Biking To The Supermarket Made Easy
Story by:
Brooke Dowd Sacco
If you’re all about living green, ditching your car for your bike seems like a good idea…until your cupboards are bare. That’s when Ryan McFarland’s homemade Cart Bike starts looking less ridiculous and more like something you might actually want. For going green while going grocery shopping, combining a shopping cart with a bicycle makes a strange amount of sense. You get pedal power plus enough cargo room to bring home more than whatever fits in a backpack.
McFarland published the Cart Bike project on Instructables in 2007. The basic idea was to combine a derelict shopping cart with a bicycle rather than let either one go to waste. His instructions call for removing the bike’s handlebars, front wheel and front brake, taking the handle off the shopping cart, and attaching the bicycle fork to the cart frame. The brake is then adapted to work with the cart.
For grocery duty, the appeal is obvious. Instead of hanging bags from your handlebars or trying to cram a week’s worth of food into panniers, you’ve basically got a full shopping cart riding up front. Of course, there is one tiny issue: handling. McFarland described the finished contraption as a head turner, but also admitted it was “not a good corner turner.” So maybe don’t fill it with canned goods and expect to carve through traffic like you’re riding the Tour de France.
Still, as gloriously overbuilt DIY transportation goes, it’s hard not to admire the commitment. It turns two discarded objects into one absurdly practical-looking grocery getter. And if nothing else, you’re probably never going to lose your bike in the supermarket parking lot.
cool !