Love the Bike
Our Saturday afternoon shopping excursions are always the most casual and unhurried of the week. Maybe it’s being halfway between Friday and Monday, far away from the busyness of the work week, that gives the rides a chilled-out mood. Whatever the case, I know this: prior to going car-lite, I never once looked forward to running weekend errands, but now it’s as much about the journey as it is about accomplishing something. Gotta’ love the bike.
18 Responses to “Love the Bike”
Time is a funny thing.
When I moved to Florida, where we have only two seasons, hot and hotter, I lost track of seasons.
When I retired at the end of August, I lost track of the days of the week. Every day is a weekend.
I wrote about another time shifter when my wife and I watched the last night shuttle launch from our front yard.
http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/2008/11/14/bike-time-and-space-shuttle-time/
Here’s part of it:
The Law of Inverse Appreciation
In December 2006, one of the phreds posted a quote, from Colin Fletcher’s The Complete Walker: “The less there is between you and the environment, the more you appreciate the environment.â€ÂÂ
That led me to write to the list, I’ve been working on the hour-day rule of thumb.
* A cyclist can cover in an hour about as many miles as a hiker can walk in a day.
* A motorist can drive in a hour about as many miles as a cyclist can pedal in a day.
* An airliner can fly in an hour about as many miles as a car can travel in a day.
* The space shuttle can fly in an hour about as many miles as the jet can in a day.
I wouldn’t mind the day in the shuttle, but I know that below that, my pleasure is inversely related to the speed of travel above pedal power.
And if you can’t quite fit everything you normally buy for groceries, then there is always the option to build a Cart Bike:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Cart-Bike/
Yes, love the bike! I can definitely say the same about my commute to work.
Even when my wife and I have to break down to shop at our local “big box” store, going by bike makes it a pleasure.
My wife is looking for a similar basket for her bike, but those I find online come with covers. Is a model like the one in the picture still available?
Alan,
I’m curious when you are on you shopping trips how you balance multiple stops. Do you just leave stuff in your pannier bags and assume that any possible loss is made up by the savings from using bike? Being new to both a larger city and shopping by bike I am still over thinking this. I’ve found plenty of guides on the web about shopping for a bicycle, but none on shopping with a bicycle. Right now I stuff my pockets with items purchased from the previous store or put my backpack in the bottom of my grocery cart. I keep weighting all of these competing needs: of bike security, items in/on bike security, time spent in stores, size of purchases, number of stops, route and time efficiency, and trip enjoyment. I miss not having a large vehicle that I can lock my purchases in. Any suggestions to simplify my over thinking this are welcome.
Kind Regards,
Jeff
Jeff,
The easiest way I’ve found to deal with shopping where theft might be an issue is baskets. Use shopping bags, or a backpack, and pull the bag out of the basket when you park your bike. Shop with the bag, like you would if you were walking from store to store.
I am wondering how far all you folks live from your local food supplier? I have to ride twenty gut wrenching, hilly miles, in the dark, with no shoulder to get to my nearest store for food. We have to stock up and only shop about once or twice a month. Any perishable foods can spoil or melt before we get home in the summer. So much for the benefit of living in the country. We will have a garden instead and are buying our meat from a local grower and will freeze it. Seems like a better solution than pedaling my guts out every week. I’d do a five mile shopping trip on relatively flat routes but that’s it for me.
Over the last year, my family has eliminated the car from our weekend shopping trips. I have three kids (14, 10, 4) who require us to stock a lot of food and other supplies. My older 2 kids have baskets on their bikes that can carry maybe 20 lbs each. My husband pulls a Burley trailer that we can pack with 100 lbs of 4 year old and stuff and I can pull a BOB or just fill my huge panniers. That is a great deal more carrying capacity than I have found we need, but it is there just the same.
I have come to a place where I just hate going to Costco or the grocery store in a car. The worst part is always the parking lot and the creeps in it.
@Jonathan
Yes, the basket on Michael’s Pashley is a current model. Velo Orange sells the Basil Davos here:
http://www.velo-orange.com/badaba.html
Alternatively, you might contact Gold Country Cyclery – they distribute Pashley on the West Coast:
http://www.tandems-recumbents.com/
Alan
@Jeff
Well, we cheat. Mostly we ride together on our big shopping trips, and if need be, one of us hangs out with the bikes. It’s usually me, and I typically use it as a photo op.
Bob’s idea is good. You might also look at quick-release panniers such as those from Arkel and Ortleib. They could be easily removed, dropped in a cart, and used as your shopping bags.
We also sometimes use a small “accessory cable/lock” that we thread through our bags. If used carefully, you can probably lock your bags closed as well as lock them to the bike. This isn’t going to stop a persistent thief with a cable cutter, but it’ll stop an opportunistic thief that happens to be walking by.
It’s probably just going to take a little experimentation to develop a system that works for you.
Alan
@Charles
We live in a densely populated area. The nearest grocery store is less than a mile away, and there are at least three others within a 5-6 mile radius. We’re very fortunate to have a Whole Foods nearby.
A 40 mile round-trip to the grocer doesn’t seem practical to me, particularly under the conditions you describe…
Alan
Alan,
What kind of “accessory cable/lock” do you use?
I’m not Alan, but I use this little $10 retractable gem:
http://www.amazon.com/Master-Lock-4605D-3-Foot-Retractable/dp/B000BD69G0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1231957989&sr=8-1
It’s easy to pack and use. I also use it on the slopes to lock my skis at lunchtime.
Eddie,
Thanks. I found some of those a few years back for about the same price. I think mine has a longer cable and it has a motion sensor. It’s what I put on the bike when I’m running into a store or eating where I can see my bike.
I figure the noise might scare someone off, particularly if they’re just fooling with the bike, and the cable is good enough to slow someone down. I wouldn’t count on it if I wasn’t nearby, though.
I thought this lock might be similar, but stay away from it.
http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/2008/07/31/avoid-this-bike-lock-with-alarm/
I was thinking of something that I could use to tie all the zippers together to keep someone from unzipping my trunk bag or panniers.
@charles…I feel your pain. I too live in the country, on 40 acres(family farm). When I first moved out here with my bride over 12 years ago it was a 7 mile one way haul to the nearest grocery store, however the city is coming to us, we now have a grocery store with in 1.5 miles. My gem is all the truck farms on my 20 mile loop. I know most of the farmers by name, as well as many of the field workers, I seldom pay for more than a bit of what I actually get in terms of veggies. We also raise vegetables, as well as chickens for fresh free range eggs and meat as necessary. But I get a wider range of veggies by buying from the local farms than we can reasonable raise in our own gardens. However anything other than a grocery store is a 14+mile round trip and more like 30 if I need hardware.
Aaron
Hi Aaron,
I would love it if I were in more of an agricultural area but alas I am surrounded by fir trees in the foothills of Mt.Rainier. Aside from squirrels, skunks, deer,elk, black bear, coyotes, and the occasional Mountain Lion, I think the only commercial growing operations are of the ‘medicinal’ kind and unless you are making ‘special brownies’ probably not worth making a salad out of.
We do have a few local chicken egg folks, dairy farms and some nifty berry patches as well as fishing holes. I plan on an eventual greenhouse and plan to make jam this year. I really dig getting around by bicycle and the local feed store is only five miles away so that’s handy. My cats benefit from a sack of food strapped to my Long Haul Truckers rack. I pay my electric bill at the local power company using my bicycle and do all my visiting and church attending on it too. I’m holding out for the town to come to me but do enjoy the many miles of rural riding with generally decent roads. I would probably be more adventurous were I younger and leaner but I can definitely see the bicycle being useful to many folks even where I live.
@Ken
We use a Kabletek Flexweave accessory cable combined with a combination lock from the hardware store:
http://www.rei.com/product/543085
Alan
My kid just started growing a veggie garden in his back yard. He doesn’t have a light on the web cam right now, but you can see his garden grow and how he set it up by going to
http://www.watchmyfoodgrow.com/