grocery bikes

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Ok, so here are some pictures...
First let me say however that I don't think the changes are a beauty improvement- in fact I think the clunky modern black metal/plastic appendages now hanging from my lovely steel Rambouillet are obviously an eyesore. HOWEVER- the real beauty here lies in the non-esthetic aspects of the changes to my now secondary bike....the beauty of not using gasoline or polluting the planet, of saving money on gas, of getting healthier and stronger while I do my shopping and errands. All these things are beautiful and inspiring to me.
So first a "before" picture, then 5 pix from this morning. One shows the panniers folded up, others opened out, with or without the supermarket liner totes I usually use and will bring into the store with me so I can judge how much stuff I can fit or manage. I put some hidden zip-ties securing the panniers to the rack in 4 places to discourage any jokers trying to just casually pick them up quickly and walk off with them while I was in the store.

This thread really helped me get a wide range of ideas for this little project, and my thanks to everyone for making suggestions and showing what they did to their bikes. Now that the pannier/rack project part is pretty much done, I will post future noteworthy errand expeditions in the "Errand Bike" thread in the Commuting forum. I started the errand bike thread over there for those of us who do not necessarily commute to our jobs by bike, but who nonetheless purposely use our bikes for other practical every day purposes as opposed to using cars.
These panniers seem like just the thing for me- sturdy yet elegantly minimal. I also now have a nice long storage space all along the top of my long rack now, so I have attached a couple of bungees there for strapping down extra objects if needed. My rack is a few inches longer than most, so we were able to attach the panniers a couple inches further back and avoid any possibility of heel touch while riding. The panniers seem to fit well with this particular rack, so I'm happy about that.
The combination U-lock/Cable I bought is pretty formidable and very heavy, but I'd rather go that way with a little overkill than be worried every time I'm in the supermarket. I can always make changes in the future if I need to.

BEFORE:


AFTER:
(notice too the new brifters in place of the old bar end shifters...that was a little project in itself and was certainly the most expensive part of the project)




Panniers folded up out of the way:






I confess I was tempted to put some "fake" groceries into the panniers for the photo shoot, but somehow I managed to restrain myself!
Plus, I was fresh out of wax fruit.

[Biciclista]

lookin' good. now go shopping

[SouthernBelle]

Lisa,
I'm at the office so I can't remember off the top of my head, the reflective strips on the back, bottom of those Novarra Panniers, did you add those or were they there already?

I can't remember if mine have those!


BTW, I just finished ordering a vintage errand bike from ebay. More news later.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Lisa,
I'm at the office so I can't remember off the top of my head, the reflective strips on the back, bottom of those Novarra Panniers, did you add those or were they there already?

I can't remember if mine have those!


BTW, I just finished ordering a vintage errand bike from ebay. More news later.

The reflective strips are on them already, but only on the one end, so you need to mount the panniers so the reflector strips face the back of the bike. You can easily overlook them and mount them the other way with no difference except the reflectors will face front instead.

I look forward to hearing/seeing all about your new/old errand bike- be sure to post details and pictures about it in the errand bike thread!

[SouthernBelle]

Will do!

[Grog]

Very good job, Lisa, it's impressive!

And what a pretty bike.

[wackyjacky1]

2 questions:
What is the black thing on the right side of the handlebar stem? A bell?
How come you got rid of the bar-end shifters?

I really like those panniers. Might have to treat my bike to a set of them.