The sounds of my three cats meowing and a much needed reminder from my wife ensured that I’d be making a trip yesterday to grab a new bag of our favorite cat food, Science Diet Hairball Control Light. Two of our cats are very furry and one is notorious for eating things. The “hairball control” has been a life-saver…but that’s another story!
On a whim, I decided I wanted to try and make this errand a bicycle trip versus a car trip. My Trek Valencia was ready for the task and I was pretty certain that my Topeak Explorer rack would be well-suited to handle the nearly 20lb bag of cat food.
As the crow flies, the distance to the local Petsmart store was just under three miles. My Garmin Edge 705 found a bicycle-friendly route that ended up being about 4.3 miles one-way.
Piece a cake!
90% of the ride was on neighborhood streets and about a 1/2 mile from my destination I popped out onto some big streets and did some urban riding.
Grabbed the cat food and slung it over the rack and then used a spider bungee cord over the top to keep the bag from shifting backwards on the rack.
Needless to say, the hills on the ride back were a bit more challenging with 20lbs of cat food on the bike. In the end, however, the added weight had only one true consequence –> I burned more calories.
It felt great to “bike this drive” and get in a good workout in the process. Here’s a little video of my arrival home…
I have used the very same rack for the very same purpose! I'm glad I'm not the only one riding around with giant bags of kibble on my bike!