Bicycles can carry a lot of weight and do so quite gracefully. A bicycle can be a great choice for a quick visit to your grocery store.
Now, before you go rolling your eyes in doubt, hear me out. While you may not be able to use your bicycle for that $400 “monster” visit, you can use two wheels to get you those misc items that always crop up between store visits or maybe even visit the grocery store more often to reduce the need for those “monster” visits that require stealing cash from your IRA to buy groceries.
Here are some tips to help you turn a mundane grocery store visit into a two-wheeled adventure!
- Plan your route using an online tool like Google Maps. Choose side streets whenever possible even if it adds a little to your distance.
- Leave early in the morning on a weekend. Traffic will be light on a Saturday or Sunday morning before 9:30am or so.
- You’ll need something to carry the groceries in. This could be as simple as a large backpack or a large bicycle bag mounted to a bicycle rack. I use the Topeak DXP bicycle bag and open both saddlebags to exercise its full carrying capacity.
- Ideally, check out your grocery store ahead of time to determine whether they offer bicycle parking. The local grocery and Target stores near my house both have bicycle racks. Be sure to secure your bicycle with a lock.
- For your first few runs, be conservative. Buy less groceries than your carrying capacity and then work your way up from there so you don’t get stuck in a bind with too many groceries and no way to get them home. With just a few trips you’ll be able to spot when you’ve purchased an amount of groceries equal to most of your available cargo space.
- Be mindful of how you load your bicycle bag. I put cans and other heavy items on the bottom of the main central compartment of my bag and lighter items on the saddlebags that hang down on each side of the main bag. This is important. If you put too much weight on one side of the bicycle, you might feel unstable when you come to a stop.
- If you distribute the weight of your groceries nicely with the space you have to work with, you’ll find that the ride home will be quite easy. That’s the utility of the bicycle shining through. You can carry quite a bit of weight with just a slight performance decrease. In fact, you’ll find the ride home on your bike may feel even smoother with the added weight (especially on a bicycle with high pressure, 700c wheels).
The only real danger in using your bicycle to grab some groceries is that you may find that the whole experience is a bit addicting. With minimal effort you can leave your car in the garage, burn a few calories and take care of a necessary trip with just a small amount of effort.
Very helpful article. I'm lucky to live walking distance from a grocery store, but I can carry a lot on my bike. A front rack attached to the frame (not the handlebars) and a rear rack with panniers is great for shopping. The lower the loads, the sturdier the bike.
This doesn't have to do with your shopping post directly, but I don't know how to contact you otherwise (no contact info on your profile page.) I think this is a topic you might be interested in.
I wonder why the city of San Antonio is putting in bike lanes on neighborhood streets. I've seen this in several neighborhoods. These bike lanes are not necessary because they are in neighborhoods where bikes and motor vehicles generally get along fairly well already. Where we really need bike lanes are on the busy, multi-lane streets where a bike lane would actually do some good in keeping motor vehicles and bicycles apart. Unfortunately, we don't see enough of those.
I wonder if the city is simply putting in neighborhood bike lanes because it's easier and cheaper than putting in bike lanes where they would be more useful, yet it still looks good on the city resume' that they have put in XX miles of bike lanes. In my more skeptical mind, maybe the city and neighborhoods are trying to further restrict bicycles to the far right of the road even on these neighborhood streets where bicycles can regularly, and safely ride in the main part of the street.
Beyond that, these neighborhood "bike lanes" are fairly useless as bike lanes. Homeowners continue to park in front of their own home, understandably. Trash and recycle bins continue to be placed, as suggested by the city, in the street next to the curb. These render these new neighborhood bike lanes useless. Not the homeowners' fault.
Here is a picture I snapped the other day (through the windshield of my car) of a recently added "bike lane" in a nearby neighborhood: bike lane clutter. Tell me how useful that bike lane is.
[...] enjoy using my bicycle for small grocery store visits so when I noticed the Topeak Trolleytote I was instantly intrigued. On the outside it looks [...]