Photograph from Shropshire.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The Viet Minh / NVA / VC were pretty creative with bicycles , too. A couple of small, fit blokes pushing a well-built bicycle loaded with a couple of sacks of rice or a few slabs of small arms ammo can cover a LOT of ground discretely in a fairly short time. A bamboo pole was rigged like a reverse tiller off the handlebars. One person pushing from beside the bike and the "helmsnman" pushing and steering with the pole.

Not surprisingly, the bicycles made in the Hanoi factory were somewhat "overbuilt" compared to the French pattern civilian jobs from which they were copied. Not many left now.

Then, there are the wonderful contraptions used in southern Africa during the Boer War and later. These were basically two tandem bikes with a spacer frame between them and "biolt-on" wheel flanges. Thus a couple of these monsters could rapidly carry a combat-ready patrol quite quickly along the railway tracks. I saw some period photos a while back: Time to re-post them hereabouts?