Shopping by bike trial

A very interesting article I saw in the CAN enews (link here) about a trial to get people doing their shopping by bike. Various incentives were offered to convince people to make shopping trips by bike  and they mostly enjoyed the experience and will continue to do most of their shopping journeys on bike, saving heaps of fuel & money etc. I reckon this is where one of the biggest savings to car journeys around town can be made with the least effort. Trailers make life much easier to do this and you can borrow one for a while for free if you want to give it a go yourself. The site above has lots of info on cargo bikes and I’m planning to build a few more of them next year.

Shopping by bike

4 thoughts on “Shopping by bike trial”

  1. I hope many more people in ChCh will use their bikes to do grocery shopping. It makes grocery shopping fun again!!!

  2. I’ve been doing the groceries for our two person household by bike with either a trailer or panniers, depending on volume, since we moved to Christchurch about 6 months ago. Perhaps it’s just the improving weather, but I seem to see a lot more bikes in the bike rack outside the Northlands Paknsave than I did before.

    When I consider the wasted time spent searching for a carpark I’m confident the extra time biking is minimal, and at current petrol prices the saving on even a 4km round trip with a cold engine is real. Not to mention the health benefits and fun!

  3. Since doing as much shopping as possible by cycle for a year or so now one starts to rate various business’s for their ease of access for bikes and parking arrangements . Thumbs down so far for Tower Junction , especially Bunnings where I couldn’t find anywhere to hitch up the bike . Briscoes in Salisbury St have space for 3 bikes only , and all were taken at last visit . I await the day where provision of such facilities is seen as a business necessity rather than tokenism, but there does appear to be improvement , thanks to the likes of Edgeware Super Value and their smart new stands .

  4. I have done on several times, get some strange looks from other shoppers though! …… I think that they think I must be too poor to own a car! Supermarkets always also seem to put the bike park out of the way, usually in the designated staff smoking area!

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