“Big Clearance! 12 in place of 1!”
“Grande offerta! 12 per 1!”
ENFB cyclists’ union, Woerden, 1993; poster by Theo van den Boogaard
I’ll speak from experience here, but biking with groceries is the biggest pain in the ass ever.
Oregonian here… biking with groceries in the rain…
No way been biking to get groceries for decades. You just need the right luggage. Personally I have a folder with a low rack so a 70L trekking pack with an aluminum frame works great. Before that I used the 4 kitty litter panniers. But easiest is probably just a cargo bike
Yeah, when I was at uni I’d bike for almost all my shopping trips, the only bad one was when I decided it would be a great idea to not get a set of weights delivered
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Two panniers on the rear rack and I can carry like 20kg of groceries.
It does throw off the balance of the bike a little bit since you’ve shifted the weight so far back, but you just need to be a bit careful when accelerating and it’s fine.
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do it for 10 years year round in all weather with no other option for transportation and get back to me. I’m fucking sick of it.
Just need the right bike for the job.
Let alone 2 to 4 feet of snow, ice on the roads and people struggling to walk, let alone riding a bike, as cars have shovels out trying to get unstuck, and snow piled up where people used to bike in the summer
People thinking bikes are the solution live in climates with mild weather. There is no possible way for that to work where I live. When I do see people biking it is very specialized gear, and no chance they could pull a trailer on top of things.
Plenty of people in Oulu, Finland bike literally all year round. Fully 12% of all trips in winter are made by bike.
Their secret? Just as the roads are plowed, so are the bike paths. If we didn’t plow and salt the roads up north, cars would also seem ridiculously impractical compared to a snowmobile or cross country skis.
Oulu invests in making winter biking safe and practical, while American cities of comparable size and climate like Syracuse, NY don’t. The results are predictable.
Yeah, bike paths are seen as a luxury or pleasure activity in most US cities. The idea that, despite that fact that people do, are actually trying to get places or get shit done by biking isn’t really considered…
I mean, you also see that in the US with bike path design in general.
Bike paths around me in the US mostly go along creeks and railroads. There’s one in the suburbs that’s an abandoned rail line out into farmland. They’re mostly designed as places for suburbanites to drive to for exercise. They’re more of a park than a piece of transportation infrastructure.
Oulu, on the other hand, has bike paths that go through the center of town, out to the suburbs. There’s over 300 bike underpasses on the main bike paths. It’s designed for commuters, for people running errands, and for kindergarteners to bike to school. They’re a practical bit of transportation infrastructure.
I want that so bad tbh, I’ve been trying to float the idea of at least getting bike lanes built for kids in the surrounding area of schools here. A kind of starting somewhere plan.
Just look at street cam footage of any Dutch town. Heavy rain, hail, wind etc. doesn’t stop those madmen on their grandma bikes.
they could be snow plowing the bike lanes but they don’t feel like it
There’s so many solutions to the problem that could easily be funded if there were less cars on the road.
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It’s quite clear there’s not much experience going on, if it was truly awful enough to leave a comment like this then you were doing something wrong.
That something could literally be living in the US, but still.
Imagine seeing a cashier sitting in a chair at a grocery store. That’s the funniest part of this picture.
It’s a Dutch picture. I have never seen a cashier standing up, I think a chair is mandated by law or workers protection rights
workers protection rights
US people: WTF is this devilry?
Cashiers in US supermarkets don’t get chairs? Why? Plastic chairs aren’t that expensive.
As it was explained to me, it’s so that customers can feel superior to the workers that have to stand and suffer. People who can sit while they work aren’t really “working”.
It didn’t really make sense to me either, but there you are.
That’s very petty.
it’s “lazy” according to the “if you got time to lean, you have time to clean” crowd. It 100% does not make sense to me, but do my job from the computer so sitting 80% standing 20% for me…
We have exactly one grocery store in my city - that I’m aware of - that allows its cashiers to sit. It’s Aldi lol.
Pretty gross rack design tho. Should just be a bunch of pipes bent into a large U-shape cemented into the ground on both ends.
You’re supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
Also not all bikes are shaped the same, and once you put a weeks worth of groceries on them that front wheel is popping out of that shitty slot and you’re crushing the guy next to you
This is a very common Dutch design for bike racks. You use the vertical bar to chain your frame to.
If your groceries are popping your front wheel up, you have a very awkward setup. I’ve only had that happen with very large/weird loads. Normal groceries should be over your rear axle, not behind it.
Not all bikes are the same, but over here 90% of bikes are city bikes, and this rack accommodates that.
Couldn’t agree more. Imagine telling the Dutch how to do bikes as a non-Dutch. :p
Use a chain? Thats either less secure or bigger & heavier than a u-bolt. Just look at the bar, its not going to work for the rear wheel.
The rack I describe is cheaper (less metal), more secure, and accommodates 100% of bikes. I know many Dutch-made cargo bikes won’t even work with the design shown.
I’m glad you have all the answers
Well, I do know how to make bike racks
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Practically all bikes in the Netherlands still look like that today. They’re a tool to get you from A to B and this design has proven very reliable for that.
U-locks for bikes are a rarity as well. Basically all bikes have a lock built-in, that you optionally pair with a chain if you park it somewhere deemed unsafe.
How “does it not look right” if it’s literally reality. I could take a foto of such a rack today in my area. They exist, they work. I don’t see the problem.
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pretty gross rack design
You’re absolutely right
It’s a normal rack, I disagree with the grossness.
They didn’t […] tell him “hey that doesn’t look right, please draw again”
But it does look right.
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BUT THEY ARE ALL OVER THE NETHERLANDS SO IT DOES LOOK RIGHT
I wont use all caps but they are indeed all over the netherlands. This discussion is hella lacking context. Yes those racks are very common and normal, and no amount of what you think changes that. This is a dutch ad which is based on what NL actually looks like.
Acting like the 80s were a new time for bikes… by then the netherlands was not occupied and the dutch were indeed allowed to own bikes again :)
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Dunno, this does look gross
You’re supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
This must vary a lot, but that’s how you keep only a wheel where I’m from. I even saw those wheels locked to railings here and there in Berlin
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me, but the whole reason to lock the rear wheel (as opposed to the front wheel) is specifically to avoid this problem. By locking through the rear wheel inside the rear triangle of the frame, you lock up both the wheel and the frame at once.
This is why bike racks designed to lock the front wheel are stupid.
I was arguing, but now that you explained it I understand that you were right all along
Edit: but the comment is still valid with regard to front wheel locking
How would locking the rear wheel work for that yellow bike with the tow cart? If bicycles are to replace cars for grocery runs, I imagine such tow carts would be a must for many people.
It would work great. You’d lock the rear wheel to the bike rack with a ubolt, and that would lock both the frame of the bike and the rear wheel in one go. To lock the front wheel and the trailer, use a cable and loop it around and pass it through the same ubolt.
My point is that the bike racks that are just one large U shape are far more versatile. They work for road bikes. They work for short folder bikes. They work for huge cargo bikes. They work for the bike with they yellow trailer.
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And the guy with the full cart is going to… juggle?
Either that or the cart’s going home with him.
That guy didn’t have a car in the first photo either. They probably just walked home. But seriously, you can fit a surprising amount of groceries on a bike, especially with saddlebags or just a backpack. Plus, if you don’t have to drive to the grocery store you often find you can make a few smaller trips now and then instead of one giant stressful trip that you have to plan everything around.
That guy wasn’t at a car in the first photo. It’s implied he had one, like everyone else in the photo.
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WOAH NOW, that yellow trailer is definitely going to get swiped by a car tho
People who can’t dodge stationary objects shouldn’t have a driver’s license. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen, but it really shouldn’t.
It depends on velocity
If only the driver had some way to influence the velocity 😢
People who can’t maintain a reasonable and prudent speed also shouldn’t have a driver’s license, either. Still, it does happen, but it shouldn’t.
Doesn’t look like that rack is bolted into the ground. I usually flip it upside down and drag it some place inconvenient to let the store owners know that their bike rack provides no security if it can just be picked-up by a theif with the bike.
