Popped to Tesco on the way home...

[Sheffield_Tiger]

Is this the one on Abbeydale Road, near the old cinema?

Well, none of MY locals have room for a bike park so it wasn't me...

One of the carpark staff had a go at me once for using this sign rather than the racks. I politely explained the poor design of the racks, to which they replied with words to the effect of 'not my problem, don't lock your bike to the pole'.

I would have been tempted just to take the bike into the store

 

[Norm]

It's fairly standard behaviour for Tescos. People always come on here and say yeah but my Tescos is great. My opinions of tescos isn't based on one store, I surveyed about 100 tescos stores I think it was. They all do bad things but on average, tescos are by far the worst behaved supermarket for cycle parking.

Why should we not be happy if our local store has good provision?

There's 5 covered stands outside the front door, another 7 covered stands a bit further away and another set (which aren't visible on Streetview - probably to hide them from the browsing thieves) on the other side of the front door.

 

[marinyork]

Why should we not be happy if our local store has good provision?

There's 5 covered stands outside the front door, another 7 covered stands a bit further away and another set (which aren't visible on Streetview - probably to hide them from the browsing thieves) on the other side of the front door.

Because people may shop at more than one. If I shopped at Tescos on a bike I would conceivably use three. The respective provision is as follows:-

poorly secured rack x2, out of the way (large store)
no cycle parking whatsoever (brand spanking new store, medium size)
no cycle parking whatsover (medium-large store)

And by 'good provision' I judge this relative to when it was built and history of cycling in the area. If you look at some brand new developments they are putting in covered stands. For new stores we should be getting a Rolls Royce service - covered stand, lockers, good site location, multiple entrance taken into consideration etc. Tescos fail miserably on these things. Norm, we should basically be getting like what you said you have - we aren't.

 

[Norm]

Norm, we should basically be getting like what you said you have - we aren't.

I completely agree with that. Whilst I'm very happy with the provision that my local store offers cyclists, I'd like it to be more widespread.

My post was to wonder why you seemed to be offended by those who post that their local store is great. IMO, it's good that Tescos can do it right and we should encourage cyclists to use the good stores.

If enough turned up on two wheels... well, there's the whole "critical mass" argument which I'm sure everyone has seen already.

What's the answer with the poor stores, then? Do you have contact details for the store managers? Would it make any difference to send a few (hundred) letters from potential customers who avoid their stores because we cannot lock our bikes safely? Or is it easier to just avoid those stores and use the nearest JS?

I have never cycled to my nearest JS and Streetview doesn't get close enough to the front of the store to check what cycle stands they do have. Maybe something for me to do in the morning.

 

[marinyork]

I completely agree with that. Whilst I'm very happy with the provision that my local store offers cyclists, I'd like it to be more widespread.

My post was to wonder why you seemed to be offended by those who post that their local store is great. IMO, it's good that Tescos can do it right and we should encourage cyclists to use the good stores.

I'm not offended. I'm just quite interested in cycle parking and doing some very large parking surveys myself find it a bit irritating when people like argue back in the vaguest terms. Some are even paid to do it ! It's more understandable if other people have smaller experiences. I've been mapping cycle parking slowly, unfortunately there are limitations of that. I've put quite a bit of stuff on the openstreetmap/opencyclemap but I'm really held back by the limitations on detail. It's better than nowt though. Rather like cycle parking in general, there isn't an overall/plan/rationale to cycle parking, it's just splodged in one store whilst at a similar store built at the same time they do something completely different.

If enough turned up on two wheels... well, there's the whole "critical mass" argument which I'm sure everyone has seen already.

What's the answer with the poor stores, then? Do you have contact details for the store managers? Would it make any difference to send a few (hundred) letters from potential customers who avoid their stores because we cannot lock our bikes safely? Or is it easier to just avoid those stores and use the nearest JS?

I don't know what the solution is. I find that often people in power even employed to sort this out although enormously sympathetic are not up on their brief and will argue and haggle and talk in the vaguest of terms. When you give them the precedents, detailed examples and so on they just say that's far too much information thank you, you're hurting my brain. I don't really understand it, people on here know what they are talking about.

In terms of supermarkets in general, in theory one should be able to write off to the 'ethical/environmental guy' say working for the Co-op and get more stands installed. Tescos are more problematic as there have been several examples where they have actively tried to resist cycle parking such as the one the OP is writing about.

I have never cycled to my nearest JS and Streetview doesn't get close enough to the front of the store to check what cycle stands they do have. Maybe something for me to do in the morning.

This is a problem, one has to survey them personally which is why I'm trying to add in data. The cyclemap doesn't render the other data though . I did this to a relatively newly built sainsburys and was slightly disappointed that they had installed 6 stalls and they were 35-40m away from the entrance which is beyond DfT guidelines and it was not covered, it was in view though.

I am going to write a letter to EBC, the neighbours of the Tescos store in the OP, who frankly should know better. I don't think even they'll listen.

 

[Norm]

That's a good thing that you are doing, MY. If there's anything that I can do to assist, let me know. Photos, post codes, etc. I've never tried openstreetmap or opencyclemap but I'm heading over there now.

 

[marinyork]

That's a good thing that you are doing, MY. If there's anything that I can do to assist, let me know. Photos, post codes, etc. I've never tried openstreetmap or opencyclemap but I'm heading over there now.

There's an open cycle map tab on bikehike which many of this parish are fond of, well they were until saving routes went , so I don't think it totally useless .

Open cycle map renders cycle parking as blue squares like this

Like I said there are detail problems so I haven't added quite a bit of the private stands - in general. OSM of course tells one where supermarkets are so you can put two and two together.

If you did find your local Sainsburys had parking or that tescos, I'd happily add it or walk you through it.

P.S. the blue squares don't appear at all levels of zoom. The standard ones indicating capacity 1-19 bikes appear at 1-3 zoom level on opencyclemap and 1-2 on bikehike, the C signs to one zoom level higher.

 

[Armegatron]

Personally, if there is poor or no cycle facilities Ill just take the bike in with me. Most aisles are wide enough, and the bike is then effectively the trolley.

 

[killiekosmos]

No help to those down south but the planners insist in bike parking in Scotland and of a good standard .

I suspect this varies from council to council. In my experience the larger shops (Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, B&Q as examples) stick a basic cycle storage 'facilty' outside the shop and forget about it. At B&Q you can't get near it for trolleys.

Before it closed my local Safeway had a proper cycle rack with lots of spaces, under cover, near door, firmly anchored to ground.

I just lock my bike to nearest pole if there is nothing better. Did it at work and a covered rack was eventually provided. (Apparently bikes are an eyesore but cars aren't)

 

[marinyork]

I suspect this varies from council to council. In my experience the larger shops (Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons, B&Q as examples) stick a basic cycle storage 'facilty' outside the shop and forget about it. At B&Q you can't get near it for trolleys.

Before it closed my local Safeway had a proper cycle rack with lots of spaces, under cover, near door, firmly anchored to ground.

I just lock my bike to nearest pole if there is nothing better. Did it at work and a covered rack was eventually provided. (Apparently bikes are an eyesore but cars aren't)

Tescos do have a basic trapezium sheffield that is 3x sheffields joined together as one in a row and then bolted, glued or sometimes just tethered with a cable to something else. They have a square version of this too and other variations. It just varies so much even within this county - sometimes they stick it on the far side of the car park, sometimes they stick it 150 yards from the entrance, sometimes they stick it a few feet from the entrance in a sensible place and even sign it and sometimes the seemingly basic sheffield rack of theirs is far too complicated for the little darlings and they don't install anything at all.

I think the B&Q depends when it was built. Some of the newer ones have very generous parking facilities for bicycles. Morrisons and Sainsburys don't have a standard design for all stores, they actually think about it a bit. Granted in some cases they make a horlicks of it but there you go. Three of the big morrisons round here all built/renovated the last few years have slightly strange facilities - they do have them though.

 

[StuartG]

Just got back from Lidl's cycling extravaganza.

First branch had no cycleparking at all. Lashed it to their sign. Second branch had thought about it and installed at great expense around a dozen embedded wheelbenders. I lashed my bike (the only one) along about four of these.

I think that summarises the problem. Bikes often don't get on the list of things to be done and even if they are - the decisions seldom involve people who bicycle (doesn't always go with middle/senior management image). So nowt or useless is the result.

That may change when cycling culture changes and grows but that's decades away. Doing it by regulation also has the same problem. Users are not cyclists and be guaranteed to get it wrong - as most cyclist facilitators do so.

That's not helped by the cycling lobby being too fragmented and unclear to get good relevant information and understanding the right people at the right time.

So what to do?

 

[marinyork]

So what to do?

Well the absolute minimum is to do so on renovated/new builds. They need planning permission. The OP may not have made it clear but the original tescos being talked about was built and opened in 2009. Brand spanking new store. Tescos didn't want any cycle parking there and people had to fight for it. Tescos pull the trick of unbolting, not fixing the stand rack to the floor so they can move them somewhere else 6 months later when no one notices. Tescos have pulled this trick a number of times.

If we had new builds installing an adequate weighted number of stands, installed properly over 10 years things would improve quite a bit. The problem is I have an long list that gets longer as time goes by of brand new builds with no or poor provision.

Planners are actually quite sympathetic to cycle parking, it's just they are too trusting of other people and despite being paid to care about the detail, they are very vague and not sharp on their brief at all. They know all the regs and problems, what they are short on is the actual end result.

 

[Davidc]

Big job, but if someone collated information for the cities and big towns it would be possible to publish the information on cyclist friendly stores.

Provided the data was accurate and kept updated there would be no real danger of comeback (libel threats).

It would be a seriously big task though.

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

Just got back from Lidl's cycling extravaganza.

First branch had no cycleparking at all. Lashed it to their sign. Second branch had thought about it and installed at great expense around a dozen embedded wheelbenders. I lashed my bike (the only one) along about four of these.

The only place at my Lidl is to the kindly installed dog ties at the end of the trolley rails.

Have come back to my bike to find it being "guarded" before now....

 

[marinyork]

Big job, but if someone collated information for the cities and big towns it would be possible to publish the information on cyclist friendly stores.

Provided the data was accurate and kept updated there would be no real danger of comeback (libel threats).

It would be a seriously big task though.

It's an interesting idea Davidc. I'm not sure how interesting it would be as it'd just end up as a boring spreadsheet, perhaps with thumbnail photos as the information is so complicated.

It'd probably have columns -

sheffield stands yes/no
installed correctly?
trailer friendly?
secured to the floor and device?
rack yes/no
lockers?
covered yes/no
method of covering
other type of cycle parking yes/no
total capacity
within 30 yards of main entrance yes/no
coverage at multiple entrances?
when was the store built?
was the parking erected by an external body like the council?
was the parking pooled by other shops?
size of store
history of cycling in the area
does store allow bikes in the store
does store allow bikes to be left in the lobby
photo thumbnail (see attached)
combined score