Ron Hardin writes:

A regular bike rider can easily put out 250w for hours, which ought
to keep ahead of a flood with lots of room for breaks.

Consider the horsepower it takes to lift a given volume of water a given
height in a given time. A man isn't good for much, bicycle or no. This
was well known to the 19th century navies of the world wrt bilge pumps and
to firefighting before the era of portable steam engines.

Reminds me of a friend who thought we would fly on bicycles some day, it
was just a matter of improving the mechanical efficiency. That he couldn't
run up a few flights of stairs without being exhausted didn't seem to be a
problem.