Carrying shopping: By foot or by cycle?

[corfield]

Absolute rubbish! I wouldn't dream of trying to carry what I routinely put in just one pannier.
In fact I still do it - regularly (as does my wife.) I'm on my second or third set of panniers (over 45 years) and have used them for touring and shopping - including daily up and over hills in Bristol when I was a lot younger!
I said, earlier in this thread I think, that carrying heavy loads off your arms and shoulders is mad - and the reason why the yoke was invented and is still in use world-wide. The Viet Minh defeated the Yanks by using bikes -even without tyres - as their load-shifters. Go back to Arthur Ransome and see the children call their bikes their "dromedaries!"

I’d like to see you get bog roll (if you can find it!) into a pannier. Or kitchen roll. I also wonder how it all fares with the bumps and knocks.

Or the larger cereal boxes (which are far cheaper).

I think your “careful packing” and comments on cycling/pannier history illustrates this is a niche method suited to someone who is really into cycling, panniers and so on.It really doesnt have any relevance to the wider public.

As I said, I have panniers and have done masses of cycling plus am fit. I still wouldn’t do this as I think walking is easier.

 

[corfield]

A number of years ago when I didn't have a car I cycled around 3 miles home with a couple of pots of paint from an out-of-town superstore evenly balanced on my handlebars...

Yes I recall as a child moving friends & siblings that way! It was better balanced if one was behind you as well...

 

[PaxVobiscum]

I can remember in my youth cycling to the local station with a school bag, rugby kit bag and an Eb bass. Not recommended.

 

[Bald Rick]

Random sample in the queue for the supermarket this morning.

5 people (all blokes as it happens), with rucksacks, obviously walking home.

No one with bikes.

 

[Esker-pades]

I can remember in my youth cycling to the local station with a school bag, rugby kit bag and an Eb bass. Not recommended.

Good grief. And I thought a bassoon with my two school bags was bad.

 

[Crossover]

It has been a while since I have had to shop without a car, but when I was at uni I didn't have a car or bike so it was all by other means. My general method was to empty my backpack of uni stuff and take that with some empty bags besides. The particularly heavy stuff (cans etc) would go in the backpack and once that was full it was on to the bags. In first year, I lived in halls near campus, a way from town, so a bus journey was the usual way so left not too much walking. After that, we lived nearer the town centre so walked to the shops. It is a few years since I was at uni now, but I don't recall any particular issues with carrying shopping generally

 

[Bletchleyite]

Random sample in the queue for the supermarket this morning.

5 people (all blokes as it happens), with rucksacks, obviously walking home.

No one with bikes.

Er, the bikes would be outside?

 

[Mojo]

I could never take my shopping on a bike, don’t know how anyone could.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I could never take my shopping on a bike, don’t know how anyone could.

Panniers or a rucksack. I've done both, though only when I didn't own a car.

 

[Bald Rick]

Er, the bikes would be outside?

Sorry, I should have said, I was queuing to get in, outside (for an hour), observing the 100 or so people in the queue and the subsequent 100 or so who joined it behind me in that hour.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I could never take my shopping on a bike, don’t know how anyone could.

Easy (although to be fair, easy for me as a single person, would be harder if shopping for a family). I cycle there with my normal panniers. Fill a basket up. I've learned from experience that my panniers can fit slightly more than the contents of a Sainsburys basket - so a full basket means I can easily get the stuff in the panniers. Then fill the panniers in a similar way to how I'd fill a shopping basket - stuff that is not squashable at the bottom and stuff that would be easily damaged on the top. Then cycling home is bliss compared to walking because on a cycle you can scarcely feel the weight of the shopping (other than it being slightly harder to accelerate or go uphill). The only minor irritant is that the self-service machines have trouble working with the weight of the panniers if you try and pack stuff as the machine is weighing your stuff, so if using the self-service checkouts, it's easier to leave the panniers on the floor and only pack them after I've paid.

I normally go about twice a week - but that's only because I eat a ton of fresh fruit, which is very bulky and some of it doesn't keep more than a few days anyway. If I wasn't eating loads of fresh fruit, then I suspect I'd just about be able to put a week's shopping on my cycle.

 

[gazthomas]

If I had to carry that amount of shopping with motorised vehicles not being available I think I'd head down to Argos (alternatives may be available during lockdown) and get me on if the trolleys older folk often use

 

[cactustwirly]

For a big shop definitely walking.
Or take a car
My supermarkets are both within walking distance, or in Reading when I'm not at uni none are really that cycle able, so I take my car