grocery bikes

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Mary, thanks for the very cool pictures of your great project!...amazing and professional job. I especially love the purple streamer 'broomstick' sticking straight out the back!

This is a great thread with all kinds of different solutions that people have found for hauling groceries and shopping bike setup. I'm sure many people will get good ideas from it in addition to myself.

I came to realize while looking at panniers that touring panniers are somewhat different than grocery style panniers- something I never thought about before.
I did like those metal folding panniers, but considering my intense aversion to extraneous rattling noises on my bike (and even my DH's single well-secured wire Wald basket rattles on the front of his errand bike), I think I'm going to order the REI folding Novara panniers that Divingbiker pointed out:
http://www.rei.com/product/733820
My DH is researching various rear racks now.

If I eventually get strong enough to get up my hill with both panniers full, there is also my roomy Carradice Nelson saddlebag that I can put on top of the rack. And theres' always the front of the bike too (though I doubt I'll ever be at that level of strength).
I'll start out by using the panniers with my medium sized Little Joe bag in back though- I suspect it'll take a while to build up strength. I already need to be in my lowest low gear just to get up my big home hill even without any pannier load or rack. And my bike has quite low mtn bike gearing.