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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

The point that might be missed is that it is more fun and more healthy and more convenient to live in a bike culture city. Driving and parking kind of sucks—there is such a wonderful flow in bike transportation.

In other words, it isn’t a personal trade-off for sustainability; rather, it is a win-win.

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It’s a lot more convenient, until you have kids, need to shop for a week at a time, you need to visit family that likes to have a garden, want to have a garden yourself, or it rains.

There is a reason people started to get cars in the first place.

Cars and larger transport could be used occasionally for those bigger tasks. The problem is that people seem to use them for everything including transporting only themselves down the street

> it is more fun and more healthy and more convenient to live in a bike culture city

When its 18:30 in November, when weather is cold, dark and raining I don't see anyone enjoying the fun and convenience of the existing bike lanes, why ?

Similarly, I don't really see bikes being used to carry the weekly groceries for a family of 4, are they reserved for the people who can afford to go shopping every day and just have to carry few items ?

I mean people definitely didn't buy groceries before cars existed, right? Obviously if your area is an asphalth wasteland where you have to ride miles to get to the closest mall, bicycles won't work well. That's something that can be changed though.

You know that before cars became the de facto mean of private transportation, the streets belonged to the people and kids could freely play outside? That is something we completely forgot, now that we live in post apocalyptic concrete wastelands where simply existing and walking around puts you at danger of being crashed by a vehicle.

> people who can afford to go shopping every day.

There isn't an entrance fee to go to the shops. It doesn't cost more the more you go there.

18:30 in November on a rainy day, I will absolutely be using my bike to commute to and from work (I'm Dutch). Is it enjoyable? Not really. Is it better than standing in a traffic jam for two hours? Absolutely. Plus on nice days (plenty of those in November, hetregentbijnanooit.nl) you get some nice exercise. Also for groceries. My mum used to do them for a family of 5 with saddle bags.

It's a habit. The weather usually looks worse from inside than outside. In any case, people do use bikes during the whole year. And if you have to carry a lot of cargo, use a cargo bike. It's not an accident their popularity is skyrocketing.

“Weekly” is the keyword. I live in a city where it’s normal to go shopping every 1-2 days, and city bikes have a basket that will fit that amount of groceries. It’s not as inconvenient as it sounds because there is usually a grocery store within walking and definitely one within biking distance.

>I live in a city where it’s normal to go shopping every 1-2 days

>It’s not as inconvenient as it sounds because there is usually a grocery store within walking and definitely one within biking distance.

I've lived exactly what you are describing and I would not go back to it given the option.

There's a pretty substantial opportunity cost difference between shopping weekly and shopping every couple days. That's time you could spend doing other things you actually want to do. And if the store that's on your way is in a prime location then there is probably a monetary cost too.

Edit: Since I'm apparently wrong would anyone care to point out my error?

Time is spent on going to a grocery store in a car too. That's also a substantial cost. With proper urban planning, it wouldn't be a PITA to shop for grocery since it will be close to you.

But it's not like you can't shop weekly with a bike too. Cargo bikes can carry more grocery than usual. Coupled with electric assist, it shouldn't be too bad.

Oh, it's definitely possible to shop weekly, especially with a modern e-bike. I used to do it with a big backpack and a shitty walamrt bike when I lived in the city because the good (read: cheap) grocery store was inconveniently located.

I just take issue with the lunacy that adding an extra errand and the associated overhead, even if it's just a stop on your way home, doesn't have a cost.

It is actually less of bother or time suck then weekly/bi-weekly car trip. You typically stop by in the way home from work in smaller store where you can pop in/out super quick. It also requires less organizing and planning.

Weekly/bi-weekly car trip is something like 2-3 hours of your time.

The other bonuses are that sometimes you just send kids to fetch bread or whatever.

Stopping at the grocery store on the way home from work added about 20-30 minutes to my commute every day of the week, which got to be enough of a hassle I bought my own grocery cart and now walk to the store with it once every 1-2 weeks - and that trip is typically only around 50 minutes. Nearly half of it is just walking to/from the store, so I expect a car would be even less time.

It's not nearly as straightforward as everyone here wants to make it.

For me, it definitely is not 30 min. It is 10-15 and I am not in hurry at all.

This assumes that the end your work day ends far before the store closes in ordre for you to be sure its open when you get there.

Anyone working until 5 or 6, or anyone working with flexible hours will not have that luxury since store typically close at 6 and any delay in your commute back home means not being able to get food for the evening.

It is nice that you can afford to do that - reliably - but there are significant constraints on your working hours and your reponsibilities that you need to sort out first before switching to this approach, and not everyone is in that position.

Weekly shopping (car trip) is literally 40 minutes for me (3 person family).

The whole thread just shows how different we all are.

Unless you're cooped up in your home every day you'll cycle past a grocery store on your way home from something else, so you can easily pop in an grab what you need. You also don't spend any time thinking and planning what you're going to eat a whole week in advance, only to forget some core ingredient for the 5th meal and then have to drive to the store again (or order takeout and let the rest sit til next week only to have it go off before you get around to cooking it).

>Unless you're cooped up in your home every day

That actually seems pretty plausible given that WFH is normalized now. Sure, you might still leave the house to eat out or whatever, but it seems pretty inconvenient to also pick up groceries in those cases.

Wanting to continue working from home rather than commuting is actually strongly correlated with driving (and longer commutes). 91% of bicycle commuters miss some aspects of the commute; ~40% miss it a lot, whereas 55% of car commuters don't miss it at all. Unsurprisingly the main aspect missed was the activity of commuting itself (53%). Cycling to work is like a free gym membership and a free trip to stores rolled into your commute.

Reference (N=1014): https://urbanstudies.uva.nl/content/blog-series/covid-19-pan...

I've recently been heading into the office pretty often due to noisy home renovation works and can relate - I love my mostly-bike-path commute. But for embarrassing reasons I chose to take a car during peak hour yesterday and it was truly a horrible experience. I don't mind moving "slowly" (and note that in most cases within 15km of home my average travel speed on a bike is better than in a car) but being stuck behind unmoving traffic for what seems like interminable periods of time is just incredibly stressful and frustrating.

> Unless you're cooped up in your home every day you'll cycle past a grocery store on your way home from something else, so you can easily pop in an grab what you need.

It's more expensive to buy in small daily quantities though. It'd be cheaper to buy in bulk and only go once a month or so.

For non-perishable goods sure. Buy those in bulk (based on your storage capacity) and have them delivered. Buying highly perishable items once a week tends to result in a fair bit of wastage unless you're a whizz at meal planning. For one thing, I've yet to come across bread with genuine flavour and perfect texture that lasts more than 3 days.

You don't see it because it's rare, but it's possible and just not cultural thing anymore in "rich" countries. It's even seen as sign of poverty to do that, it's a shame, that's the main reason, along with security because of the prevalence of cars and the danger they represent

I use my bike almost daily since decades, cold and dark is not an issue (you never really feel cold on a bike as long as you're active/pedaling), rain and wind a bit more, I can carry 20kg of stuff on my bike, bags on my back and front and crate on the handlebar

I own a cargo bike and regularly use it in bad weather to go to the supermarket and get a full load of groceries. Works great, much more fun and a better workout than a car. Invest in a good jacket and the cold/rain won't bother you.

I do see people enjoying the convenience of bikes all over winter. Where I shop families do their weekly groceries with cargo bikes or just two bike bags.

We got different experiences, probably live in different cities and countries and now? Both of them are just singular experiences strongly depending on the specific circumstances of our lives and of the concrete available good infrastructure.

Family of four here, all groceries done with a cargo bike, year round. And I’m definitely not the only one where I live. You can wear warmer clothes if it’s cold, the bike has lights (and there are street lights) for when it’s dark, and a raincoat and rain cover for the bike work well against the rain. Definitely more fun and healthier than a car.

Somewhat dismissive but this comment deserves at least one earnest reply.

The culture hasn't caught up with the power and availability of electric cargo bikes. Carrying four bags of groceries two or four miles is trivial in good weather, practical in a lot of poor weather, and you can probably manage six, you can hitch a trailer and go to CostCo if there's a safe path for that.

Anyone can do that if they don't have severe hip immobility, because you pedal when you want to, not when you want to move. It's great for the cold but not deep winter parts of the year: you start moving with the throttle, and pedal to warm up, you can stop before you start sweating into your jacket. In summer, you can work up a sweat, or enjoy 20kmh breeze and just cruise.

They cost a few grand, can come with an eighty mile range, and handle realistic traffic speeds safely. Once the public consciousness notices these things, you'll see a lot more of them.

Edit: I said "a few" grand but there are a couple compelling bikes which come in under 2K.

I don’t know why your question is downvoted, it is totally valid.

We literally live above a grocery store, but my wife still orders grocery delivery on a weekly basis. So maybe cars aren’t necessary if they can be substituted by grocery delivery and smaller loads on bike.

You also raise the reality of cold dark and rainy novembers… well, when my son complains about biking to his guitar lessons on days like that, I hand him his rain pants. Builds character!!

But, biking on snowy days is too dangerous. It is so easy to slip and fall. We have maybe 2 snowy days a year (Amsterdam) and the city pretty much shuts down. However, where I grew up (Cleveland), there were many many snowy days. So, sensitive to the fact that cars are still necessary in many places.

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