If forced to bugout “by foot” I would much prefer to have those feet turning bicycle peddles than ground pounding. Why? It’s faster, much more efficient and I can carry a lot more with me. Let me explain…
A bicycle is faster than walking:
Even the best, most fit walkers carrying no loads whatever cannot keep up with an out of shape little old lady on a bicycle.
Most people not carrying loads have a walking speed somewhere between two to four miles per hour, or somewhere a little over one meter per second for our friends in metricland.
A fast walker with no load often hits a pace of five miles per hour, but it’s a pretty fit person that can keep up that kind of a pace for any decent length of time.
Add to this your bugout bag, weighing in at 30+ pounds, and that two MPH looks a lot more likely than the five MPH speed walker.
On a bicycle, even one loaded with 100 pounds of gear, five MPH is CRAWLING. I’m old, chunky and slow, and even on my posh in-town hybrid bike carrying panniers of groceries on both sides I ride a lot closer to 10 MPH than I do five.
My BOV, my bicycle with one pannier. I don’t normally put my big panniers on the back or my front rack on… but I have them if I need them.
You can go farther in a day on a bicycle than on foot, or walk farther if the bike is carrying the weight:
A great walking pace for most people would be about 25 miles a day, and that’s carrying only a very light load if any. Many people would struggle to do 10 miles with 30+ pounds on their backs. A normally fit person on a bicycle loaded with 50 pounds? 75 miles a day is very reasonable. In fact, being within a day’s bicycle ride was one determining factor when choosing The Place for our bugout location.
You can comfortably carry more payload in a bugout:
I don’t know about you, but I would really struggle walking any distance with 50 pounds of stuff on my back in a pack. I honestly don’t think I could keep up any kind of pace at all with that weight. On my bicycle? I wouldn’t even notice it was there unless I was on a pretty steep hill, and even then I always have the option of getting off and walking the bicycle up the hill.
It’s easier on the body (knees, ankles, etc,)
I have bad knees. Spice’s knees aren’t super duper either. Riding a bicycle is a LOT easier on the knees, it’s not nearly as likely to cause feet to blister, ankles to turn, etc.
If necessary to take a load heavier than you can care, you can use the bike as a mule
People in third world countries (and even here in the good old USA) often load up their bicycles with huge amounts of cargo and use them as a truck, walking along side of the bikes. On the return trip home, unloaded, they simply hop on and ride. Preppers can use this technique as well.
You can get away from trouble faster
I am TERRIBLE at running, and I can’t run fast at all or run far either. It would be shocking to me if I can run 10 MPH for even a short time. I can, however, get on a bicycle and ride 10 MPH for hours on end without stopping if I need to. If there’s trouble I need to get away from, I’m a LOT better off on my bicycle.
It’s the quietest fast mode of transport
One good thing about bicycles is how quiet and they are (unless you, like when you were a kid, you use clothes pins to attach cards to your frame so that your spinning wheel’s spokes make motorcycle noises)
In some places, bike paths are direct routes that avoid roads
If you wanted to get from St. Charles, MO to rural mid-Missouri as quickly and directly as possible and the roads were clogged with traffic fleeing the city, the Katy Trail would be the most direct and fastest route. In fact, it’s more direct than are the paved roads, so that with one of us on the bike on the trail and the other driving the car, the driver wouldn’t arrive much before the cyclist.
We did a podcast about a bicycle for bugging out, you can listen to it here:
Salty’s view from the cockpit of his BOV on a rural bike path
One thing to keep in mind:
Most bicycles are better than nothing, but good quality bicycles that actually fit, and bikes that have racks on them for hauling bags are much better than big-box $70 cheap bikes. You don’t need a $1000 bug out bike, but having something that’s of decent quality will make your life a lot better if you have to use it.
I carry when I can
Personally, I carry a bicycle in my car everywhere I go if I can… I figure if I need to get back home, it’s going to be a lot easier to do on a bike than it is by walking.