’ll need a good three to four thousand calories a day food-the higher end if you are burning fat in cold weather.  A weeks journey and you are looking at twenty pounds of food alone.  Add another twenty a day in water.

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If any kind of stealth is required, or leaving the road, or getting around traffic jams, you’d be best off going with a bike as trailer.  If you are in hilly country, and assume half your time you are pushing rather than riding, a bike will still only get you 75 miles a day.  JUST pushing the bike will get you 40 ( ten hours straight travel, with time in between for breaks and end of day camp set up, plus extra time if hiding and detouring ).  JUST walking allows you an extra minimum of a hundred pounds of gear.

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We are all used to speedy transportation.  But that reliance also makes us vulnerable.  We are always on a choke point.  Granted, you are as well pushing a bike on a road, but you can leave that at will, easily.  In a car?  Impossible.  A car is also a lot easier to hit.  The engine area is a huge target, and something is easily damaged.  A bike is a smaller target ( although easier to acquire and track ).  But you can also dump the bike and hide a lot easier than you can de-ass a vehicle.

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Perhaps not the best way to go, Bike-As-Cargo-Carrier, but a cheap way, and perhaps YOUR best way, given circumstances.

( .Y. )

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