BFisher

Hold on to your ears. This bike hauls buns!

Classtime 

'85 Schwinn Cimarron with a Carry Freedom trailer modified with a plywood box.

Grocery Run Detour

nlerner

‘71 Raleigh Int’l modded with the full gugie plus a Burley trailer:

ascherer 

Truckin' in style!

jackbombay

I rotate through most of my bikes as townies, but my 1963 Hercules is chosen most frequently,

I wear a backpack to hold the groceries,



My tall bike makes a lot of trip to town too,

madpogue 

Now THAT'S ^^^^^^^ an elevated-stay bike! I'm imagining an uncontrolled intersection, a fellow on very low-slung recumbent approaching on the cross street, no time to brake, and he just passes under between your wheels.

There are open-top grocery/shopping panniers offered by most of the big makers. But we often just use my Jandd expandable touring panniers. They don't have to be anything specialized.

noglider 

They are fancy bags, and one of their famous features is that you drop the bag on the rack and it magically attaches. Then when you pull on the handle, it magically detaches.

Sorry to say, I decided not to haul groceries on my bike anymore. It's more trouble than shopping on foot. I'm lucky enough to be able to do that. I occasionally get exercise by carrying two heavy bags in each hand.

And I don't have the Volpe any more. It's a good stout bike.

ascherer, it didn't wobble at all?

bwilli88 

Wald has bags that fit in their colapsable rear baskets.

Chr0m0ly 

My wife and I coming back with food, towel rack, and curtains. She likes the backpack and her '88 ST400, and that's my '84 Trek 520 in stealth mode.

John E

UO-8 or Schwinn mountain bike. Both have rear racks, over which I hang my Rudy Project panniers, and I am ready to go.

dddd

Quote:
Originally Posted by graystones11
Has anyone found bike bags that double as...well, grocery bags? Here in California we have a $0.10 charge per grocery bag to encourage reusable bags. It would be nice to have the reusable grocery bag incorporated into the system of the bike bags to go from bike to store to bike to house in one foul swoop.

At first I wasn't sure what you were asking, and I was getting ready to describe how a doubled plastic grocery bag (traditional plastic grocery bags) can be pulled into a "rope" and then folded to one-fourth of it's length, easily pocketable.
Well that's how I still do it, later securing the filled double-bag to the upper handlebars of whatever road bike I happen to be on after stopping by a good store.
I twist each "handle" loop of the doubled bag 6-8 turns, then triple-knot the bag to the bars pulling all slack out of the attachment to reduce sway.
The tightly-twisted handles can be untied in seconds, so these bags can be re-used many times.
The doubled bag is extremely strong compared to a single bag (a tripled bag even stronger yet and still fits folded in my front pants pocket).
Good traditional plastic "grocery" bags are still free at places like Home Depot and Goodwill. Their ability to allow adjusting the handle length to a minimum of hanging length makes them versatile and with minimal impact on bike handling.
You too can go grocery shopping on a plain old, stripped-down road bike, no rack or even lock needed if the store permits a quick pass through the store with the minimalist bike in tow. I brought home a shrink-wrapped eight-pack of 64oz cranberry juice bottles on the road bike the other day by just getting the stem to embed in the middle of the bottom of the package, and then traveling home 3/4 mile riding one-handed.
I've also carried boxed bikes to the post office just by cutting a perfectly-placed "handle" opening into the side of the box and, again, riding one-handed for a mile and a half.

One thing that I watch out for is that a sidepull brake doesn't tear a hanging bag, so choice of side of the stem to hang the bag(s) depends on the particular calipers. Sometimes it doesn't matter.
I've attached bags to hang both inboard and outboard of a road bike's lowers, so at the limit four half-full bags can be ridden home without proper luggage, but with the right size of bags judiciously packed and tied.

I travel "light", not even a seat bag on my road bikes, everything fits easily in my three jersey pockets including micro-pump, tube, patches, tools, keys, bags, windbreaker, food, hat/cap, crusty old wallet and a plastic vial of rubbing alcohol.
On certain trip destinations, I also carry a sidearm cable lock that allows me a quick pass through certain stores with a decent-looking bike left outside of the front door. Around here I haven't lost a bike in over 20 years, and my bikes tend to be low-cost "investments" anyhow.
My methods might not be ideal in other areas, but the past 20 years has been a good run for me in this suburban foothills town even with I-80 passing through it's middle.

DMNHCAGrandPrix

My wife and I have been able to load a lot onto a 1977 Jack Taylor tandem with front and rear racks and vintage Karrimor panniers. The panniers easily clip on and off, so we bring
them into the store and load them like grocery bags.

ascherer 

Not that I noticed. The biggest challenge for me is hauling the full load up the few steps into our building!. With two full bags in back it's a bit ponderous. I prefer doing errands on a bike, whether its one of mine or a Citibike. It shaves so much time off the task. Yesterday I rode the International up the Greenway to the lightghouse and back. I dialed in the saddle and shifter positions. It rides great, and the Mafacs are clearly better than the Weimenns were. Improvements to come will include wider tires, a small porteur-style front rack and very possibly a dynamo hub & lighting. I may wrap the top tube to protect it from getting scraped up when I lock it. The artisté in me wants something like the Velo Orange leather wrap, but the practical part of me says: this is Noo Yawk, use an inner tube.

noglider 

I should wrap my frame, too. I now see the usefulness of it. My paint is getting wrecked.

bwilli88 

Shouldn't that be an iNNNaa Tooobe?

ascherer 

Depends on the Borough, I'm native to Queens. Semantically we might not specify "inner" nor would we drag out "tooooob". YMMV

ryansu

I use my vintage inspired Handsome devil as the grocery getter. Rear rack with easily detachable Axiom panniers that are grocery bag sized. Mostly that means farmers market runs but it works for Trader Joes too.

Notso_fastLane

My go getter for groceries these days is the Strada. I can fit quite a bit on both sides of the rear tire. 2 grocery bags on the right side, 3 bags on the left. About the only thing I regularly pick up that doesn't easily fit is a 12 pack of soda (I don't drink it, my wife does). A couple 8 packs of gatorade fit a little easier.

thumpism 

No need to load that pastry onto the bike. Fuel for the ride home.

BFisher

Ha ha! Yeah, let's kill this cargo right away!

An elderly woman made a similar comment as she was going into the bakery and saw me eating.

flangehead

Basket mode.

Trailer mode.

mackgoo

I've been waiting a couple months for some hardware from McMaster Carr to get the baskets on front and rear,

noglider 

I shot this before my ride to the hardware store. After getting under way, my phone crapped out, so I wasn't able to shoot it with 85 pounds of cargo. I hauled it all back over three miles of rural roads.

Notso_fastLane

What trailer is that? I want one.

LorenMiranda

Either