This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.
"Big Clearance! 12 in place of 1!"
"Grande offerta! 12 per 1!"
ENFB cyclists' union, Woerden, 1993; poster by Theo van den Boogaard
I'll speak from experience here, but biking with groceries is the biggest pain in the ass ever.
Oregonian here... biking with groceries in the rain...
No way been biking to get groceries for decades. You just need the right luggage. Personally I have a folder with a low rack so a 70L trekking pack with an aluminum frame works great. Before that I used the 4 kitty litter panniers. But easiest is probably just a cargo bike
Let alone 2 to 4 feet of snow, ice on the roads and people struggling to walk, let alone riding a bike, as cars have shovels out trying to get unstuck, and snow piled up where people used to bike in the summer
People thinking bikes are the solution live in climates with mild weather. There is no possible way for that to work where I live. When I do see people biking it is very specialized gear, and no chance they could pull a trailer on top of things.
Plenty of people in Oulu, Finland bike literally all year round. Fully 12% of all trips in winter are made by bike.
Their secret? Just as the roads are plowed, so are the bike paths. If we didn't plow and salt the roads up north, cars would also seem ridiculously impractical compared to a snowmobile or cross country skis.
Oulu invests in making winter biking safe and practical, while American cities of comparable size and climate like Syracuse, NY don't. The results are predictable.
Just look at street cam footage of any Dutch town. Heavy rain, hail, wind etc. doesn't stop those madmen on their grandma bikes.
they could be snow plowing the bike lanes but they don't feel like it
Imagine seeing a cashier sitting in a chair at a grocery store. That's the funniest part of this picture.
It's a Dutch picture. I have never seen a cashier standing up, I think a chair is mandated by law or workers protection rights
workers protection rights
US people: WTF is this devilry?
That's a good law, standing at a cash register all day is quite painful.
We have exactly one grocery store in my city - that I'm aware of - that allows its cashiers to sit. It's Aldi lol.
Pretty gross rack design tho. Should just be a bunch of pipes bent into a large U-shape cemented into the ground on both ends.
You're supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
Also not all bikes are shaped the same, and once you put a weeks worth of groceries on them that front wheel is popping out of that shitty slot and you're crushing the guy next to you
This is a very common Dutch design for bike racks. You use the vertical bar to chain your frame to.
If your groceries are popping your front wheel up, you have a very awkward setup. I've only had that happen with very large/weird loads. Normal groceries should be over your rear axle, not behind it.
Not all bikes are the same, but over here 90% of bikes are city bikes, and this rack accommodates that.
Couldn't agree more. Imagine telling the Dutch how to do bikes as a non-Dutch. :p
Use a chain? Thats either less secure or bigger & heavier than a u-bolt. Just look at the bar, its not going to work for the rear wheel.
The rack I describe is cheaper (less metal), more secure, and accommodates 100% of bikes. I know many Dutch-made cargo bikes won't even work with the design shown.
I'm glad you have all the answers
Well, I do know how to make bike racks
You're supposed to lock the rear wheel with a u-bolt, not the front wheel.
This must vary a lot, but that's how you keep only a wheel where I'm from. I even saw those wheels locked to railings here and there in Berlin
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me, but the whole reason to lock the rear wheel (as opposed to the front wheel) is specifically to avoid this problem. By locking through the rear wheel inside the rear triangle of the frame, you lock up both the wheel and the frame at once.
This is why bike racks designed to lock the front wheel are stupid.
I was arguing, but now that you explained it I understand that you were right all along
Edit: but the comment is still valid with regard to front wheel locking
How would locking the rear wheel work for that yellow bike with the tow cart? If bicycles are to replace cars for grocery runs, I imagine such tow carts would be a must for many people.
It would work great. You'd lock the rear wheel to the bike rack with a ubolt, and that would lock both the frame of the bike and the rear wheel in one go. To lock the front wheel and the trailer, use a cable and loop it around and pass it through the same ubolt.
My point is that the bike racks that are just one large U shape are far more versatile. They work for road bikes. They work for short folder bikes. They work for huge cargo bikes. They work for the bike with they yellow trailer.
WOAH NOW, that yellow trailer is definitely going to get swiped by a car tho
Doesn't look like that rack is bolted into the ground. I usually flip it upside down and drag it some place inconvenient to let the store owners know that their bike rack provides no security if it can just be picked-up by a theif with the bike.