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The bicycle has one of the longest and most successful histories of any form of transport. During the nineteenth century it evolved from simple wooden machines into the familiar pedal cycle. By the late Victorian period Britain had become one of the world’s leading bicycle manufacturers. Thousands of local workshops produced frames, wheels, chains, saddles and components. Many engineering skills that later supported the motor industry were first developed in bicycle factories.

The bicycle was a truly local product. Every town had cycle shops that not only sold bicycles but repaired and modified them. Parts were interchangeable, skilled craftsmen could braze broken frames, and a bicycle might remain in service for decades.

The twentieth century brought enormous changes. Steel tubing became highly specialised, aluminium alloys became common, and later carbon fibre transformed racing bicycles. Manufacturing became concentrated in large factories, mostly overseas. The local cycle maker largely disappeared, replaced by retailers selling imported machines.

This model depends upon abundant energy, long international supply chains and continuous supplies of high quality metals. As the industrial economy contracts, each of these assumptions becomes less certain. Steel production requires huge amounts of energy and complex infrastructure. Aluminium is even more energy intensive. Carbon fibre depends upon sophisticated chemical industries. If these systems begin to fail, complete bicycles will become increasingly difficult to obtain.

That does not mean that cycling itself disappears. Quite the opposite. As fuel becomes expensive and motor transport contracts, bicycles become more valuable than ever. The question is not whether bicycles survive, but how they are made.

The answer may lie in rediscovering local manufacture using materials that can be obtained within the locality or recovered from the existing economy.

The first source of material will be recycling. Millions of bicycles already exist. Their frames, wheels, chains and gears represent an enormous stock of engineering materials. Even badly damaged bicycles contain useful components. Local workshops can recover, repair and rebuild machines almost indefinitely.

Eventually, however, even recycled steel may become scarce. Local communities will then need to explore other materials.

Timber offers one possibility. Modern wooden bicycles already exist, using laminated hardwoods such as ash, oak and beech. Properly designed wooden frames are surprisingly strong, absorb road vibration well, and can last for many years. Unlike metals, timber can be grown within the locality and replenished continuously through careful woodland management.

Bamboo provides another example where climate permits. It has exceptional strength for its weight and has been used successfully for bicycle frames in several countries. Although not suitable everywhere in Britain, it illustrates how natural materials can replace industrial ones.

Other parts can also return to natural materials. Wooden mudguards, leather saddles, wooden rims for certain applications, natural fibre baskets, hemp ropes and locally produced accessories all reduce dependence upon imported industrial products.

Local blacksmiths and engineering workshops could manufacture the few metal fittings still required from recycled steel. Bearings, axles and chains may remain the most difficult items to replace, making their careful maintenance increasingly important.

The bicycle itself may also change. Modern multi-speed machines are highly efficient but mechanically complex. Simpler designs, single-speed bicycles and direct chain drives require fewer specialised components and are easier to maintain locally.

This represents a return to an older philosophy. Throughout most of cycling’s history, people expected to repair rather than replace. A broken frame was brazed. Worn bearings were adjusted. Wheels were rebuilt repeatedly. Ownership meant stewardship rather than consumption.

Localism naturally supports this approach. Every locality could sustain a bicycle workshop employing skilled mechanics, woodworkers and metalworkers. Apprentices would learn practical engineering rather than simply replacing factory-built parts. The bicycle would once again become part of the productive economy instead of the consumer economy.

Ironically, the decline of industrial abundance may restore the bicycle to its original role. Not a fashionable recreational item, but an essential machine that local people understand, build, maintain and value.

The future bicycle may look rather different from today’s lightweight racing machines. It may contain more timber than steel, more craftsmanship than automation, and more local knowledge than imported technology. Yet it will still perform the same remarkable task that has made the bicycle one of humanity’s greatest inventions – transporting people efficiently using nothing more than human energy.

In a shrinking economy, that may prove to be one of its greatest strengths. The bicycle does not belong to the age of limitless industrial growth. Properly adapted, it belongs just as naturally to the age of localism.