Grocerymobile

Fabulous tricycle supplemental:  Look how many groceries it holds!  (Click to enlarge and see all the stuff that's in there.)

Local anonymous teenagers walking by have dubbed this "The Grocerymobile."  As you can see, mine is not the only one in this town.

If you click and enlarge that photo, you will see that we also have lots of the usual kinds of grocerymobiles as well, minivans and such.  Several of my townspeople, though, are hip to the fact that it's not the only way to shop.

Comments

[Librarian Wonder]

That, my friend, is a ton of groceries on a trike. Sweet!

[Sara]

It is sweet! Sadly, where we live, I can only do this about eight months a year max, usually more like six, but it absolutely beats driving. Highly recommended.

[elizabeth]

That's pretty cool - looks way more efficient than those trailers you haul behind the bike. Or you could just take a friend in a wheelchair - Linda once loaded six bags of groceries onto my wheelchair (in the oxygen rack underneath, on the extendable handlebars) - she is not afraid of using me as a mule.

[Sara]

ha ha ha

You know, when I worked at Whole Foods, I saw a lot of that... Shameless!

I would also not be averse to letting someone in a wheelchair hook onto that basket and sort of "waterski" behind me. Now THAT would give the locals something to gawk at!

We'd have to work it out somehow so that there would be no unpleasantness when I hit the brakes, but it's not like I speed, you know? And between us we could carry four times as many groceries.

[Kay]

Nice bike! So much more dignified than being in a wheelchair at the bottom of a bag heap. Or when I shopped with my scooter and hung all those plastic bags from handlebars, armrests, and in front basket and set them by my feet.

Your bike could also BE the wheelchair, like a kind of rickshaw. Just replace the basket with a chair and voilà: http://www.gadling.com/2007/06/29/a-canadian-in-beijing-if-you-roll-when-you-stroll-beijing-is-t/

[Sara]

It's cool looking, but it's gas-powered -- or so I think. I'm not sure I'm looking at the right image. The one I see is of what looks like a motorized scooter with a chair facing backward slapped on behind the driver's position. By contrast, my trike is powered by my remaining organic leg.

What I have been pondering, though, is a way to make a bicycle built for two kind of thing where a person in a wheelchair accounts for one of the two and powers his/her part with his/her arms. I think there should be a kit which allows people to attach a wheelchair either to the front or rear of an ordinary, human-powered bike or trike, depending on the power of the wheelchair user. (A strong wheelchair user could easily outpace my tricycling, and would definitely be unhappy riding behind me, for example.) The wheelchair user would not have to ride backward like cargo or a pet in a box, and could participate (if strong enough or possessed of enough mobile parts) in the healthful exercise aspect of the excursion. Also, the wheelchair could be detached from the parked bike or trike so the user could go inside whatever destination awaited.

Hmm...thinking...thinking...

[Kay]

Yeah, you're looking at the right one, though I don't think it'd have to be a motorbike. Have you seen those bars that attach a child's bicycle to an adults? They can ride separately or together, kinda like a bike built for two.

But now you've got me googling, and maybe you've researched all this when you got your bike, but wow, these are exciting to comtemplate: http://www.helmets.org/fourwhel.htm

[Kay]

Hee! Or grocery shopping could be like a party roadtrip with this thing, where seven people sit in a circle facing each other while they bike together (pdf file): http://www.scooterbug.com/pdfs/CoBi_lr.pdf

Can you imagine making a beer run with this thing?

[Sara]

Oh, fantastic! Thank you for the great links!

The Scooterbug looks particularly fun, though I'm not sure where you'd put the groceries -- or the beer. But this reminds me of that Daily Show clip you posted, which I meant to comment on, but time got away from me (as usual). Now it's bedtime, so I'll have to come back to this. Stay tuned... ;)

[Ron Sullivan]

What I really like about that pic is that the biggest single thing there is a bag of birdseed.

I think my shrink is trying ever so gently to persuade me to get a bike. (And maybe drink more water.) My dentist, OTOH, is recommending that I take the ibuprofen I take anyway for my knees on a more regular basis, prophylactically more or less. ("What docs miss telling you is that it's a therapeutic drug, not only a pain reliever.")

That's holistic care, I guess. Cripes, I haven't been on a bike in decades. I've never ridden one that didn't have coaster brakes.

[Sara]

Ah, then perhaps you will be even more excited to learn that there are actually two bags of birdseed in this basket, one of black oil sunflower right next to the yellow blend, underneath the barely visible gigantor -- 12-pack? 16-pack? -- of Seventh Generation toilet paper and behind the invisible second, completely full double paper sack of groceries. (Yes, we reuse the paper sacks, and yes, I usually use cloth, just not at this store where the staff are not terribly sophisticated when it comes to packing and I don't like to confuse them.) Seriously, it's a LOT of groceries. I bungee it all in there using the cord of my bike lock. I only regret that I don't yet have the strength to get to the organic farm, which is up a tiny little hill, or the guts to ride it to the natural foods store, which is on the other side of Route 2, a four-lane artery where there are many accidents because most people drive it like a freeway even though there are stoplights and the speed limit is 45. Working on both, though, guts and strength. They're good to have.

The beauty of the tricycle is that it doesn't tip over. And it has coaster brakes as well as hand brakes. So if you can find a used one, ostensibly less expensive than new, this might be a delightful way to ease your way back into cycling, and you can use it for groceries just to start, just while you get your power up. It's not inherently fast; guys on racing and touring bikes pass me all the time, especially embarrassing when I'll be pedaling like mad in the highest gear (third), puffing and sweating and not making it up hills, and they'll just go sailing by. But it's pretty much the only aerobic exercise I get. (I don't think canoeing counts, and anyway I don't get to do that nearly as often as I'd like even though the boathouse is just a few blocks from here. Also, the way I use yoga and Rover, my exercise ball, are more about stretching, strength and balance, not so much about oxygenation and the blowing out of arterial plaque.) If your knees are an issue, and since you live in Berkeley and not Massachusetts where the roads match the surface of the moon (only twistier and not delicious on crackers), I would also strongly recommend a recumbent tricycle like the ones made by Sun. Very comfortable, very easy to use, not as stable as my little SUV shown above, and not endowed with such generous basketage, but good for touring while definitely more stable than a bicycle yet still pretty slender.

Incidentally, I find it seems more logical to drink water when I sweat. So, you know, this could help with that, too. ;)

[Sara]

Oh, and I will come back to the whole beer run/drunken cycling thing. I just have to make it its own post. It should show up here sometime this week, barring catastrophe.

[Snoskred]

Hey, it's Snoskred again.

I just did a major drink more water thing, I'm up to 1.5 litres a day, have lost about 10kg, no longer have water retention and it's unconscious now, I don't even have to think about it. There was a great article somewhere that inspired me to do it, I linked to it, if you want the link give me a shout -

Every few months or so I like to drop by and let you know I'm still reading you via the google reader. I do want you to know that I love your work and enjoy your writing.

On this visit I have something else to mention. I've finally bought myself my own domain. I've also had a facelift. No, not to my actual face, to the site. ;) I made a new title graphic, changed the template, and a few other things. If you are reading my blog via a feedreader, you don't have to change anything as far as I know, you'll still be getting my posts.

If you're not reading my blog, and you have a spare second, maybe you can drop by and say hi and let me know what you think of my new layout! ;)

Snoskred - has a new home at -
http://www.snoskred.org/
please update your linkage, if you link to me! Thanks!

[Amorette]

Very cool.

I braved a couple of grocery trips on mine, although I was always scared to death of the trike being stolen. Where I used to live, the local teens thought it was fun to hang around it, finger it obscenely and try to take it on joyrides for the amusement of their friends.

In that city, I registered my trike with the police department and otherwise made sure everyone knew it was mine (they advised scratching my state ID # onto the frame and painting over it with clear nail polish). When I moved and tried to do that in this city, the police ignored me.

Aren't those baskets wonderful? I need to rig up my cat-crate on a hinge so that I can still use the basket underneath- as it is now, it's one or the other.