Living Car Free - Holy cow! Bike invasion!

I've been shopping at the local grocery store on my bicycle for about the last 6 years.

The first year I did it this, it was very unusual to see cyclists locked up at the bike rack.

But lately, I've been seeing more and more bicycles. It seems like the store has a couple of employees who lock up. And I keep running into one guy who rides a neat Motobecane (who is always trying to sell me the Motobecane ...:))

This year I've seen the dozen slots nearly full a couple of times. But tonight the rack a full and there were two bikes self-locked. I thought first this was an organized ride, but this didn't seem to be the case.

I think the store will have to get a second bike rack.

Strange also because 1) there were only about 30 cars in the lot and 2) this is an older suburb about 5 miles from the city center.

Have you seen evidence that active transportation on bicycle is exploding in your city?

Yes. There are times when I actually have a hard time finding a secure place to lock my bike. Bikes are everywhere here now.

I see a lot of bikes everywhere but I don't know whether there's been an increase recently, because they've been popular here for a long time.

Our family rides consists of at least one shopping stop and definitely one lunch break, it's all ways a bike invasion when the whole lot of us show up.

Here it's been much more of an increase in the number of 50cc scooters, but I am noticing more bicycles. It's encouraging. :)

I especially notice the explosion in winter. For years, I would get excited to see just one other bike on the road in January. Now I see dozens--mostly commuters. My tire tracks are no longer always the first ones in the fresh snow.

I see a lot of bikes everywhere but I don't know whether there's been an increase recently, because they've been popular here for a long time.

I left SF in June of 2009 and visited again in January of 2011, I noticed a major increase in bikes, and there were already a lot in 2009! The amount of bike infrastructure had increased dramatically also, as when I was living there there was the freeze in bike infrastructure improvements....remember when they couldn't even install new bike racks?

Yes. One example is the police auction. Every year, they sell about the same numbers of bikes. Every year, they are all sold faster, and the police auction brings in even more than the year before.

Bikes on CL don't last very long anymore either. Garage sales? Used to be like $10 for a used bike. Now, easily $50.

My tire tracks are no longer always the first ones in the fresh snow.

I guess you need to get up earlier. :D

Yes. One example is the police auction. Every year, they sell about the same numbers of bikes. Every year, they are all sold faster, and the police auction brings in even more than the year before.

Bikes on CL don't last very long anymore either. Garage sales? Used to be like $10 for a used bike. Now, easily $50.

I've been looking around for a suitable frame to replace my t-boned Fuji. I've been looking for a month now for an 1980s Japanese frame. Not much available anywhere.

I've been looking around for a suitable frame to replace my t-boned Fuji. I've been looking for a month now for an 1980s Japanese frame. Not much available anywhere.

I'm having the same difficulty. I'm looking for a 1970s-1980's road bike for my girlfriend, and there are many such bikes out there, but people are proudly riding them, rather than trying to sell them. I'd almost buy a big pair of bolt cutters, if I could bear to live with myself afterwards...

I've been looking around for a suitable frame to replace my t-boned Fuji. I've been looking for a month now for an 1980s Japanese frame. Not much available anywhere.

Gerv,

What sized frame are you looking for? I am going to assume you want the relaxed touring or sport touring geometry.

Aaron :)

I'm having the same difficulty. I'm looking for a 1970s-1980's road bike for my girlfriend, and there are many such bikes out there, but people are proudly riding them, rather than trying to sell them. I'd almost buy a big pair of bolt cutters, if I could bear to live with myself afterwards...


Gerv,

What sized frame are you looking for? I am going to assume you want the relaxed touring or sport touring geometry.

Aaron :)
From past experience, the local bike co-op is really low on bikes this time of year and even CL has just about nothing interesting. I am looking for an old road bike. Nothing too sporty. To find an actual touring-type geometry, I would look at an old Rockhopper or other MTB. Most of the old road bikes though serve pretty well as commuters and all-around bikes.

But Aaron if you have a 21 inch frame that's cluttering up your garage, let me know.

Likewise, Bragi, if your GF is tall enough for a 58 CM, I have a 72 Fuji S-10-S.

Most of the old road bikes though serve pretty well as commuters and all-around bikes.

I'm fixing up a Kabuki Syd 10 speed that I got from a co-worker. I got inspired by the book "It's all About the Bike (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/books/review/book-review-its-all-about-the-bike-by-robert-penn.html)" by Robert Penn. It made me want a bike with drops again. I got the toe clips on and all the hardware to put on a Pletcher style rack. I think I'm also going to steal a Brooks saddle from another bike. Properly tweaked, it should make a decent mount.

From past experience, the local bike co-op is really low on bikes this time of year and even CL has just about nothing interesting. I am looking for an old road bike. Nothing too sporty. To find an actual touring-type geometry, I would look at an old Rockhopper or other MTB. Most of the old road bikes though serve pretty well as commuters and all-around bikes.

But Aaron if you have a 21 inch frame that's cluttering up your garage, let me know.

Likewise, Bragi, if your GF is tall enough for a 58 CM, I have a 72 Fuji S-10-S.

Sorry gerv, the only 21" I have is a low end Raleigh Grand Prix and it just left to go to my DD in New Hampshire. I am tall and my bride is short so most of the bikes I try to accumulate are either in the 60cm+ range or the 43cm- range.

Aaron :)

I think I'm also going to steal a Brooks saddle from another bike.

:eek:

I'm fixing up a Kabuki Syd 10 speed that I got from a co-worker. I got inspired by the book "It's all About the Bike (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/books/review/book-review-its-all-about-the-bike-by-robert-penn.html)" by Robert Penn. It made me want a bike with drops again. I got the toe clips on and all the hardware to put on a Pletcher style rack. I think I'm also going to steal a Brooks saddle from another bike. Properly tweaked, it should make a decent mount.

Yes... I read that book and got inspired, although the most I will travel is down to the bike co-op to rummage through their parts bins. If you are too cheap to spend $100 on a Brooks, you can always look for an old Belt or Ideale saddle on eBay. For me, it would be too much to spend that cash on a saddle to fit on a $30 frame.


Sorry gerv, the only 21" I have is a low end Raleigh Grand Prix and it just left to go to my DD in New Hampshire. I am tall and my bride is short so most of the bikes I try to accumulate are either in the 60cm+ range or the 43cm- range.

Aaron :)

Aaron, I picked up a frame this week, a 1987 Fuji Palisade. $30. It arrived with a bunch of car-free one-less-car stickers. I like the message, but prefer a clean bike, so spent a couple of night with the hair dryer getting them off. It's nothing fancy, but should do the commuting job nicely.

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af346/gervasegallant/Summer%202011/fujiPalisade.jpg

And back to the original topic. I went over the the grocery store this week with my camera so I could document the bike invasion.

Wouldn't you know it? Only two bikes!

Oh well, maybe next week :)

http://i1022.photobucket.com/albums/af346/gervasegallant/Summer%202011/IMG_0178.jpg

From 2000 to around 2005 when I was driving my old dodge van around, I used to notice abandoned bikes seemingly everywhere. In 2006 when gas started going up above $2 a gallon, I stopped finding the abandoned bikes. People were holding on to bikes, even the junky ones from walmart/kmart etc.

A little over ten years ago the buses here in Pinellas County [psta] got bike racks on the front of them. There weren't that many people using them then, and even for a few years after that. I seemed to be the only one sometimes who was using this great addition to the bus system. After gas started going up to above $2 a gallon, everybody and their brother started using these racks. Now I don't even bother using them anymore. They are always full and my bikes now [with racks and panniers] wouldn't even fit on them.

I notice more bikes at the supermarkets, and at the library and I also notice people with 50-150 cc scooters parking up on sidewalks even though they are not supposed to be doing this.

I've noticed more bikes at the store too. There is almost always one trike there. I think the woman and I must just shop on the same day. My problem is there isn't much room at the rack for my trailer as well. It's close to the wall. The good news is they added a new bus line that goes right to the grocery store:) This is good news in bad weather(with the kids in tow).

Wait till gas hits $10/gal.

Wait till gas hits $10/gal.
Then what - BF LCF posters dancing in the street celebrating the economic chaos?

Wait till gas hits $10/gal.

By the time gas gets to that point there probably won't be a grocery store to buy anything at, or people won't be able to afford the food anyway.

Aaron :)

The day of the week can make all of the difference. :lol:

It also matters where the rack is. This place has a 6 bike rack on one side of the door with no windows and a planeter with a window. Looks like people stopping for coffee would rather see their bike.:thumb:

I know I prefer the bike rack to be within easy sight of a window rather than stashed around a corner somewhere. One store I shopped at in SC had the bike rack around the side of the building. None of us used it, we locked our bikes to the picnic tables out front...

Having bike racks is important, placement is too.

Aaron :)

I know I prefer the bike rack to be within easy sight of a window rather than stashed around a corner somewhere. One store I shopped at in SC had the bike rack around the side of the building. None of us used it, we locked our bikes to the picnic tables out front...

Having bike racks is important, placement is too.

Aaron :)

This place in right by a large parking lot at the bottom of a popular climb of 18 miles and 4500 feet of elevation gain. The bike rack is at least 20 feet north of the door, the Bikes are against the east wall. You can not see you bike if it is in the rack. Once in a while you will see a bike chained to the rack but most often you see bikes just where I took the picture. The manager doesn't mind and that is one of the major reasons cyclists stop there. When I ride my road bike I only go to places that will allow me to park by the window. When I ride my MTB I only stop where they have outside service. When I ride my utility bike I only shop where they have a rack by the door where I can lock it and people can see it coming and going.

Then what - BF LCF posters dancing in the street celebrating the economic chaos?

Gasoline WILL in fact, hit $10/gallon eventually. In fact, it WILL hit $100/gallon. We can not expect a never-ending supply of a fossil fuel, and as time goes on, extracting fossil fuels will become more and more expensive.

Hopefully, gasoline and diesel is reserved to mass transit, and goods transportation soon. HPV's for toting small groups.

From past experience, the local bike co-op is really low on bikes this time of year and even CL has just about nothing interesting. I am looking for an old road bike. Nothing too sporty. To find an actual touring-type geometry, I would look at an old Rockhopper or other MTB. Most of the old road bikes though serve pretty well as commuters and all-around bikes.

But Aaron if you have a 21 inch frame that's cluttering up your garage, let me know.

Likewise, Bragi, if your GF is tall enough for a 58 CM, I have a 72 Fuji S-10-S.

Thank you for the offer, but a 58cm is a bit more than she can handle. Her dream is a 1970's Fuji, Schwinn or Peugot (sic) that's about 54-55cm...

The day of the week can make all of the difference. :lol:

It also matters where the rack is. This place has a 6 bike rack on one side of the door with no windows and a planeter with a window. Looks like people stopping for coffee would rather see their bike.:thumb:

That's got to be a group ride.

Or rec cyclists who don't carry locks.

EDIT: Yeah, it must be a group ride since they're all stacked against each other. Strangers wouldn't do that.

That's got to be a group ride.

Or rec cyclists who don't carry locks.

It amuses me that these people who love their bikes so much won't lock them. They leave them where they can see them.

But by the time they see somebody hop on it and ride away, the thief is half a mile away. By the time they dial the cops on their cell phone, he's 2 miles away. By the time the cops arrive he's 10 miles away. By the time the cops explain that they don't give a crap about stolen bikes, and someody must b a moron to pay 1500 bucks for a toy, the bike is spray painted and sold for 40 bucks.

That's got to be a group ride.

Or rec cyclists who don't carry locks.
Such anal riders are their own ball to the bike's chain.

Plus they're wrecking the vegetation. I'm sure the owner is polite about it because of the business, but he must be quietly seething inside that they trampled his plants.

Plus they're wrecking the vegetation. I'm sure the owner is polite about it because of the business, but he must be quietly seething inside that they trampled his plants.

He should probably put the plants where the bike rack is, and put the bike rack where the plants are.

He should probably put the plants where the bike rack is, and put the bike rack where the plants are.

I talked to the manager once and the original plan was as you suggested. However Corporate moved the rack. The other places just east of this restaurant will not allow anyone to park like that so guess who gets all the traffic returning from that particular mountain ride? However in a smaller community with a new LBS only a few blocks east they get a lot of business. I have been there on my MTB and I park in the same place, lock and all. I have been there on my Cafe bike and parked there. I don't own anything I would lock to the rack because it can't be seen by anyone inside. when I go to the grocery store I will not shop at a store where the rack isn't by the front door lock or not, and I do carry a lock.:eek:

Still I have visited a lot of forums and from looking at pictures people post a lot of people seem to like nice bikes and would rather not paint them with a black paint brush. :innocent:

By the way there is a place at the end of a MTB trail on the other side of town that pulled out the plants and put concrete down so the MTB guys would stop by. Seems to be working. So how many bikes were parked in gerv's example? :D

The last few years here in Los Angeles has seen a huge increase in Cyclists on the road and now our local government is finally adapting the city planning to compensate with more bike lanes and the such.

Then what - BF LCF posters dancing in the street celebrating the economic chaos?

I just got back to the US from Germany, where gas is over $10 per gallon. What I observed was not economic chaos, but lots of public transport being used, lots of bicycles, and ample numbers of private vehicles - something like what I would call balance. We drive the way we do in this country because our society subsidizes our private vehicle ownership. If you add in all the costs, gas probably should cost over $10 per gallon, and the result would be a more efficient system.

If you add in all the costs, gas probably should cost over $10 per gallon, and the result would be a more efficient system.

Do you have any examples of costs? I can imagine that all the environmental damage caused by cars... for example the disposal of tires .. hardly pays for itself. Frequently state organizations have to step in and deal with the mess.

I especially notice the explosion in winter. For years, I would get excited to see just one other bike on the road in January. Now I see dozens--mostly commuters. My tire tracks are no longer always the first ones in the fresh snow.
Touching isn't it? I'm a relatively new cyclist and still am always excited to see another bicyclist on the road, I wonder if that will ever go away? :rolleyes:

Touching isn't it? I'm a relatively new cyclist and still am always excited to see another bicyclist on the road, I wonder if that will ever go away? :rolleyes:

If you have enough cyclists, it does, it fact, go away. I'm still very happy to see other cyclists on the road, but not excited. It's become very commonplace, even banal. Being a person who gets most places by bike isn't at all eccentric anymore, let alone a political act. When cyclists are as thick as fruit flies, and bike parking becomes a bit of a challenge, that warm fuzzy feeling just isn't there any more. It's a sign of progress, so I don't mind, but eventually, if bicycle advocates do their jobs well and oil continues to get more expensive, bicycling will just become so normal that no one thinks that much about it at all....

Do you have any examples of costs? I can imagine that all the environmental damage caused by cars... for example the disposal of tires .. hardly pays for itself. Frequently state organizations have to step in and deal with the mess.

http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf

.....Being a person who gets most places by bike isn't at all eccentric anymore, let alone a political act.....


Talking to some of our local cyclists, one doesn't have to worry about not being considered eccentric, and I definitely can say that their cycling motivation is not a political one.

Wait till gas hits $10/gal.

I live in the netherlands and gas is almost $10/gal over here (to be more specific: 9 dollars) . No increase in bicyclists to be seen. People still drive their cars, even for the shortest trips. People do ride their bikes a lot here but they always have done so because of our safe bikelanes, not because of the price of fuel.


By the time gas gets to that point there probably won't be a grocery store to buy anything at, or people won't be able to afford the food anyway.

Aaron :)


You would be surprised.... people rather stop buying food or cut down on other expenses than stop driving.


and to get you scared:

http://images2-telegraaf.nl/multimedia/archive/00869/CX038_44B2_9_869653i.jpg

1 euro 71 for 1 litre of petrol.
Highest price in Europe.

http://www.rnw.nl/data/files/images/lead/beznineprijs.jpg

:D and people still fill up :D

In 2006 when gas started going up above $2 a gallon, ...


Wait a minute... I graduated from HS in 1990, when gas was 1.99... We were over $3/gallon by 2001...is your gas really that low????

If you have enough cyclists, it does, it fact, go away. I'm still very happy to see other cyclists on the road, but not excited. It's become very commonplace, even banal. Being a person who gets most places by bike isn't at all eccentric anymore, let alone a political act. When cyclists are as thick as fruit flies, and bike parking becomes a bit of a challenge, that warm fuzzy feeling just isn't there any more. It's a sign of progress, so I don't mind, but eventually, if bicycle advocates do their jobs well and oil continues to get more expensive, bicycling will just become so normal that no one thinks that much about it at all....

And this would be a problem how?

I think it would be great! Not so much to save the earth, or the fuel we would save, but,
the more cyclist people see, using bikes as transportation, not just for sport. The better off for all of us.

Just think a US city that sees bikes as a true form of transportation. Drivers that allow room for bikes in the roadway.
Who accept bike riders as something other than toys or drunken modes of transport.

I have ridden motorcycles, most of my life. We still for the most part wave, and are friendly to each other.
Bicycles, I hope will do the same thing.
Seeing bike riders commuting makes me happy.

Now how to go about getting a bike rack in front of the wall-mart!

Wait a minute... I graduated from HS in 1990, when gas was 1.99... We were over $3/gallon by 2001...is your gas really that low????

Gas dropped as low as $.89 during the late 90s. Gas prices never hit $3 until after Hurricane Katrina in 2005... at least to the best of my recollection.

I've been shopping at the local grocery store on my bicycle for about the last 6 years.

The first year I did it this, it was very unusual to see cyclists locked up at the bike rack.

But lately, I've been seeing more and more bicycles. It seems like the store has a couple of employees who lock up. And I keep running into one guy who rides a neat Motobecane (who is always trying to sell me the Motobecane ...:))

This year I've seen the dozen slots nearly full a couple of times. But tonight the rack a full and there were two bikes self-locked. I thought first this was an organized ride, but this didn't seem to be the case.

I think the store will have to get a second bike rack.

Strange also because 1) there were only about 30 cars in the lot and 2) this is an older suburb about 5 miles from the city center.

Have you seen evidence that active transportation on bicycle is exploding in your city?
Exploding? Not hardly. There are a few riders here and there. But for the most part, the riders I see are mostly casual toolers.
We dont have a real bike presence in this area.

Gas dropped as low as $.89 during the late 90s. Gas prices never hit $3 until after Hurricane Katrina in 2005... at least to the best of my recollection.

Adjusted for inflation, gas cost $2.00 to $3.00 for most of the Automobile Era. After a serious spike in the early 1980s, gas prices went to their lowest point in history during the 1990s.

http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gasoline_Inflation.asp




http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_adjusted_gasoline_price.jpg

Adjusted for inflation, gas cost $2.00 to $3.00 for most of the Automobile Era. After a serious spike in the early 1980s, gas prices went to their lowest point in history during the 1990s.

http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/Gasoline_Inflation.asp




http://www.fintrend.com/inflation/images/charts/Oil/Inflation_adjusted_gasoline_price.jpg
I remember when gas was under $1 per gallon. The inflation adjusted pricing you see in this regard always interests me... mostly because it still felt like just a dollar back then.