Shopping on a bike

[Oldhippy]

Skips over John just made me wonder on another thread. How many on here use their bike for the weekly/daily shop?
I go on average once a week. Sometimes I do the four pannier shop but mostly just two at the rear. For big refill shops I take the trailer and two panniers.
I do get curious looks when I am filling the panniers at checkout on occasions. The trailer handily fits three large bags for life exactly.

 

[Oldhippy]

Bloody spell check! Skipdiver John not Skips over!

 

[Andy in Germany]

Skips over John just made me wonder on another thread. How many on here use their bike for the weekly/daily shop?
I go on average once a week. Sometimes I do the four pannier shop but mostly just two at the rear. For big refill shops I take the trailer and two panniers.
I do get curious looks when I am filling the panniers at checkout on occasions. The trailer handily fits three large bags for life exactly.

All the time...

If the load is too big then we take the Bakfiets instead:

I think this was actually a visit to the recycling, not the shops, but you get the general idea.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I do use a hack bike for shopping sometimes, but most often I tend to do it on foot. Quite often I will do a bit of shopping combined with something else, and may not even have a bike with me. It all depends. Living in a built up area means I don't generally need to go very far to get stuff, so the time saving of riding a bike vs walking is only a few minutes. I tend to use one specific bike for shopping, which has a small greengrocers produce crate
permanently cable strapped to the rack. If that bike is to hand I might well take it, but I'm not going to faff around moving other bikes around or fitting panniers to one I don't normally shop on, just to save ten minutes walk time.

 

[Oldhippy]

In Europe cargo bikes are a common enough site. The UK is so far backward it genuinely makes me sad. When you see a cargo bike here you remember it as a thing. In Europe it is just transport.

 

[Blue Hills]

Been doing my shopping by bike for over 20 years.
Two big ortliebs on the back - inside a collapsible backpack or two smallish sized drybags and bungees in case I get too much stuff by mistake.
Especially useful during early lockdown last year when there were often dirty great queues - sod that - I would just go out for a bike ride with the panniers and then stop for shopping if I found a decent supermarket with no queue or a very small one. No great problem.
I live up a dirty great big hill and the folk in my "close" seem to think it impressive that I cycle up it with a heavy load of shopping.
It would be a damn sight harder on foot, even carrying just a couple of bags.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Been doing my shopping by bike for over 20 years. Two big ortliebs on the back - inside a collapsible backpack or two smallish sized drybags and bungees in case I get too much stuff by mistake.

You're a Tourist though, so you are well used to lugging the weight around and also will subconsciously be compensating for the effect on the handling of a bike being loaded.
Most of my mileage will be either totally unladen or at most might be a waterproof jacket and a book to read in the pub in a mini-rucksack weighing a couple of pounds.
I don't find moving unwieldy loads around by bike very enjoyable. It's not the bike weight that bothers me as a steel fan, otherwise I'd be a Carbon weight weenie. It's the effect on the handling of having a load that makes the bike want to fall over or roll and twist around between your legs when stationary.

 

[weareHKR]

Never... on the grounds that I don't go shopping!

 

[Blue Hills]

You're a Tourist though, so you are well used to lugging the weight around and also will subconsciously be compensating for the effect on the handling of a bike being loaded.
Most of my mileage will be either totally unladen or at most might be a waterproof jacket and a book to read in the pub in a mini-rucksack weighing a couple of pounds.
I don't find moving unwieldy loads around by bike very enjoyable. It's not the bike weight that bothers me as a steel fan, otherwise I'd be a Carbon weight weenie. It's the effect on the handling of having a load that makes the bike want to fall over or roll and twist around between your legs when stationary.

I don't do that much touring skipdiver.
The bike I currently use for shopping (steel of course) is relatively lightweight and only has a minimalist rack, though it is tubus. A decent frame, a good rack and good tough panniers (I recommend tubus and ortlieb) and you are sorted.
This is the bike:

That Tubus rack is just for panniers, has no platform on top and is only attached at the front at a single point.
It's perfectly stable though.
I would advise folks doing shopping to use a robust rear wheel though - that bike used to run with relatively light training type wheels and one of the spoke holes cracked on the rear. Can't be sure but this may have been caused by my heavy shopping.
The furthest shop I normally shop at is about 25 minutes away.

 

[Boopop]

I only use the bike, I don't have a car and live about a mile from town centre

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Sensible steel Ridgeback hybrid there @Blue Hills , much like my own Raleigh hybrids. I use a hack Pioneer with 36H steel wheels off a donor bike. Not light but they're tough. The back one has already survived a nasty pothole encounter, I had to put the rim in a bench vice and use a 2lb hammer on it to get most of the dent out. A lightweight wheel would have been totally destroyed.

 

[Tripster]

All the time...

View attachment 574930

If the load is too big then we take the Bakfiets instead:

View attachment 574934

I think this was actually a visit to the recycling, not the shops, but you get the general idea.

Oct 2019-Feb 2020 I was working near Antwerp and staying in the city. Those Bakefits where everywhere, kids in them, shopping from Albert Hein. A novelty to begin with but then just the norm. I thought they where great along with the scoot rental mopeds. Some fool hired one and crashed it whilst drunk on way back to hotel so the company banned us using them or cycles throughout the job and demanded we use hire cars only. One idiot is all it takes ! Great bike Andy

 

[figbat]

I don’t do big shopping on a bike, but I did buy a bike specifically to go shopping on. I picked up a Dawes Kingpin with the specific intent of using it to go to local farm shops and village shops during lockdown(s) to:

- support local businesses
- reduce car use and eliminate short journey car use
- get more exercise.

And it works on all counts. I use the rear rack with a cheap plastic basket bungeed to it. I have an old golf trolley in the shed I am considering turning into a trailer for it if more heavy duty capacity is needed. For now it is ok for bread, flour, veggies, pasties or whatever inter-Ocado items we want.

 

[numbnuts]

Before the lockdown I use to shop once a month by car and the rest by trike, but now as not using the car all week the battery has started to suffer, so I use the car for shopping and go for a short run to charge the battery.

 

[figbat]

Short runs are the worst way to use an engine. They don’t warm up enough to work properly meaning increased wear, increased fuel consumption and reduced oil life. This is why I use the bike rather than a car.