grocery bikes

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Even though we work at home and do many of our errands on bike already, my husband and I are discussing adapting two of our bikes for doing more grocery shopping. We already do other errands to the bank, PO, and drugstore by bike, but that does not require hauling any significant loads.

We live about a mile from the super market which is great...but we live at the top of a very steep hill, so I am hoping I will be able to get up that hill after adding 20 or 30 pounds worth of groceries. Time will tell as we set my bike up.

I am interested in seeing other people's bike setups for going to the grocery store. Any pictures of racks or grocery panniers/baskets that you especially like that work well together? Or others that you didn't like so well and why not?

I know there are differences between typical touring panniers (more rounded for packing clothes, being more aerodynamic, and eliminating heel kick problems) and specific panniers for holding bags of groceries (rectangular, often open-topped, the size of a paper bag of groceries). I am not interested in the rounded touring panniers, but rather in the square utility grocery-type panniers w/racks setup. I am not planning to buy a special bike for this, but rather adapt the bike I have, which is a semi-touring bike already with plentiful rack eyelets etc.

I'd like to see how some of you have adapted your bikes to doing your supermarket shopping....

[buddha_bellies]

I work near Safeway, so I just buy grocery every few days and buy what i think will fit my panniers. If I have bulky items like toilet paper, I just use bungee cords and strap them to the top of the bike rack. Unless you buy stuff in bulk at Costco, I don't see what the use of buying special trailers. They are expensive too! Although, this looks really interesting...

it's call bikehod Don't know how well it works. I've yet to see it in Vancouver

[bikecanada]

I just use a backpack, but that's because my bike doesn't have eyelets for a rack (and I don't want to pay for it at the moment for a seat post mounted rack). The backpack works if I get small things like fruits and vegetables.

[lph]

I am lusting for a bike trailer. We used to have one for our son when he was small, and could use it to haul massive amounts of stuff. Sometimes with the little guy still in there

Seriously, they are the way to go to move stuff easily by bike. I don't know what we were thinking of when we sold the trailer.

[OakLeaf]

Down south we are a mile and a half from the supermarket and just a little farther from the natural food store. I pretty much shop daily, never less than three days a week. My panniers are less than ideal, but I don't need to carry much so it's not that big of a problem. Can you hit the grocery store on the way to/from work or other errands, or would that mean climbing the hill twice?

[divingbiker]

I like the grocery bag panniers from REI. A paper grocery bag fits perfectly, they're fairly easy to take on and off, and they fold up nicely if you want to leave them on the bike.

The front basket is nice for breakable things or overflow.

Here they are on my pink mixte, but I use them on the Glorius also.

[SouthernBelle]

I have those Novarra panniers too and like them. Though if I had more then one person's worth I would consider a trailer. Have you considered building a trailer?

[xeney]

We had problems with the grocery panniers -- ours are from Nashbar, and they just don't hold very much. We've had groceries fall out on the street if we overfill them.

The Wald folding baskets are much sturdier and hold more. I used to routinely carry 50 pounds of groceries in these:



If you need to haul things like flour, potatoes, or beer, these work much better than grocery panniers.

Right now I always have a baby with me so we are trying to figure out how to grocery shop by bike with her in the mix. Our trailer is a single Chariot and there is limited cargo space for groceries, and I have not tried pulling it with that bike. I'm also a little worried about locking the Chariot up outside a grocery store -- it has a lot of stealable parts and is not easy to lock up in any case. I have thought about an iBert or similar baby seat on that pink mixte but I am not sure how it would work. I could also pull the trailer with the mixte but I need to solve the locking-up issue.

My husband would like to be able to haul 150 pounds of pet food, which I am trying to convince him means an Xtracycle ... he wants a BOB trailer, but (a) that means we still need a baby seat for Penny, so we might as well have an Xtracycle, and (b) the load capacity of a BOB is only 70 pounds as far as I can tell.

He does not believe me but I think we will have an Xtracycle by next summer. I usually get my way.

[Mr. SR500]

I like the grocery bag panniers from REI. A paper grocery bag fits perfectly, they're fairly easy to take on and off, and they fold up nicely if you want to leave them on the bike.

The front basket is nice for breakable things or overflow.

Here they are on my pink mixte, but I use them on the Glorius also.

I use the same for picking up the kids and their backpacks get dumped in the panniers, but for more serious hauling a trailer is the way to go. Good trailers tow wonderfully, and you'll be able to haul most anything you would like.

[shootingstar]

Since we don't have a car, we do have to use our bikes most of the time. He and I each use our panniers. We don't necessarily shop together either. But most of the stores are within a 12 kms. round trip or way less. the joy of living downtown..

He has used a BOB (outside of his touring trips) for a larger trip to a bigger grocery store --which happens only once a year and there is a long hill. In that case he will use his touring bike only because he has several bikes to choose from.

I confess that I've never tried using the BOB at all --yet. And he's had/used it in the last 10 years.

Well Never, say never. Always something to learn..