Cycling in an Oil Crisis

clonmahon

All this talk of war in the middle east reminds me of the 1973 oil crisis. My father bought a bike and began cycling to work every day. Lots of neighbours still had high nellies laid up in sheds and many of them were put back in service. For the few months the crisis lasted there was a big up surge in cycling. There was a lot less motorised traffic on the roads and it was moving much slower, to conserve fuel.

Maybe the next big thing in cycling might be the 3rd great oil crisis. If it happens cycling will suddenly be must safer. And while it will shatter vast sectors of our economy, the cycling business will boom, so long as the immediate crisis lasts.

Is anyone else here old enough to remember the first oil crisis and the cycling revival of late 1973 and early 1974?

boege

clonmahon wrote: »

Is anyone else here old enough to remember the first oil crisis and the cycling revival of late 1973 and early 1974?

ahhem, possibly.

Was a young fella then. Dont remember the extra bikes but do remember the queues for petrol as I lived next door to a garage. Would not be surpised if people took to the bike merely because of all the hassle getting petrol. Do recollect lots of talk of slow driving to conserve fuel and roads were defo quieter, but then they were quieter anyway.

Maybe if we could get Iran to accelerate their nucleur programme:rolleyes:

Beasty

But what will we do when all our chains seize up?;)

Wishbone Ash

clonmahon wrote: »

Is anyone else here old enough to remember the first oil crisis and the cycling revival of late 1973 and early 1974?

I remember my father getting a bike. I think it was a Raleigh and I recall being facinated by the chainguard and saddlebag with tools etc. He taught me how to remove tyres, find the puncture spot and repair it. I don't think my mother was impressed with the kitchen occupied being while we looked for the bubbles. He had an accident one time and I recall being frightened looking at the cuts on his face. (He's 75 now but I haven't seen him cycling since the early 1980's.)

ednwireland

clonmahon wrote: »

Maybe the next big thing in cycling might be the 3rd great oil crisis. If it happens cycling will suddenly be must safer. And while it will shatter vast sectors of our economy, the cycling business will boom, so long as the immediate crisis lasts.

Is anyone else here old enough to remember the first oil crisis and the cycling revival of late 1973 and early 1974?

yes (i dont remember a big upsurge in the uk but then we had public transport) and i dont expect a big upsurge (lots of complaints about the gov not doing enough to lower prices - most of is duty after all 4c due to go on in march)

smacl

clonmahon wrote: »

Is anyone else here old enough to remember the first oil crisis and the cycling revival of late 1973 and early 1974?

Also a young fella at the time, but I do remember people puncturing the underside of petrol tanks to steal the contents, and ridiculous queues at filling stations. There are many more cars now, so it would have a bigger impact.

Think how much fun it would be cycling all those open roads with the cars gone though? Don't think the cycle lanes would see much activity.

jameverywhere

Beasty wrote: »

But what will we do when all our chains seize up?;)

hmm... can't you make some kind of lube out of animal fat?

dermiek

Beasty wrote: »

But what will we do when all our chains seize up?;)

Blast them. With you know what.

07Lapierre

Beasty wrote: »

But what will we do when all our chains seize up?;)

Finally, you found a use for all those old chains your holding onto eh?

Beasty

07Lapierre wrote: »

Finally, you found a use for all those old chains your holding onto eh?

Another investment opportunity I've identified ....

clonmahon

Maybe the upsurge in cycling was a rural thing, I was in rural Cavan, with no public transport and limited fuel available there was no choice on many occasions but to cycle or to walk.

ednwireland I think you maybe missing the point, in a fuel crisis people don't complain about price, they will pay any price, the problem is not price but availability.

smacl I think you are right with so many more cars on the road a fuel crisis will be a much bigger deal now than it was in 1973

Bambaata

I have to say i have got more on the bike to work rather than driving cos of the sheer cost petrol is already at!

marketty

An oil crisis would mean serious trouble for Ireland now, considering the mad commutes so many people bought into in recent years, cycling just wouldn't be an option for many. How many people in the seventies were driving 90 mins+ to work? (I wouldn't know I wasn't there! ;-) )

Wishbone Ash

marketty wrote: »

An oil crisis would mean serious trouble for Ireland now, considering the mad commutes so many people bought into in recent years, cycling just wouldn't be an option for many. How many people in the seventies were driving 90 mins+ to work? (I wouldn't know I wasn't there! ;-) )

I was just thinking that earlier. It was practically unheard of to be driving to work in a different county (unless living at the edge of it). When I think of it a lot of people drove home for their lunchbreak and back to work again for 2pm - unthinkable now!

Another thing I recall from the 70's oil crisis was the amount of petrol people wasted driving around trying to find fuel. A rumour would go around that a particular garage had got a fill and half the country would drive there and queue. They used to limit the fill to 50p per car. Some people also began storing petrol at home and it resulted in a few fires. Insurance companies wouldn't pay out as storing fuel wasn't covered.

clonmahon

marketty wrote: »

An oil crisis would mean serious trouble for Ireland now, considering the mad commutes so many people bought into in recent years, cycling just wouldn't be an option for many. How many people in the seventies were driving 90 mins+ to work? (I wouldn't know I wasn't there! ;-) )

No one I ever heard of in the 1970s drove very far to work. If the crisis comes this will be a very serious problem for those with very long car commutes. If the crisis comes I wonder how many people will still be driving their kids to school. Back in the 1970s it was bike or walk, nobody drove their kids to school.

MungoMan

Beasty wrote: »

But what will we do when all our chains seize up?;)

Head down to the local fish and chip shop for vegetable oil

marketty

clonmahon wrote: »

Back in the 1970s it was bike or walk, nobody drove their kids to school.

I live in a small town where no house is more than 15 mins walk from the school but it seems like every kid gets dropped off, feckin people carriers and 4x4s all over the place on my road morning and afternoon,they look at ya headin out to wirk on the bike like you've two heads and then wonder why their kids are so fat!! ;-)

monument

Is there a chance that an upsurge would not have been noticed as much back in the 70s given that cycling was still had not seen its worst free-fall declines?

On distance, here's the 2006 census figures for workers only (school goers and students travelled less):



Without the "not stated":



Bit distorted given that over 22% did not state the distance they travel and excluding the 22% is a very distorted picture. It could be claimed that it does not matter because the amount of people who did not state a distance is random -- but it might not be so random and a large percentage of those people in any one bracket would change thing a lot. The 2011 census aims to fix this (it asked where people live and work so the CSO can take most of the guess work out of it).

clonmahon

monument wrote: »

Is there a chance that an upsurge would not have been noticed as much back in the 70s given that cycling was still had not seen its worst free-fall declines?

Where I lived there were still a lot of people cycling in the 1970s, particularly older people. And there were also still a lot of people walking. As it was a rural area I noticed the uptake in cycling because I knew everyone personally.

monument

marketty wrote: »

I live in a small town where no house is more than 15 mins walk from the school but it seems like every kid gets dropped off, feckin people carriers and 4x4s all over the place on my road morning and afternoon,they look at ya headin out to wirk on the bike like you've two heads and then wonder why their kids are so fat!! ;-)

It's the same everywhere -- children don't travel too far to school:



Secondary school children travel a bit further and this will also include a good few going to third level:

mossy2390

my mum told me she buried two jerrycans of petrol in the back garden of some house she was renting during that time.
no idea why but they may well still be there.
still waiting for a random explosion in a garden to be reported on the news one day

CramCycle

mossy2390 wrote: »

my mum told me she buried two jerrycans of petrol in the back garden of some house she was renting during that time.

Get her to PM me, we'll have a day trip, I could carry two jerrycans on my panniers She can sit in the front basket.

seamus

mossy2390 wrote: »

no idea why but they may well still be there.

Emergency use I suppose. If you ever found yourself needing to rush to a hospital, you'd be glad there was petrol buried in the garden.

Since there would also have been (justified) fear of an imminent nuclear war, I also imagine that a significant number of people kept some emergency supplies for that eventuality. Buried jerrycans would give you a hundred miles distance from a city. I suppose the point of burying them is to make them harder to get at except in an emergency and would also keep them cool, minimising the risk of a fire.

07Lapierre

seamus wrote: »

Emergency use I suppose. If you ever found yourself needing to rush to a hospital, you'd be glad there was petrol buried in the garden.

Since there would also have been (justified) fear of an imminent nuclear war, I also imagine that a significant number of people kept some emergency supplies for that eventuality. Buried jerrycans would give you a hundred miles distance from a city. I suppose the point of burying them is to make them harder to get at except in an emergency and would also keep them cool, minimising the risk of a fire.

MMM...depends on when the petrol was buried. Most likely its "leaded" petrol, which won't do your new car engine any good ( unleaded)

Roadtoad

Thats when the electronic gear changers on the fancy bikes stop working and the mere mortals get the last laugh, as we cycle away from the mushroom cloud.

clonmahon

seamus wrote: »

Since there would also have been (justified) fear of an imminent nuclear war, I also imagine that a significant number of people kept some emergency supplies for that eventuality. Buried jerrycans would give you a hundred miles distance from a city. I suppose the point of burying them is to make them harder to get at except in an emergency and would also keep them cool, minimising the risk of a fire.

Ahh the memories, I'm almost nostalgic for 1970s Cold War paranoia. We worried that the Soviets were plotting to get us. Later we discovered the Soviets were just about fit to keep their own show on the road and we had been fooled, by our leaders all along. Sound familiar?.

clonmahon

Two images from the 1973 oil crisis


A swiss motorway, they had a ban on Sunday driving




This one is from a German autobahn

Captain Havoc

A ban on Sunday driving, awesome: "sorry boss I won't be able to make it to work anymore on Sundays because of the driving ban", as I sink into a nice well earned pint watching the football after a long spin.

Beasty

Captain Havoc wrote: »

A ban on Sunday driving, awesome: "sorry boss I won't be able to make it to work anymore on Sundays because of the driving ban",

... so how will you then explain your arrival at work during the week in sweat-clad lycra?

Captain Havoc

Beasty wrote: »

... so how will you then explain your arrival at work during the week in sweat-clad lycra?

Kilkenny has a microclimate which makes it snow on Sundays.

tomasrojo

I see today that the average cost (excluding depreciation) of running a car has exceeded €100 per week, with fuel costs comprising most of the increase in running costs.
http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/latest-news/new-hikes-see-cost-of-running-family-car-to-hit-100aweek-3003325.html

By coincidence, I saw this today as well:

I already told you about Autolib, the short car rental service that allows you to take a car at one station and drop it at another one, near your destination throughout Paris and the suburbs there were 250 stations when they launched the service on December 5, and at the end of 2012, there should be 1 200 stations and 3 000 cars!

http://www.parisdailyphoto.com/2012/01/autolib-is-growing.html

And yesterday I got an email from GoCar to say that they plan to open 25 more locations in and around Dublin this year.

Maybe car-sharing is becoming a strong trend in cities now.

tomasrojo

The Independent article reminds me of Flann O'Brien's Catechism of Cliché.

Q: In what manner are motorists pressed?
A: Hard.

Doctor Bob

tomasrojo wrote: »

And yesterday I got an email from GoCar to say that they plan to open 25 more locations in and around Dublin this year.

I passed a hoarding over the weekend - at Blackpitts, I think - with the GoCar logo on it.

tomasrojo wrote: »

Maybe car-sharing is becoming a strong trend in cities now.

I know Germany isn't particularly representative of European cities in general, but this may be a taste of things to come- cars being designed specifically for the share market. (Relevant bit at 1' 30".)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnldfZshXs

tomasrojo wrote: »

The Independent article reminds me of Flann O'Brien's Catechism of Cliché.

Q: In what manner are motorists pressed?
A: Hard.

*ahem* I believe that was Myles, not Flann.

tomasrojo

Doctor Bob wrote: »

I passed a hoarding over the weekend - at Blackpitts, I think - with the GoCar logo on it.

Yeah, they have a car based there.

Doctor Bob wrote: »

I know Germany isn't particularly representative of European cities in general, but this may be a taste of things to come- cars being designed specifically for the share market. (Relevant bit at 1' 30".)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnldfZshXs

Thanks!

The technology at the start is GoCar's technology. They told me that used a German system.

Seems a good plan. Car-sharing overall should suit a lot of people. If your car spends the vast majority of its time sitting outside your house -- or place of work -- it's probably cheaper.

Doctor Bob wrote: »

*ahem* I believe that was Myles, not Flann.

Yes, silly me. Trinitarian personhoods are confusing.