What would happen if you gave the Romans bicycles?

>>3306173
?
They have bicycles...

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>>3306173
>ywn see LEGIO XIV GEMINA being led to glory by Caesar on an adorable pink 10 speed bicycle
Fuck

>>3306234
Militarily.

They could never build more. You need rubber for bicycles. I dunno if rubber trees would grow in Europe.

>>3306252
You need good roads, it wouldn't make much difference. The Romans are obviously famous for their roads so i guess they could cycle up and down the most maintained routes, but they're cobble stone roads so they will just end up vibrated to death.

It's pointless anyway, an army marches at the speed of its slowest unit, the artillery usually, which cant be mounted on bikes.

I guess they'd get some good courier system going on bikes, but then again a horse is basically faster and easier.

Maybe at best the mechanics of the chain and breaks would influence roman engineering elsewhere.

>>3306245
what the fuck

>>3306234
You shitting me, there's no way they had bicycles.

>>3306173
Horses are better.

>>3306245
We're going to deploy a new type of weapon along the Mediterranean coast. A mobile, manned chariot. A new tool of deterrence against barbarians. The missing link between infantry and cavalry

Metal...

Wheel!..

>>3306259
>>3306264
They can magically produce and repair bikes like in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyrlEE9AV58

They cannot use the material for other purposes.

>>3306259
Need? Not true. Plenty of bikes made with plain wooden wheels, or banded with iron/mild steel. They rode like shit, I'm thinking they called them "boneshakers," but they worked just fine.

File: japanese bicycle infantry.jpg (77KB, 439x249px) Image search: [Google]

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It was bicycle infantry that allowed the Japanese to so comprehensively win the battle of Singapore. Just imagine what the Romans could have done.

>The defeat at Jitra started a trend which continued clear down the five hundred miles of the Malay Peninsula. The British would try to make a stand, the Japanese would attack, the British would retreat. It is often true that soldiers retreating toward their base can move faster than their pursuers. Supply lines shorten, and the advancing enemy must contend with blown bridges and obstructed roads. However, in the Malaya campaign the Japanese were able to stay right behind the retreating British, never giving them time to catch their breath. There were at least two reasons for this. First, the British abandoned vast quantities of stores and supplies. Tsuji refers to theses as "Churchill Supplies", and the Japanese helped themselves to food, transport, and munitions, which greatly eased their somewhat tenuous logistical situation. The second reason was that the Japanese had issued their soldiers thousands of bicycles. Western Malaya had good hard surfaced roads, and the Japanese soldiers rode down them, as much as twenty hours at a stretch. The Japanese had sold many bicycles in Malaya before the war, so they were able to find parts and repairs in most towns and villages. When they could no longer repair the tires, they rode on the rims. If the Japanese soldiers came to an unbridged stream, they slung their bikes over their shoulders and waded through. When larger bridges were blown, the Japanese engineers performed prodigies of quick repair, so that not only bicycles, but tanks and lorries as well could pass over in a surprisingly short time. "Even the long-legged Englishmen could not escape our bicycles", says Tsuji, "This is the reason they were continually driven off the roads and into the jungle where, with their retreat cut off, they were forced to surrender".

>>3306264
>>3306284
>but then again a horse is basically faster and easier.
Slaves would love cheap bicycles. The rest of the Roman world maybe less so.

>>3306264
>>3306284
Horses have to be fed and shit.

>>3306264
You can ride a bike on a dirt path and grass.

>>3306348
Bikes have to be made and shit.
>>3306353
Yes because no easily and leisurely as a way of transporting huge numbers of people, its a sport for a reason.
Romans didnt have rubber anyway

>>3306450
you are wrong, see >>3306336

on the eastern front aswell there were bicycle regiments, a faster way of transportation than carriages
grow up, or not, and close the thread crying under your blanket or something

>>3306473
Dude all youre proving is that bikes work great for a quick assault down a 20th century road.

Not transporting a legion from Rome to Britain or whatever in 50AD.

>>3306336
>Western Malaya had good hard surfaced roads,

>>3306173
It'd significantly change the course of froman history, just off the top of my head, with a quicker mode of travel, the senators may've been able to rally their armies quicker, allowing them to fight Caesar.

Rubber comes from the Americas. Olmecs invented rubber balls.

>>3307850

You can make a bicycle without rubber tires.

>>3306792

Senators already had horses and chariots for getting around quick, or, you know, a fucking SHIP, since the Republic was mostly coastal provinces.

>>3306173
They'd be Peddlans?