On 1/29/2019 6:05 PM, wrote:
For awhile after my concussion I lost my driver's license and so did all of my traveling and grocery shopping on a Schwinn Voyager. I mounted a rack and that wasn't very successful since grocery bags fall apart. Then I got a handlebar bag of the little old lady kind that was like heavy screen metal. The Chinese were selling something similar made out of bamboo that looked like wood. As long as you weren't carrying a load this worked out. Now I see that you can get something seminar to fit on the rear rack.

I tried saddlebags but my heels kept hitting them and the bike would rock around. I don't remember how I handled the long distance touring but everything must have been tied down pretty tightly.

In any case, after I got my license back I sold the grocery bike off. The good point about it was that it didn't look worth stealing and so I could park it in front of a store and just put a lock through the wheels.

Now that I'm trying to sell off a large part of my inventory I'm thinking of getting another grocery bike. I'll have some room for it. The store furthest away from me is next to the drug store I use and that is only a mile and a half away. The store I use most often is only half a mile away.

I am now thinking that it is rather silly to be driving to a store that close.

The problem is - do you continue to use a bike for shopping after the immediate idea that driving there is dumb? Some of you probably have some experience with this - what is your take?

I tell people a bicycle is the only proper way to arrive at a grocery
store. Or the library. But I admit, when it's below about 40 degrees F,
these days I take the car.

Our grocery store choices are between 1.5 miles and 3 miles away. I
usually go to the closest one, but I take a roundabout route on
super-quiet streets and get 6.2 miles of riding.

The bike I use is the one I commuted on for decades, a 1992 Raleigh
Super Course frame with all components replaced at one time or another.
It has a Blackburn rear rack and a huge handlebar bag I made in the late
1970s. Also fenders, hub dynamo and B&M headlight, etc.

I use old open-top fabric grocery panniers that fold easily. They came
from either Nashbar or Performance. They're easy on, easy off so they
stay off the bike unless I'm going shopping. They did hit my heel, so I
extended the lower part of the pannier rack to enable them to slide back
for clearance. Yes, when packed full they wiggle a little bit. I deal
with it pretty easily. A stout bungee cord helps a bit, hooking into
grommets I added at the far left and the far right of the respective bags.

My wife usually comes with me on her bike. She has only a handlebar bag,
and usually some of our purchases go into it. But I can pile a lot of
stuff onto my rear rack, with things that aren't fragile or squashable
piled up 8" above the rack, held on by bungee cords. As on some of our
tours, I try to leave her bike as unloaded as possible.

I'm lucky that the store is uphill and home is mostly downhill. Oh, and
sometimes my wife gripes about having to ride the bike for groceries.
But absolutely every time, she later admits it was fun.


--
- Frank Krygowski