A interesting opinion on bugout vehicles

[mjbskwim]

I am not a fan of Nutnfancy either, Mostly because he usually takes 40 minutes to tell you 5 minutes worth of information.

HAHA last thing I listened to from him was.."Lets set up the parameters of this test..."
The Ural went sky high after they got some popularity.I don't believe they are worth anywhere near what they want for the old ones.Basically a town ,maybe county rig. For $14k you can't even take it off road any more!
Now your bike is considered the poor man's BMW off road bike.One guy said he was looking at the BMW and decided he could buy 2 Kawwis.A side car for me would be specifically for my dogs,who go most everywhere with me.Just not deer hunting.

For the guys who pick bikes, what about nutunfancys point about exposure? I'm not bashing your pick but he does have a valid point.

Exposure to what? Have you ever read <broken link removed> he fires PISTOL calibers thru car doors and windshields? Cars are not air proof either,so exposure isn't really a factor. Maybe slowing rocks down. Or cars,but if you know how to ride and keep your head on a swivel...
Now you may want to run in pairs so you have another set of eyes to watch out for marauders who may jump you to get the bike.

I would more likely build better bumpers to push debris out of my way.Then I have a vehicle that can work against bad people in cars,doing others harm.
This would be with my 3/4 ton dodge
Up here,the bad element would probably stay home cause old ladies are packing too

 

[Medic!]

It can't even go over a bump without dragging! But it will be first down the highway. And unlike all these automatic trans vehicles. I can push start it!

Now where on my corvette do I mount the Barrett?

 

[powersbj]

Nutnfancy was specifically talking about weather exposure.

Getting out of dodge has so many variables its hard to predict what the perfect way to go is. Seems to me that people get all hung up on what their solution is and assume that should apply and work everyone.

 

[Just Jim]

Nutnfancy was specifically talking about weather exposure.

Getting out of dodge has so many variables its hard to predict what the perfect way to go is. Seems to me that people get all hung up on what their solution is and assume that should apply and work everyone.

I agree with your thinking, each to their own. The question I have for everyone is how much fuel should you have with your rig?

 

[mjbskwim]

Nutnfancy was specifically talking about weather exposure.

Getting out of dodge has so many variables its hard to predict what the perfect way to go is. Seems to me that people get all hung up on what their solution is and assume that should apply and work everyone.

And again,as far as King and Pierce county goes,you will,for the most part,remain where you are unless you have a miracle solution.What is worse? Staying downtown or getting rained o while whipping your bike thru the cars stuck on the road? And if you ride a MC year round,you have some rain gear
Big difference though, between WA and CA,is that down there they understand that the motorcycle splitting lanes is 1 less car to deal with. Let them go by
Up here idiots have to make it a problem. A hole can wait like the rest of us
So in LA county a MC would work fine.In Seattle the little minds would block you off,making you try the sidewalks.All p!ssy they didn't think of it
If the roads and freeways get clogged,then nothing can force it's way thru unless you have a tank.Alternate ideas will prevail

 

[powersbj]

I agree with your thinking, each to their own. The question I have for everyone is how much fuel should you have with your rig?

Twice the amount I need to get to the destination, I figure that will get me there if I'm lucky. I did a good bit of off road driving a decade ago its amazing how much fuel/time it takes to go short distances.

 

[mjbskwim]

I agree with your thinking, each to their own. The question I have for everyone is how much fuel should you have with your rig?

Up here I don't worry too much but commuting around the metro areas, you should be 1/2 tank or more all the time.Depends on your vehicle's range too

 

[mjbskwim]

Twice the amount I need to get to the destination, I figure that will get me there if I'm lucky. I did a good bit of off road driving a decade ago its amazing how much fuel/time it takes to go short distances.

Yeah,go till you reach 1/2 tank and figure out the second half of the tank goes faster.
OOPS now you call someone to bring gas!

 

[coastal steelheader]

I'm more worried about having to bug out as a result of a natural disaster than social breakdown. I can definitely see how a bike or atv could come in useful if the roads are unusable.

 

[jbett98]

As a kid growing up in NE Portland, my friends and I would ride between the steel RR tracks along Hwy I-84 on our mini bikes.
Very bumpy at first, but when you got up to speed it really smoothed out.
Our usual destination was to crash the large company picnics at Blue Lake Park in Fairview
You would always have to keep a sharp eye out, both front and rear as the trains really move along the section of town, but it always seemed to me that railroad tracks run pretty much through most cities and towns, it would be a lot less congested with stalled cars and other debris and might be an alternative route out of town.

 

[powersbj]

Ever read Footfall? Or was it Lucifer's Hammer?

 

[Just Jim]

Ever read Footfall? Or was it Lucifer's Hammer?

Lucifers Hammer had the travel on the tracks

 

[mjbskwim]

Lucifers Hammer had the travel on the tracks

Did it go badly for some? Some nefarious folks will be waiting along some routes

 

[Just Jim]

Did it go badly for some? Some nefarious folks will be waiting along some routes

In the book it didnt

 

[The Heretic]

Seems to me that people get all hung up on what their solution is and assume that should apply and work everyone.

Exactly. Every person's situation is going to be different.

However, there are some common things to consider.

 

[The Heretic]

In the book it didnt

I know you meant it in jest/sarcastically, but this is the other thing; way too many people go by what they read in some PAW story.

Relative to BOVs, if you go to survivalist boards, there are a lot of posts about which vehicle is EMP-proof, because that is a very popular scenario in PAW fiction making it really easy to setup the story.

In truth, EMP is very unlikely, and it won't affect every single vehicle out there. Indeed, most will be unaffected, or if affected, you can shut them off, wait 30 seconds and start the vehicle up again.

 

[Just Jim]

I tend to not focus but to look at a bigger picture. I have driven most of the roads in state and realize there are a lot of choke points. Central and Eastern Oregon are not so bad but Western Oregon roads would not be passable in a big event. Odds are most people would stay with their stuff where they break down and as they run out of supplies they would move on.

Timing is what I think will make or break a bugout, either be first or be last. I wouldn't run with a crowd, you have to sleep sometime.

 

[ZA_Survivalist]

For the guys who pick bikes, what about nutunfancys point about exposure? I'm not bashing your pick but he does have a valid point.

My thought is, if Im "danger close"
(for lack of a better term) getting away is a last ditch effort anyhow.

Ideally my envisioned scenario is either shooting and scooting or blitzkrieging the potential target with rapid response vehicles i.e. Bikes and other lite mobile vehicles.

Obviously the exposure on a bike is much more extreme but no worse than hiding behind a little extra sheet metal in a vehicle.

 

[soberups]

Fuel, fuel, fuel.

The first issue facing most motorists will be obtaining fuel. No electricity= pumps don't work=no fuel.

The violence and fighting will take place where people are lined up waiting for fuel. Fuel lines will be choke points for desperate people who are all waiting on and competing for a limited resource. They need to be avoided like the plague.

The biggest, baddest jacked-up 4x4 is nothing but an immobile paperweight once it runs out of fuel.

My wife and I each have a Toyota Prius. Go ahead and laugh but they are front-wheel drive vehicles with a range of 400+ miles without refueling. I also own a 1996 F-250 4x4 with a trailer hitch which is a great bug-out vehicle except for the fact that it gets 10MPG.

I rarely drive the truck, so it sits at all times with 2 full tanks of fuel and whenever I do drive it I top off whichever tank it is currently using. And my wife and I never allow the tanks of our Prii to get below half full. More importantly....I keep 60 gallons of gasoline stored in 5 gallon cans preserved with Sta-Bil on hand in a shed in my back yard. Every summer when we use the truck to go camping I refuel it from the cans when we get back and then refill the cans with fresh fuel and Sta-Bil.

In a pinch, we could easily go 6 months or more without ever having to visit a gas station if we only drove our
Prii and made an effort to conserve. And the gasoline I have stored can also be used in my portable generator during a short-term power outage. It wont power my whole house but it will run the freezer and a few lights and we can get by on that.

Its all about the fuel. Can you tell I grew up watching "Road Warrior" when I was a teenager?

 

[The Heretic]

Fuel is important - to a degree.

However, if you are going to "bug-out", that possibly means you will be more worried about dealing with getting around obstacles than how much fuel you will be using.

Every person's situation is different, but mine is such that I live at what I consider to be my destination for a "bug out". So any of my vehicles will get me there, with a full tank of fuel, from any place I am likely to be driving them.

I am not saying a vehicle like the Prius isn't good to have as a daily driver, but if SHTF, I wouldn't be driving anything on a daily basis, much less a Prius.

My daily driver, a BMW coupe, gets reasonable fuel mileage (during the summer, it is 28 to 32 MPG in mixed driving). I drive it because of that mileage, because it is dependable, because it is comfortable and easy to drive.

But if SHTF, I would go home and stay home. If I needed to go out some place, I would probably be driving one of my 4x4 trucks, depending on what I needed to do, the small one or the large one.

I wouldn't worry too much about fuel mileage because most of the time I would be staying home. I would anticipate that my usage of fuel would be about what it is now with those trucks, maybe at most a tank of fuel a year. I also have a 250 gallon diesel tank in my shop, and once I set it up, it will be full.

If SHTF, then fuel range (not mileage, range) will be an issue for some people if their bug out destination is quite a distance, but mine isn't. Even my secondary destination (my backup BOL) is not that far.

I recommend that a prepper think about the fact that they may very likely find themselves hoofing it to their BOL, in which case a really remote BOL may be unreachable without caches and places to shelter on the way, along all of the alternate routes.

I would estimate that if a person isn't injured or sick, and doesn't have small children or elderly in their group, and they are in decent shape, they have food and water, they can make about 10 miles a day on foot. That BOL 400 miles away suddenly becomes a 40+ day hike at best (you will need days of rest, and alternate routes can make your hike a lot longer).

Sure, there are people who can, under optimum conditions, hike more than 10 miles a day. But my estimate is conservative, and it could easily get worse if you are sick, injured, etc.