View Single Post
  #219  
Old May 10th 15, 04:21 AM posted to rec.bicycles.misc
Joy Beeson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,638
Default AG: Buying groceries


I've only a tad over a mile and a half to ride after buying groceries
these days, so I don't fret if a bottle of milk ends up in the other
pannier from the rest of the cold stuff. Sometimes I slide a bag into
a pannier and leave it the way the bag-boy packed it.

One of my quarter-century rides has a place where I can buy a pound of
cheese at the turn-around point. On these occasions, I insulate one
of my panniers with newspapers and plastic bags, and carry my extra
water in quart bottles filled with ice cubes. Keeps my lunch cold on
the way out, my cheese cold on the way back. And refilling one's
bottle with ice water goes a long way toward encouraging hydration: I
pour only a half-cup or so into my bottle at a time, and try to drink
it before it gets warm.

I used to live in a place where the nearest supermarket was in the
next town, and the return route averaged uphill. On a hot day, food
might have become not just warm, but rotten if I had packed as I do
now. I went to the market seldom enough that I wanted every cubic
inch for groceries; carrying ice and insulation wasn't an option.

So at every trip, I would buy a can of frozen juice, pack the cold
stuff around it, and insulate it with the shelf-stable stuff and any
spare clothing I might be carrying. At home I would put the juice in
the fridge to finish thawing, and mix it up the following day. (That
was when I learned that juice is *much* easier to reconstitute if you
thaw it first.)

In those days I had a luxury that is no longer available: paper
grocery bags were still common, and plastic bags were the same size as
the paper bags. My panniers are designed to fit a standard grocery
bag. So I'd put a paper bag into a plastic bag, line my pannier with
the combination, and put another plastic bag in so the paper wouldn't
get wet. The plastic made the package slick to slide down into the
pannier, and provided handles to pull it out again. The paper made it
stiff so groceries wouldn't stick out between the wires and lock the
package into the pannier.

This was so convenient that I didn't replace my wire panniers with my
nylon panniers for multi-day tours: I would line a pannier with paper
and plastic, line the paper with another plastic, put in stuff I
wouldn't want until later on, fold down the bag, put another plastic
bag in, pack the next layer, and so forth. When the pannier was full,
I'd drape a plastic bag over my luggage and tuck it between the
outermost bag and the wires all around. Once I was caught in rain so
heavy that I couldn't see to get off the road, but everything in my
panniers was bone dry when I unpacked at the hostel that night.

And it's loads of fun to check into a fancy hotel with grocery bags
for luggage! (They don't turn a hair, actually, just summon a bell
boy to carry the bike up the stairs.)


--
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
http://n3f.home.comcast.net/ -- Writers' Exchange
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.


Ads
 

Home - Home - Home - Home - Home