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"Big Clearance! 12 in place of 1!"
"Grande offerta! 12 per 1!"
ENFB cyclists' union, Woerden, 1993; poster by Theo van den Boogaard
I'll speak from experience here, but biking with groceries is the biggest pain in the ass ever.
Oregonian here... biking with groceries in the rain...
No way been biking to get groceries for decades. You just need the right luggage. Personally I have a folder with a low rack so a 70L trekking pack with an aluminum frame works great. Before that I used the 4 kitty litter panniers. But easiest is probably just a cargo bike
Yeah, when I was at uni I'd bike for almost all my shopping trips, the only bad one was when I decided it would be a great idea to not get a set of weights delivered
Let alone 2 to 4 feet of snow, ice on the roads and people struggling to walk, let alone riding a bike, as cars have shovels out trying to get unstuck, and snow piled up where people used to bike in the summer
People thinking bikes are the solution live in climates with mild weather. There is no possible way for that to work where I live. When I do see people biking it is very specialized gear, and no chance they could pull a trailer on top of things.
Plenty of people in Oulu, Finland bike literally all year round. Fully 12% of all trips in winter are made by bike.
Their secret? Just as the roads are plowed, so are the bike paths. If we didn't plow and salt the roads up north, cars would also seem ridiculously impractical compared to a snowmobile or cross country skis.
Oulu invests in making winter biking safe and practical, while American cities of comparable size and climate like Syracuse, NY don't. The results are predictable.
Yeah, bike paths are seen as a luxury or pleasure activity in most US cities. The idea that, despite that fact that people do, are actually trying to get places or get shit done by biking isn't really considered...
I mean, you also see that in the US with bike path design in general.
Bike paths around me in the US mostly go along creeks and railroads. There's one in the suburbs that's an abandoned rail line out into farmland. They're mostly designed as places for suburbanites to drive to for exercise. They're more of a park than a piece of transportation infrastructure.
Oulu, on the other hand, has bike paths that go through the center of town, out to the suburbs. There's over 300 bike underpasses on the main bike paths. It's designed for commuters, for people running errands, and for kindergarteners to bike to school. They're a practical bit of transportation infrastructure.
I want that so bad tbh, I've been trying to float the idea of at least getting bike lanes built for kids in the surrounding area of schools here. A kind of starting somewhere plan.
Just look at street cam footage of any Dutch town. Heavy rain, hail, wind etc. doesn't stop those madmen on their grandma bikes.
they could be snow plowing the bike lanes but they don't feel like it
There's so many solutions to the problem that could easily be funded if there were less cars on the road.
Imagine seeing a cashier sitting in a chair at a grocery store. That's the funniest part of this picture.
It's a Dutch picture. I have never seen a cashier standing up, I think a chair is mandated by law or workers protection rights
workers protection rights
US people: WTF is this devilry?
Cashiers in US supermarkets don't get chairs? Why? Plastic chairs aren't that expensive.
As it was explained to me, it's so that customers can feel superior to the workers that have to stand and suffer. People who can sit while they work aren't really "working".
It didn't really make sense to me either, but there you are.
That's very petty.
it's "lazy" according to the "if you got time to lean, you have time to clean" crowd. It 100% does not make sense to me, but do my job from the computer so sitting 80% standing 20% for me...
That's a good law, standing at a cash register all day is quite painful.
We have exactly one grocery store in my city - that I'm aware of - that allows its cashiers to sit. It's Aldi lol.
Pretty gross rack design tho. Should just be a bunch of pipes bent into a large U-shape cemented into the ground on both ends.
You're supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
Also not all bikes are shaped the same, and once you put a weeks worth of groceries on them that front wheel is popping out of that shitty slot and you're crushing the guy next to you
This is a very common Dutch design for bike racks. You use the vertical bar to chain your frame to.
If your groceries are popping your front wheel up, you have a very awkward setup. I've only had that happen with very large/weird loads. Normal groceries should be over your rear axle, not behind it.
Not all bikes are the same, but over here 90% of bikes are city bikes, and this rack accommodates that.
Couldn't agree more. Imagine telling the Dutch how to do bikes as a non-Dutch. :p
You're supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
This must vary a lot, but that's how you keep only a wheel where I'm from. I even saw those wheels locked to railings here and there in Berlin
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me, but the whole reason to lock the rear wheel (as opposed to the front wheel) is specifically to avoid this problem. By locking through the rear wheel inside the rear triangle of the frame, you lock up both the wheel and the frame at once.
This is why bike racks designed to lock the front wheel are stupid.
I was arguing, but now that you explained it I understand that you were right all along
Edit: but the comment is still valid with regard to front wheel locking
How would locking the rear wheel work for that yellow bike with the tow cart? If bicycles are to replace cars for grocery runs, I imagine such tow carts would be a must for many people.
And the guy with the full cart is going to... juggle?
Either that or the cart's going home with him.
That guy didn't have a car in the first photo either. They probably just walked home. But seriously, you can fit a surprising amount of groceries on a bike, especially with saddlebags or just a backpack. Plus, if you don't have to drive to the grocery store you often find you can make a few smaller trips now and then instead of one giant stressful trip that you have to plan everything around.
That guy wasn't at a car in the first photo. It's implied he had one, like everyone else in the photo.