Let’s clear this up right at the start; directly cycling to new planets is not what I am talking about. There would be a whole boatload of problems if we tried to do that. If we look at each of the technological and psychological challenges individually, I think we will find out that cycling to a new solar system will be much harder than it might at first glance appear.
As pretty much everyone is aware, it is extremely difficult to get traction in the near vacuum of outer space; this was proven way back during the Apollo moon missions. Fewer people, however, are aware that cosmic rays, unbuffered by the earth’s magnetosphere, would be very hard on ordinary rubber bicycle tires. Further, the fierce radiation of the sun, combined with the near-absolute-zero cold of space, would make extreme demands on a bicycle’s lubricants, and a space-worthy axle grease has yet to be fully developed.
These technological challenges, even if they could be surmounted, would be compounded by very substantial logistical difficulties.
Simple logistics would be, in sum, a huge problem. You may be anxious to remind me that, in the vacuum of space, there will be no need for aerodynamic considerations, and in the vacuum of space there is no terminal velocity and one just keeps accelerating with no upper limit to speed. Surely, you say, that will result in higher speeds and make a cycle trip to other solar systems more feasible. Well, it potentially helps, but it also adds its own problems. For instance, with no limit to speed (except the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second), how big of a gear will you need after one month of acceleration? A year? A decade? How do you get that big of a gear on your cycle? Is it really possible? The devil is in the details, as they say.
The problems don’t end there. Procedures so very easy to accomplish on earth will prove much more intractable beyond the troposphere. Where will you get air to put in your tire if you get a flat? How do you make panniers big enough to hold all the food and gear you will need without them getting in the way of the pedals? Where will you find a tree to pee behind, when they don’t even exist in outer space?
No, cycling to the exoplanets is at this time just too big a challenge. It may be generations before all the technological and logistical challenges are ironed out. But that is not my original point. I wanted to talk about cycling on the exoplanets.
The intent of this post is to argue for the inclusion of bicycles on interstellar flights, when the goal of the flight is to set up long term settlements on new planets. Why? Because, on any planet resources and energy will be finite, and we will need, at least as a benchmark, to have familiarity with the most resource-and-energy efficient transportation options available to us. On any planet, the human settlers need regular exercise, and this will be more true than ever on low mass planets. On large mass planets, it will become even more necessary to find the most efficient way to move weight (and there will be a lot more of it) over distance, and, as we have found on Earth, there is no machine more efficient at moving weight over distance than the bicycle.
The inescapable conclusion must be that cycles belong on exoplanets, just as they do on Earth.
When loading your interstellar craft, don’t forget your bicycle.

Author: Rodney Miner. Originally posted on LightfootCycles.com.