Originally Posted by
banerjek
I ride everywhere, but when I see bike racks at the places of the likes of Ikea and Home Depot, I always laugh. The whole point of the store is to sell in bulk and people on bikes can hardly carry anything. You can lock to nothing, a cart, or a sign. Bikes attract enough attention at these places that people will tend to leave it alone anyway.
I go and buy stuff at Lowes once in a while. Generally I'm just picking up a box of nails or something. Biggest thing I've picked up on the bike was a couple of small wood shelves, about 30" long each. I do take the van and trailer if I'm going to pick up bigger stuff, like a half ton of drywall or a dozen sheets of plywood.
I don't usually lock my bike. I'm not even worried about it at Lowes. There's zero foot traffic there; anyone that's there got there by driving so I don't think there's a lot to worry about. People would have to grab the bike and put it in a pickup or something, and hope the owner wasn't watching. Usually when I go in to Lowes on my bike I'm just there to grab something quick and I'm out in no more than 10 minutes.