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#42
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Grocery Bike
On 2/1/2019 6:28 PM, bob prohaska wrote:
patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. I agree this tendency to lessen the proportion of load on the front wheel is a potential problem. Here's my experience with two different bikes. When we retired, we bought matching Bike Friday folding bikes. On two trips, instead of using Bike Friday's trailer arrangement, we used Rick Steves bags for our clothes https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/classic-backpack which are designed to fit carry-on size limits and save a bag fee. I worked up a scheme to carry them on the bikes' rear racks. It worked OK (overall, we liked it better than the trailers) but I didn't like the relatively unloaded front wheel. Now, going back in history: My career as a daily cyclist started when I was about 13, with a paper route. It soon grew to be the second largest route in our metro area. To carry the heavy load of papers, my dad fitted each boy's bike with a huge wire basket, maybe 14" x 16" x 12" deep, over the front wheel. With that, I delivered papers to at least 75 customers, zooming into each driveway, through tight spaces past parked cars, up sidewalks etc. I had no trouble with handling the load. So I wonder if front loading (perhaps in addition to rear loading) would be better than just rear loading. I suspect that having the weight in front but stationary with respect to the frame might be even better. From John's link, this electric bike https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...1542132500.jpg seems to use that scheme. I think Brompton has a similar scheme. I also wonder if something like this might be the best way to carry a little kid. -- - Frank Krygowski |
#43
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Grocery Bike
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 11:33:13 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/1/2019 6:28 PM, bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. I agree this tendency to lessen the proportion of load on the front wheel is a potential problem. Here's my experience with two different bikes. When we retired, we bought matching Bike Friday folding bikes. On two trips, instead of using Bike Friday's trailer arrangement, we used Rick Steves bags for our clothes https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/classic-backpack which are designed to fit carry-on size limits and save a bag fee. I worked up a scheme to carry them on the bikes' rear racks. It worked OK (overall, we liked it better than the trailers) but I didn't like the relatively unloaded front wheel. Now, going back in history: My career as a daily cyclist started when I was about 13, with a paper route. It soon grew to be the second largest route in our metro area. To carry the heavy load of papers, my dad fitted each boy's bike with a huge wire basket, maybe 14" x 16" x 12" deep, over the front wheel. With that, I delivered papers to at least 75 customers, zooming into each driveway, through tight spaces past parked cars, up sidewalks etc. I had no trouble with handling the load. So I wonder if front loading (perhaps in addition to rear loading) would be better than just rear loading. I suspect that having the weight in front but stationary with respect to the frame might be even better. From John's link, this electric bike https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...1542132500.jpg seems to use that scheme. I think Brompton has a similar scheme. I also wonder if something like this might be the best way to carry a little kid. -- - Frank Krygowski Hi Frank. If I am carrying a very heavy load I put on the front panniers as well as the rear ones. I also load the front panniers with more weight than the rear ones if I'm going to be doing a lot of climbing. Spreading the load into 4 panniers rather than just 2 on the rear improves the bicycle handling for me and takes quite a bit of weight off the rear wheel. As far as carrying a little kid goes, I like the idea of the Wee-Ride setup that fastens to the top tube of the bike in front of the person pedaling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izAH2r-AM9Q It lets the child see ahead which in turn lessens the amount of squirming the child does compared to them sitting behind you where they can't see anything and often lean to one side or the other. Another good thing about the Wee-Ride position is that in case of a fall the child is more protected by the person doing the pedaling. If the child is too big/heavy for a Wee-Ride then perhaps a Tag-a-long type trailer would be better for them. Cheers |
#44
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Grocery Bike
On 2/2/2019 11:53 AM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 11:33:13 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 2/1/2019 6:28 PM, bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. I agree this tendency to lessen the proportion of load on the front wheel is a potential problem. Here's my experience with two different bikes. When we retired, we bought matching Bike Friday folding bikes. On two trips, instead of using Bike Friday's trailer arrangement, we used Rick Steves bags for our clothes https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/classic-backpack which are designed to fit carry-on size limits and save a bag fee. I worked up a scheme to carry them on the bikes' rear racks. It worked OK (overall, we liked it better than the trailers) but I didn't like the relatively unloaded front wheel. Now, going back in history: My career as a daily cyclist started when I was about 13, with a paper route. It soon grew to be the second largest route in our metro area. To carry the heavy load of papers, my dad fitted each boy's bike with a huge wire basket, maybe 14" x 16" x 12" deep, over the front wheel. With that, I delivered papers to at least 75 customers, zooming into each driveway, through tight spaces past parked cars, up sidewalks etc. I had no trouble with handling the load. So I wonder if front loading (perhaps in addition to rear loading) would be better than just rear loading. I suspect that having the weight in front but stationary with respect to the frame might be even better. From John's link, this electric bike https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...1542132500.jpg seems to use that scheme. I think Brompton has a similar scheme. I also wonder if something like this might be the best way to carry a little kid. -- - Frank Krygowski Hi Frank. If I am carrying a very heavy load I put on the front panniers as well as the rear ones. I also load the front panniers with more weight than the rear ones if I'm going to be doing a lot of climbing. Spreading the load into 4 panniers rather than just 2 on the rear improves the bicycle handling for me and takes quite a bit of weight off the rear wheel. As far as carrying a little kid goes, I like the idea of the Wee-Ride setup that fastens to the top tube of the bike in front of the person pedaling. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izAH2r-AM9Q It lets the child see ahead which in turn lessens the amount of squirming the child does compared to them sitting behind you where they can't see anything and often lean to one side or the other. Another good thing about the Wee-Ride position is that in case of a fall the child is more protected by the person doing the pedaling. If the child is too big/heavy for a Wee-Ride then perhaps a Tag-a-long type trailer would be better for them. My experiences: When our kid was tiny, after a few months or so of carrying her in a backpack, we switched her to a kid seat. I owned just one bike and used it for everything - country road rides, commuting, etc. - so I didn't want to remove the Blackburn rear rack. I ended up modifying the kid seat so it would mount on the Blackburn rack, and the easiest solution was to have it face backward. That worked surprisingly well. Her mass was closer to my saddle, and on club bike rides she had great fun socializing with the other riders just behind me. In fact, it worked until age four, when she moved to our tandem, for which I fabricated a kid-back attachment. When she had kids, we looked into a Wee Ride but returned it. If you notice in the video, the adults have to pedal with their knees way out to clear the seat, and the woman has to stretch her arms out pretty far to reach the handlebars. It may work for a fairly large guy on a bike with North Road or other pulled back bars, but our daughter's bike has drop bars. The Wee Ride just didn't work at all, and we returned it. What I did instead was take the same kid seat my daughter had used decades before and fitted it onto the skeleton of one of our Bike Friday trailers. It cost me nothing but a few scraps of wood and worked really well until the day both grandkids learned to pedal on their own. And I can report that there are very few things more fun than riding with one's grandkids. Even if it's just to the grocery store. ;-) -- - Frank Krygowski |
#45
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Grocery Bike
On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 7:05:29 PM UTC-8, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 6:24:17 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 16:59:06 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 7:13:00 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 23:28:24 -0000 (UTC), bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. A better solution is to move the rider forward, away from the rear wheel, but then the whole bike gets longer and heavier. The extreme would be a tandem, with the panniers where the stoker would sit. One sees cargo bikes like that around my neighborhood, usually with a kid seat above the panniers. It's a huge bus of a bike. Ideal for its purpose, but only one purpose and expernsive to boot. A standard upright bike with ordinary folding baskets carries most shopping loads easily. For heavier loads a trailer is an easy incremental improvement. Of course, if you happen to have an old tandem lying around, so much the better... My $.02, bob prohaska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SEpVo33AM :-) -- Cheers, John B. I see that a lot of people including whomever gave the video its title don't know the difference between a bicycle and a tricycle. Hint, a BIcycle has TWO wheels and A TRIcycle has THREE wheels. LOL VBEG ;) Other than the 2-wheel Bullitts in that video almost all of the Cargo Bikes are actually Cargo Trikes. Cheers True, but a tri-cycle can carry more and more varied loads than a bi-cycle :-) For the pure at heart see: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...t-cargo-bikes/ Groan. I'll drive. I remember when I didn't own a car. I would borrow my sister's car and do a massive shop. Then I would pick up this and that on my bike. I still do that -- except I own my own car, and a lot of times I'll just walk the half mile to the local market. -- Jay Beattie. The trouble is that I'm really out of shelf space in my 1600 ft home. When I drive I pick up a lot of groceries. I think that perhaps if I were back riding a grocery bike that I would take more and smaller shopping trips. Especially since the price of anything in California is now insane. A bag with two bottles of moderately priced wine, a package of batteries so that all of the remotes can be renewed, a box of wheat thins and one little pack of what I THOUGHT was cheese but turned out to be a cheese substitute were $52 yesterday. |
#46
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Grocery Bike
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 7:53:56 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/2/2019 5:28 AM, wrote: On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 4:05:29 AM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote: On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 6:24:17 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 16:59:06 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 7:13:00 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 23:28:24 -0000 (UTC), bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. A better solution is to move the rider forward, away from the rear wheel, but then the whole bike gets longer and heavier. The extreme would be a tandem, with the panniers where the stoker would sit. One sees cargo bikes like that around my neighborhood, usually with a kid seat above the panniers. It's a huge bus of a bike. Ideal for its purpose, but only one purpose and expernsive to boot. A standard upright bike with ordinary folding baskets carries most shopping loads easily. For heavier loads a trailer is an easy incremental improvement. Of course, if you happen to have an old tandem lying around, so much the better... My $.02, bob prohaska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SEpVo33AM :-) -- Cheers, John B. I see that a lot of people including whomever gave the video its title don't know the difference between a bicycle and a tricycle. Hint, a BIcycle has TWO wheels and A TRIcycle has THREE wheels. LOL VBEG ;) Other than the 2-wheel Bullitts in that video almost all of the Cargo Bikes are actually Cargo Trikes. Cheers True, but a tri-cycle can carry more and more varied loads than a bi-cycle :-) For the pure at heart see: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...t-cargo-bikes/ Groan. I'll drive. I remember when I didn't own a car. I would borrow my sister's car and do a massive shop. Then I would pick up this and that on my bike. I still do that -- except I own my own car, and a lot of times I'll just walk the half mile to the local market. -- Jay Beattie. Me too. Hauling groceries is a perfect application for a car. Doing your weekly shopping by bicycle just because I don't get. For a few forgotten items it can be more practical at a time there is a lot of traffic and busy parking lots. But other than that I take my car without any guilt. I like getting groceries or doing other utility stuff by bike. I wonder if the difference is that some people like bicycling for "training" or for adventure, for conquering mountains or for achieving personal bests. Other people just like bicycling, period. I've done mountains and training and personal bests - although I'm beyond the age where I'll set new personal bests. But I still like riding my bike even 0.4 miles to the post office and back. And if my grocery runs can carry only half as much as a trip by car, it's no problem. It just means I can ride my bike to the grocery more often. -- - Frank Krygowski That's my idea. Why should I waste the time getting the car out and driving a mile to the doctor when I can ride a bike that is unlikely to be stolen and not have to worry about parking. And having a bit of exercise before he measures my blood pressure. |
#47
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Grocery Bike
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 8:53:44 AM UTC-8, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 11:33:13 AM UTC-5, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 2/1/2019 6:28 PM, bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. I agree this tendency to lessen the proportion of load on the front wheel is a potential problem. Here's my experience with two different bikes. When we retired, we bought matching Bike Friday folding bikes. On two trips, instead of using Bike Friday's trailer arrangement, we used Rick Steves bags for our clothes https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/classic-backpack which are designed to fit carry-on size limits and save a bag fee. I worked up a scheme to carry them on the bikes' rear racks. It worked OK (overall, we liked it better than the trailers) but I didn't like the relatively unloaded front wheel. Now, going back in history: My career as a daily cyclist started when I was about 13, with a paper route. It soon grew to be the second largest route in our metro area. To carry the heavy load of papers, my dad fitted each boy's bike with a huge wire basket, maybe 14" x 16" x 12" deep, over the front wheel. With that, I delivered papers to at least 75 customers, zooming into each driveway, through tight spaces past parked cars, up sidewalks etc. I had no trouble with handling the load. So I wonder if front loading (perhaps in addition to rear loading) would be better than just rear loading. I suspect that having the weight in front but stationary with respect to the frame might be even better. From John's link, this electric bike https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod...1542132500.jpg seems to use that scheme. I think Brompton has a similar scheme. I also wonder if something like this might be the best way to carry a little kid. -- - Frank Krygowski Hi Frank. If I am carrying a very heavy load I put on the front panniers as well as the rear ones. I also load the front panniers with more weight than the rear ones if I'm going to be doing a lot of climbing. Spreading the load into 4 panniers rather than just 2 on the rear improves the bicycle handling for me and takes quite a bit of weight off the rear wheel. As far as carrying a little kid goes, I like the idea of the Wee-Ride setup that fastens to the top tube of the bike in front of the person pedaling.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izAH2r-AM9Q It lets the child see ahead which in turn lessens the amount of squirming the child does compared to them sitting behind you where they can't see anything and often lean to one side or the other. Another good thing about the Wee-Ride position is that in case of a fall the child is more protected by the person doing the pedaling. If the child is too big/heavy for a Wee-Ride then perhaps a Tag-a-long type trailer would be better for them. Cheers I tried that and finally settled on a front basket. |
#48
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Grocery Bike
John B. Slocomb wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SEpVo33AM There are a few such machines in my neighborhood, used daily by their owners to haul kids to preschool and go shopping. The big drawback is that they're expensive and cumbersome for any other use. A standard bike with baskets and a trailer is far handier with much the same load capacity. It's also cheaper. I certainly don't dismiss the value of cargo bikes, but don't think of them as a first choice for somebody grocery shopping. In the right environment they certainly have a niche. bob prohaska |
#49
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Grocery Bike
On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 4:53:56 PM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 2/2/2019 5:28 AM, wrote: On Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 4:05:29 AM UTC+1, jbeattie wrote: On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 6:24:17 PM UTC-8, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 16:59:06 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot wrote: On Friday, February 1, 2019 at 7:13:00 PM UTC-5, John B. Slocomb wrote: On Fri, 1 Feb 2019 23:28:24 -0000 (UTC), bob prohaska wrote: patrick wrote: Since I've been contemplating a fetch bike, I thought that perhaps an electra townie type so called flat foot bikes as a grocery getter in that the rear rack (which is mentioned by a couple of the posters) wouldn't have the interference while pedaling like a more conventional bike. I get that the mechanics (ie-standing to pedal) might not be good but at my age the standing isn't really used that much anyway! Regards, Pat You're almost certainly right in that a feed-forward design will cure the feet-to-pannier-basket clearance problem. The real problem is that all pannier setups tend to put heavy loads too far aft, past the rear axle. Having the CG too close to the rear axle is what causes instability and a tendency to wheelie. A better solution is to move the rider forward, away from the rear wheel, but then the whole bike gets longer and heavier. The extreme would be a tandem, with the panniers where the stoker would sit. One sees cargo bikes like that around my neighborhood, usually with a kid seat above the panniers. It's a huge bus of a bike. Ideal for its purpose, but only one purpose and expernsive to boot. A standard upright bike with ordinary folding baskets carries most shopping loads easily. For heavier loads a trailer is an easy incremental improvement. Of course, if you happen to have an old tandem lying around, so much the better... My $.02, bob prohaska https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0SEpVo33AM :-) -- Cheers, John B. I see that a lot of people including whomever gave the video its title don't know the difference between a bicycle and a tricycle. Hint, a BIcycle has TWO wheels and A TRIcycle has THREE wheels. LOL VBEG ;) Other than the 2-wheel Bullitts in that video almost all of the Cargo Bikes are actually Cargo Trikes. Cheers True, but a tri-cycle can carry more and more varied loads than a bi-cycle :-) For the pure at heart see: https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...t-cargo-bikes/ Groan. I'll drive. I remember when I didn't own a car. I would borrow my sister's car and do a massive shop. Then I would pick up this and that on my bike. I still do that -- except I own my own car, and a lot of times I'll just walk the half mile to the local market. -- Jay Beattie. Me too. Hauling groceries is a perfect application for a car. Doing your weekly shopping by bicycle just because I don't get. For a few forgotten items it can be more practical at a time there is a lot of traffic and busy parking lots. But other than that I take my car without any guilt. I like getting groceries or doing other utility stuff by bike. I wonder if the difference is that some people like bicycling for "training" or for adventure, for conquering mountains or for achieving personal bests. Other people just like bicycling, period. I've done mountains and training and personal bests - although I'm beyond the age where I'll set new personal bests. But I still like riding my bike even 0.4 miles to the post office and back. And if my grocery runs can carry only half as much as a trip by car, it's no problem. It just means I can ride my bike to the grocery more often. -- - Frank Krygowski I often get the impression that I live in a different cycling universe than yours ;-). An enjoyable ride for me is on a snappy bike, in comfortable cycling clothes, on quiet country roads, nice scenery and preferable in nice weather. The weather I can't choose so I take it as it comes, but the rest I can. Riding on a heavy sluggish utility bike hauling 10 kg of groceries on busy urban roads is not an enjoyable ride for me. It can be a necessity or more effective but not enjoyable. YMMV. Lou |
#50
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Grocery Bike
On Sat, 02 Feb 2019 10:38:23 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote: What is a "comfort bike"? I goggled it and found something like this https://www.amazon.com/comfort-bikes...8&node=3403981 One of the meaningless selling words for a semi-recumbent/flatfoot/crank-forward bike. Mine is a Trek Pure. http://classiccycleus.com/home/wp-co...31-300x225.jpg only black. Most of the images I found were that weird shade of blue. One of the hits mourned that they are no longer being made. Pity; they aren't real bikes, but they are excellent wheelchairs. -- Joy Beeson joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/ |
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