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Originally Posted by MWnRNC
My initial thoughts were that bikes would be less useful than draft animals because their parts wouldn't be reproducible at TL 4, whereas a post-apocalyptic subsistence farm would be more self-sufficient.
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Probably. A civilization that can build significant numbers of bicycles can build steam engines, and anybody who can do that has more impressive vehicle options. There's also the issue of roads - without good roads the advantage of a bicycle over walking are questionable. Even a cheap "unimproved" mountain bike trail cost $10 to 20,000 per mile to cut, and several thousand dollars a year, or equivalent volunteer effort, goes into maintaining it. If you can put together the surpluses and organization to build and maintain a network of halfway decent roads you are well on your way to recovery from the apocalypse.
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Bikes seem like they would be useful for getting around city ruins and perhaps as a makeshift cart you could load your supplies and equipment onto.
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Bicycles make poor carts. Sure you can use the parts to build a better one, but then you don't have a bicycle anymore. Very limited carrying capacity definitely cuts into the utility of bicycles. They work OK if you are looking to move smallish numbers of people modest distances, so they'd be great for the protagonists in an immediate aftermath scenario. But civilizations want to move crates, or artillery pieces.