This old chestnut, from the comments section of a Hootsmon story today:
"Cycling can be a good thing but it is not for everyone. The very old and the very young and the handicapped cannot do it, nor can people who have been shopping"
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
You can't shop AND cycle
(41 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Well not unless you make the place cycle friendly, as they have done in other places...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Really? I mean, I'm sure I've cycled after shopping in Edinburgh... Surely it is possible here, despite the lack of cycling culture?
Posted 12 years ago # -
Funny how we manage to feed and clothe a 4 person family by bike.
And I must have imagined seeing my neighbour who had both legs and arms amputated some years ago riding recombodna's bakfiets in harrison park on saturday...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Preciseamundo SRD.
Posted 12 years ago # -
But in another comment a hootsman reader concedes in a roundabout way that shopping for very small things is possible:
"I can't see much point in shopping with a bicycle. Even with panniers I couldn't carry much home"
Posted 12 years ago # -
I thought the Internet was for shopping?
Downtown - window shopping, entertainment and coffee.
And mobile phones - but they are not very big...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Funnily enough you can do shopping on foot. A bicycle just makes carrying all the heavy stuff easier.
Plainly some folk have never heard of panniers or carrier racks.....even without these I have managed two bags of messages in a Carradice Nelson longflap before!
If you really need the equivalent of a car boot full of shopping then there are cargo bikes available for the price of a well used second hand motor...
Posted 12 years ago # -
"I can't see much point in shopping with a bicycle. Even with panniers I couldn't carry much home."
There speaks someone whose life is arranged around moving a weekly lorry-load of shopping.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"a weekly lorry-load of shopping"
Free 'picking' and delivery if you spend over 50 quid.
'Oh but you miss the bargains if you don't go yourself'
Perhaps, but "offers" tend to be on-line too - so people buy more than they planned to in person(?)
Posted 12 years ago # -
I have to get some pesticide to help deal with a greenfly infestation on the way home and only have 1 pannier, a rack and a couple of bungees. As I've now been informed that it's not possible to do this by bicycle I guess I'll have to put the stuff on the bike and push it all the way home?
Posted 12 years ago # -
I guess I'll have to put the stuff on the bike and push it all the way home?
Don't be silly, thats what the city car club is for. Last time I had to buy a CD I rented a car to drive to the out of town shopping place and I'm glad I did, they're very heavy!
Posted 12 years ago # -
"I can't see much point in shopping with a bicycle. Even with panniers I couldn't carry much home"
Neither can I (see much point), my panniers wouldn't be big enough for a monthly shop. The 15kg bag of dog food alone wouldn't fit. ;)
I do use my bike (if Mrs Baldcyclist isn't coming), or walk, to go for the rolls at the weekend, and any 'local' shopping that we need to do. My nearest 'big' shop is more than 5 hilly and non cycle path reachable miles away, so we do need the car for that. I must confess that I *like* internet food shopping, but my wife for some reason unbeknown to me prefers to trapse round the isles of the Supermarket every week.
However, if you do wish to use your bike for shopping, that is fine. So is using the car.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Or spray it on yourself, leave the packaging at the shop and roll on the greenfly when you get home.
Or buy some ladybirds.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Wots a CD?
Bit of plastic that saves you finding out how itunes works?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"The 15kg bag of dog food alone wouldn't fit."
Dog panniers?
Posted 12 years ago # -
You can own and re-sell / bequeath a CD. Ownership of an iTunes track resides with (apparently)... you are merely renting an MP4 file.... going OT here!
Posted 12 years ago # -
Or buy some ladybirds
Never seen any ladybirds in my backgarden
Posted 12 years ago # -
I have to get some pesticide to help deal with a greenfly infestation on the way home and…
Is that some form of guerilla gardening? CEC pays people to maintain its foliage, y'know. ;) (I believe it's known as a misplaced modifer.)
Or buy some ladybirds
Ladybirds seem to be in very short supply. I haven't seen any this year.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Baldyclist
...to go for the rolls at the weekend
You have a rolls parked somewhere out of town to put the bikes on the back of?
Wow! ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
@edd1e Aye, too expensive to run all week, hence the reason for mixing with the peasants on bikes Mon - Fri. ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
You have a rolls parked somewhere out of town to put the bikes on the back of?
He parks it in Barnton, so it blends in. ;o)
Posted 12 years ago # -
To be fair, you can walk back to George St and put a load of shopping in your boot midway through the day.
Walking back to George St to the bike parking and putting things on your bike before walking back down to Princes St is not going to happen, is it? (Unless someone comes up with hardened steel lockable panniers?
Posted 12 years ago # -
As someone who hasn't owned a car since 1994, I do all my shopping on foot or by bike. One one occasion I collected 3 Sq/m of tiles for the kitchen by bike, which weighted in an nearly 20 Kg.
However, until we make it easy to do, most people won't feel able to shop by bicycle the way that is common in the Netherlands and Denmark.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I do my supermarket shopping with panniers and a back-pack, but I'm not shopping for a family. If I'm buying heavy stuff from Homebase like bags of compost I'll get a taxi to take the stuff back, along with me and my cycle. That would only be once or twice a year that I'd do that.
But when it comes to browsing-style shopping eg buying clothes and shoes in Princes/George Street a bicycle is a nuisance. You don't want to push it round the pavements among the pedestrians. I also don't want to leave it somewhere and have to trail back to it several blocks away. So for that kind of shopping I'll catch a bus.
Posted 12 years ago # -
How much you can carry must depend partly on the bike. I see the Workcycles Fr8 can take "at least 250kg" of rider plus shopping.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I regularly load up my panniers,rack and back pack with 60 cans of cider, when the price is right, its a bit flexi, steering is a bit light, but better than carrying them, and before anyone asks, no they are not all drunk in the one session.
Posted 12 years ago # -
The good news is that I somehow managed to get the bottle of pesticide home.
Take THAT, greenfly and take THAT, Hootsmon doubtists.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I love going into Lord John's, loading up a basket to bursting then see the checkout person watch in disbelief as I fit it all into a single pannier!
Posted 12 years ago # -
We are a family of four. See threads passim for discussion of shopping using a wee Raleigh Swift folding bike as transport. Small wheeled bikes can carry a remarkable amount of stuff.
Nowadays I go shopping with the tandem, the hybrid, and once a month or so I do a large supermarket run with the Ute (mainly dried goods, cans, jars, bottles, heavy lifting department).
Assuming you have panniers which are sufficiently large and robust, he only thing to be careful about when shopping by bike is load distribution. A bit like being a pedestrian really: if one bag is really heavy and the other really light, you'll have trouble balancing. Keeping heavier stuff low down, and between the two axles is key. Lighter goods can go just about anywhere so long as you can still see where you're going, get pedal clearance and steer okay.
Posted 12 years ago #
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