Retrograde

The apocalypse didn’t quit work out like the brochure. I think a lot of people figured they would run off into the woods with their guns and snares and seed banks. “A chance to begin again”. A life of adventure in a brave new world where only the strong would survive. Just wait out the dying time and organize with your fellow patriots to fight off your evil overlords.
I don’t think this is what people were really imagining.
I know. I watched it happen.
Three major migrations from the cities, and half a dozen minor ones: survivalists, preppers, back to the land idealists, people in buck skin jackets with flintlocks or homemade bows. “Ah huntin’ an ah fishin’ rednecks. Whatever.
They were like a plague of rats and a real danger to us out in farm country.
Most of them went home after the first week when they figured out the forest wasn’t teaming with nuts, berries and wild game jumping out in front of their military rifles, trucked out with hundreds of dollars of high tech laser sights, flash lights, thousand yard scopes and personal, vibrating marital aids.
I know because I found one once. Sometime in the late spring after the first great migration.
What a whack job that guy was. It was the most outrageous and impractical weapon I had ever scene. It had crap bolted on everywhere at weird angles, a ridiculous 50 round mag dangling like an obscene horse penis, 4 different optics, 2 flashlights set up like car beams, laser dot…. and not one but two…TWO tripods. One was sideways, I guess so the guy could shoot it sideways. With a horse penis mag like that, I guess he would have to.
Well it served its only real purpose: he had shot himself…twice. The first shot, I guess in his mouth, clearly missing anything vital. I’m also guessing he passed out because of the strange angle he was twisted in, arm reaching out to get his thumb in the trigger while lying on the ground, barrel to this chest because I don’t think he could get it to his head.
I stared at him for about an hour before I touched anything, slowly walking myself through, in my head, everything I could see. I didn’t move for while in case I had to retrace my steps and then prove to investigators that it wasn’t me that had done the task. After fifteen minutes of thinking it through, I knew there was no way in hell I was calling the cops. They had just become far too sketchy and it would end with them tearing through my home, helping themselves to my very needed shit. Besides, I really wanted that clown gun. I wasn’t much of a tracker but I got the basics so I rant it through my head like my own mini investigation.
I eventually started walking around because I figured I could tell the investigators I was looking for ID if it came to that. Just in case, I took my boots off. Best to slog around in my socks on the mushy ground because I didn’t want to throw away my good boots afterwards to cover my tracks. Totally silly in retrospect/hindsight as no one was coming but paranoia and contempt for the law has served me well…so far.
Most of the memory of that day has completely disappeared but the part that stays with me like it happened yesterday was my waterlogged feet, the pain of the gravel, and the wet boots once I gave up on the idea halfway home, carrying awkward stuff, like the clown gun that weighed twice as much as it should have. At least 3 or 4 times the weight of the little 22 rifle I was already carrying, the ripped backpack. Bug out bag I guess. No wait. I think the guy would have called it an INCH bag because of some of the ridiculous stuff in it. INCH stands for I’m Never Coming Home.
Well he never did.....

-This guy was a dead man the moment he left ‘the burbs’. He basically commit suicide, by leaving and I was feeling sorry for him even before reading his journal. I have no idea why I took it with me. Morbid fascination? Speaker for the dead. Covering my ass?
What exactly does a live survivalist say to the rotting corpse of a failed survivalist? At this point I should mention that I am, was, whatever, a prepper, survivalist, back to the lander, or some such title or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Prepper was the more politically correct term of the time. A person that prepares for life’s eventualities as opposed to the rather loaded term survivalist with its baggage of racism, Christian militants with fantasies of being a militia or someone willing to do ‘anything’ to survive. It was creepy then. It is still creepy now. I wasn’t comfortable using the term then. There is no reason to use it now as prepper is past tense like ‘protester’ becoming a religion now called Protestants.

- So like I said, the apocalypse didn’t work out like the brochure. Nothing stopped. Well a lot of things stopped but most things are pretty backwards to the old apocalyptic disaster movies of yore. Or the Books, or the Pantheon of political and religious snake oil salesman peddling paranoid fantasies of death camps, the number of the beast and glorious battle with the undead commi zombies in UN blue berets. The government is still around, though ineffectual to epic proportions. The police are still around but they are more of a danger than any help. The cities are still around…more crowded than ever, though they look more like the slums of Mexico city in many places. We are on our new dollar, nobody trusts it but it’s still around. There are still rich people, though nothing resembling the middle class. There are still a large number of people that don’t believe a collapse has already happened, that it’s just a recession and recovery is just around the corner, that the homeless people are just lazy and need to get a job.

Millions of people died. Millions upon millions upon millions. But millions didn’t amount to much.

A great start and an interesting read. I like that you don't do the predictable hero roll and that makes the read very enjoyable in itself. When a story is told proper, the reader gets a nice picture playing in his head of the whole process and that occurred here as I read along...

Kudos'

I also liked the shower idea and wish I still had my old fire extinguisher like that one now too.

Your wolf story was also great as I've had wolves play games with me while hunting by running in front and behind, just flashes between the trees but always never long enough to get a sight on them for a shot. I both admire and respect the wolf for it's understanding of man's limitations and then ability to show us that they indeed know them! We are not the masters of the forest as much as we'd like to believe...just a passer by in a realm that hides from man's wrath as they watch us populate from the shadows of receding forests.

Thanks. That was part of the process I decided on. There would be no heroes. No super villains to vanquish. No epic adventure. Just people adapting and a few epic fails. Im even eventually going to add a group of bikers...but instead of the classic MZB roll, they're going to be complaining about how people keep shooting at them, while running a small mail service between a couple towns, now with super quiet mufflers because they have to get past people without notice before they can get to there guns 😎 Most of the time they are in there compound drinking and figuring out how to build even quieter mufflers. 😆

Finally, bikers that don't get blamed for all people's issues...what a concept! But quite bikes...that means Harleys' are out of the story. 😕 I have a SuperTrap exhaust I made for my 92 Custom which is quite proficient while being quiet unless I crack on it....then it's loud too! I have to admit, Harleys would likely get you killed in a SHTF situation as folks would hear us coming a mile away and be ready for ya. I'd likely opt for one of them BMW on/off bikes as they do both quite well it seems.

Get to work dude as I'm eager to read Chapter 2 😆

Forget Beemer's. Too top heavy. I almost lost a bike in a river, once. It was out there. I should of turned back at the chainsawed trees across the road. A beemer rider would have commit suicide. Its not the week treck out. Its the cost of the abandoned the bike. These fictitious guys are running on recycled Honda car engines on alcohol with suitcase sized mufflers. Its all about the muffler. They gave up on chainsaws and now travel with hand saws and shovels to get past the wash outs. Mountain bike trails is just part of the job between flat stretches. Engineering is just part of the job. So is the high density plate on the back of the bike that catches rounds. Thanks for helping me work this through. The washouts in Jamaica really got me thinking about the issue. We have a lot of highway that is about to become useless. I remember a patch of old road in BC with alder growing through it. I couldn't even walk through it. On second thought, big engines is too much. Much of the third world runs on 125 4bangers... but they would have problems on the long stretches. I have no good solutions. any thought to bridge the gap?

Forget I asked. Ignore that last post. I answered my own question. 125s. C5 rule- If all else fails, lower your standards. Small bikes have lousy gas mileage though.

Honda xl 650 or the venerable KLR650 Swiss army knife of bikes and easy to repair on the fly, just a thought.

Got It!

Buy a quiet Harley.... 😯

I knew you wouldn't swallow that one in one gulp 😆

Seems Harley has come out with their first electric Bike http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/06/19/harley-davidson-unveils-first-electric-motorcycle/

Well it's not on the market just yet. Great on gas as you have the same amount you started with at the finish line... = 0 . Seems the only noise is the whirr of the electric motor. Another later broadcast states that it now gets 130 miles between charges while this one states that it is only 52 miles. Also the bike has a governor to limit it's top speed to 92 MPH (something to tweek later). Likely because the bike becomes unstable as even electric cars do do to their mass. The 30 minutes charge time seems hard to swallow too.

I found another here which states it takes 3 1/2 hours to charge http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/06/19/harley-davidson-unveils-first-electric-motorcycle/
The bike weighs 460 lbs and does 0-60 mph in 4 seconds. (that's fast).

shouldnt they have gotten a gas bike right first?
Harley.....a machine that turns good valuable gas, into noise and vibration without the benifit of horsepower

shouldnt they have gotten a gas bike right first?
Harley.....a machine that turns good valuable gas, into noise and vibration without the benifit of horsepower

blasphemy! May the Harley God strike you where you sh...i mean sit! 😆

I have sworn allegiance to spend my last dollar to this deity 😕 😆 But I do love the simplicity of Harley and vow not to complain of their stupidity in many other aspects as greed now rules all. And it seems many Hog riders don't understand why I keep replacing the parts which profess Harley's name with those that don't. For those who can't tell what's a Harley, too bad as I don't believe in advertising even them today. This first trick confuses those newbies who profess knowledge they truly don't have as they then can't tell what a true Harley looks like without reading something to profess it's maker. And I strip off all that I find useless on my ride and the wife's too. For with fuel injection comes computers which require programming by expensive tech tools that I can't carry with me. I like the reliability of electronic ignition modules and electronic voltage regulators enough to tolerate them, but that is enough.

Yet I have ridden many bikes in my 45 years of riding(now your trying to guess my age...). Hard not to note that the majority of bikes you see touring outside of city limits are always Harleys though ... but take away all them riding the newest models and you've whittled it down to the dedicated few who can truly keep something decent from dying the death of all other creations of man. I rode a 77 Lowrider to Whitehorse and back in 79 when it was over 1,000 miles of gravel road still. That's tough! The bike looked like crap after that, but it still did it where even dirt dikes would suffer.

Now obtaining parts is the criteria we haven't touched upon. Seems many jap bikes went obsolete not because they were of bad design, but because their makers were those same folks who started this throw away society today by making things unrepairable.

Example: the famous Honda CB 750's had many bikes run 100,000 miles before finally dying. But by then, you couldn't rebuild them as most parts were no longer made. Thus you had to finally toss the whole bike into the scrapyard and buy a new one instead. Yet today, you can buy any part for almost any model of Harley from the 1930's on up and so many of them still live today.... yes, it's that simple as they were made to be fixed!

Yet "propitiatory" technology is ruining the potential for any backyard repairs to many things today, including motorcycles. This means that they are trying hard to make it so that on a licensed Harley mechanic can work on a Harley, as one needs specific tools to sort through the complex sensors and onboard computers to repair the problem. So far Harley , Yamaha, and BMW have gone this new route. Shame on them for such greed and this too will likely haunt the new electric bike too.

Yet if the demand is there, someone will make systems to bypass their crap and run with the basics instead. These are the guys I cheer for today!

I do not worship the false god Harley.....you will have to pm me a email addy and I will will show you the only true god of the road.......and when you recognise the engine and estimate the weight of the bike you will bow down to the torque master ....you will, and yes it is legal, the only one in Alberta...only one in Canada...only one in the world...little can stop it, and nothing...nothing can catch it...

Seems the Harley god pays me little heed to me as I do not sacrifice money in his name anymore, thus, your still here! 😆

My wife gets annoyed when her church members have asked me what faith I am and I say I go to the Church of Harley Davidson. 😎 Seems yur not supposed to joke about such things. 😯

Back to basics: What makes a rebuildable engine is often as being one that has bearings instead of bushings. These are found in regions such as cam followers and cam shafts. Some jap engines have excellent oiling and yet absolutely no replaceable bushing even to prolong the lifespan as that then becomes the Achilles heel which is eventually meant to limit it's usefulness and create future sales. This is why many lo-cost generators and chainsaws are now only good for 70 hours life. It is an intentional act of sabotage on the creators behalf and yet an accepted practice in today's society.

How many are impressed by the 16 OHV (overhead valves) on a 4 cylinder engine when it really only requires 8 valves. That is twice as many moving parts as required and twice the money to fix later. Why does a small aircraft carburetor have under 40 parts total and yet cost $1200 while a car's carburetors have 150 parts and cost only $400? Seems we must pay more to get less and yet while the expensive one should cost less to make, it lasts longer far longer because it has less parts failure due to less parts.... It seems we still rebuild air cooled aircraft engines from the 1950's and trust them with our lives daily, but yet we can't trust a car that is over 10 years old to be reliable? Where is the logic in all this?

I enjoyed the movie "Who killed the Electric car" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsJAlrYjGz8 as it shows how reliable we can still make something. Now we have had time the alloted time to maybe re-perfect this aspect so that they too can be profitable as the new one's on the market will become "more breakable" so our so called economy can take your money once more....

This thread has gotten too religious 4 me. 😆
But I am glad some of you have found your true Gods . 😈

............ running , and hiding out now .... ha ha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrKXsmiY3I8