The Indignity of Bike Parking: Trader Joe’s

I was first introduced to the wonders of Trader Joe’s when I was bachelor living in Boston. And what could be better for the Bostonian bachelor? Cheap eats, ready to easily cook and with a patina of responsible consumerism. Or something, I’m not sure what the vibe in that place is supposed to be – “funky”? “quirky”? “beach-y”? Also, there’s cheap wine.

But I am no longer a bachelor, and I no longer enjoy Trader Joe’s version of a Meal Ready to Eat. But I do still like their trail mixes, which make for an essential work-time snack. Plus, the Rhode Island location is just off of one of our major bike paths – the Washington Secondary Bike Path (also known as the  Cranston Bike Bath, Warwick Bike Path, West Warwick Bike Path and finally, the Coventry Bike Path. [and another thing, where’s the Washington Primary Bike Path?])

Here you can see TJ’s and its proximity to the WSBP:

Green curvy line = Washington Secondary Bike Path. A pinpoint = Trader Joe’s

You can see there’s even a little spur heading out to Bald Hill Road. Of course, Bald Hill Road is a bit of a nightmare as far as cycling is concerned.

The beauty that is Bald Hill Road in Warwick, RI

Oh my gosh, I think there’s actually someone walking on the sidewalk on the left!

So it’s a big crappy road, whatever, it does have a very wide shoulder, and you’re not on it very long before you get to Trader Joe’s. And what do you find when you get there? Nothing in the way of bike parking. About a year ago, I asked the manager if they were ever going to install any bike parking. He said, “oh yeah, we have a rack on order, it should be here in a couple of months.” All right, that sounds like kind of a long time to wait, but I can understand if it takes a little while to source and install a bike rack, right? Well, I stopped at TJ’s today and I see that the months of waiting got us this:

Bike Rack at Trader Joe’s Warwick RI

I moved the rack a few feet in order to get a better picture. It’s not secured to anything, and it weighs about 25-30 pounds (i.e., about as much as a bicycle). You can buy one of these online for a little over $100. There are very similar models made by a variety of companies, I didn’t look closely enough to see which company made this one, but it looks essentially identical to this one. From the product description:

Parks up to 6 bikes.
Perfect for home and small businesses. Set it up outside or in a garage or basement to park a family of bikes.
Assembles in minutes.
Lightweight yet surprisingly solid. Durable and weatherproof. Welded frame with one-peice and sections. [sic]
Can be anchored in lawns, concrete, or asphalt using Anchors #6257 and #6258 (Sold separately).

See that? “Parks up to 6 bikes.” It doesn’t say anything about locking the bikes to this thing (here’s a hint – you can’t properly lock a bike to it!) “Perfect for home and small business… set it up in a garage…” Yes, exactly. I have one of these in my garage. I use it to store three of my bikes. The anchors are sold separately, and they were evidently just a little too expensive for TJ’s budget.

What Trader Joe’s should have installed was something more like this.

A decent bike rack

You can pick these up for $430 (plus $19 for the mounting kit) right here.

Oh, what do you know? I found a few of these, right on the WSBP! Check it out:

WSBP bike rack

First of all, this rack is installed RIGHT NEXT TO A FENCE which means you can’t fit your wheel through the loops. Secondly, it’s installed right next to a parking lot. There is nothing within walking distance. Why would anyone park lock a bike here? There’s nowhere to go once you get off the bike. There are several more of these “wave” bike racks along the WSBP, usually right next to a little park bench. I guess the idea is that you might want to take a rest from riding your bike, so you stop at one of these benches and use the bike rack to lock up your bike while you are 3 feet away from it. This seems to be a trend, in this state at least. A few years ago, I discovered the most useless bike rack in the state in Woonsocket. That one won’t even fit a 700c wheel!

I guess I could lead a cyclists’ boycott of Trader Joe’s, but what would that accomplish? This bike rack makes it pretty clear that cyclists are not wanted in their store. Until I organize a boycott of TJ’s, I’ll just boycott their bullshit bike rack:

I turn my red tire to TJ’s bike rack like a baboon turns his red butt to his enemy

I almost went in to have a discussion with the manager about this so-called bike rack, but I was wearing my “sporty cycling attire” that is, really tight bike shorts and jersey, so I wasn’t feeling that dignified. Maybe next time. IF THERE IS A NEXT TIME! Hear that TJ’s? You can kiss my occasional trail mix money goodbye!

(maybe)

I ended my Bartolomé Day ride with a visit to Fertile Underground for lunch.

Now that’s a bike rack!

Stay-cation Sentury*

Earlier this month, I made this declaration on Twitter:

I did this as “re-tweet bait” that is, I hoped that others would agree with my sentiment and retweet my statement throughout the world, thus securing my twitter victory, or twit-ctory. (I haven’t quite figured out twitter – but it is some sort of competition, right?) However, it was only retweeted by one @MoneyOvaBisquik – aaannnd, I’m not sure what that was all about. I’ll have to secure my twit-ctory by other means.

Although it was retweet bait, I certainly agree with the statement whole-heartedly. Cool October weather is perfect for cycling. With that in mind, I scheduled a few days off to enjoy the crisp air. Little did I know that we would have snow storms on during my vacation. I was able to get in a little bit of cycling here and there, however. On Wednesday of last week, I took a leisurely ride up the Blackstone Valley Bike Path. Where I took the obligatory pictures of the pretty little bridge:

and the fall folliage:

The Blackstone Valley Bike Path is my favorite of Rhode Island’s three major bike paths. It rolls gently alongside the river, crossing it multiple times giving the rider views of the valley and there’s hardly any road crossings.

On Thursday, it rained and in some parts of the state, it snowed. But Friday, it was sunny and beautiful, so I was out on the bike again.

This time, I went to the end of the Washington Secondary Bike Path, and then headed out on the roads around the Scituate Reservoir.

I ended up riding just over 50 miles, which is my longest ride since my accident in March, and the longest ride on my road bike (but not my longest ride ever – I performed that on my trusty hybrid). I was pleasantly tired and sore at the end of my ride, and the next day I was only a little bit sore. It was a perfect day for a cool weather ride. Cool enough that I could wear cold-weather cycling clothing, but not so cold that my nose was constantly running. Here’s an approximation of part of my route:

That’s not the full route, I had to extend my ride a little bit at the end in order to reach the arbitrary goal of 50 miles.

I took this picture when I was far out in the hills so I would have a record of there being snow on the ground in October:

Little did I know that we would have a couple of inches of snow in Providence just two days later!

Now the sun is shining, so I’m going to head out on my bike to enjoy my last day of stay-cation.

*okay, so it was a half-century. I did get to ride well over 100 miles during my brief staycation, so that has to count for something, right?

The End of Smugness

Friends, I have a confession to make. For about 2 months, I had in my possession an automobile.

Here, let me return your jaw to you from it’s place on the floor.

I did not own this car, it was on loan to me from some friends who were traveling overseas. Spouse and I had a few car-intensive errands to run while we did some renovations to our house, so it seemed like a good idea to have the car around. Plus, our friends needed to park their car somewhere, and in Providence, you just can’t leave your car on the street overnight. In the two months we had it, we drove about 1,000 miles. There were home improvement errands, day trips, a trip to the beach, and one overnight trip to upstate New York that made up the plurality of the miles.

About a week before my friends were due to return and reclaim their car, I decided to make a stock-up run to Trader Joe’s – about 10 miles from home. Because I am a car-free smugmonger, I left the car in the driveway and took my bike. Some other friends had recently offered me the use of their bike trailer and I wanted an excuse to try it out. So I hooked up the trailer to my city bike and headed out.

Riding with the trailer was a little easier than I expected. At times, I felt like I was flying down the Washington Secondary Bike Path. I stopped for a while to help out somebody with a flat tire. He wasn’t quite sure how to use the patch kit, something I didn’t really know how to do until about 2 years ago, so I was happy to lend some assistance. Besides, is there anything that can make you feel more smug than being the Good Samaritan?

I left my SPD's at home and went for a retro-grouch look with the Keens. Also, I was a little afraid of losing control and needing to put my foot down in an emergency. This did not happen.

To get to the Target, I have to ride on a wide, fast suburban road for about a mile. It’s never fun, and I thought it would be worse when pulling the trailer. However, I didn’t realize that cars would give me more room and not hassle me when I’m pulling a trailer – probably because they think there’s a kid back there. When I pulled into the Target lot, I saw this:

A $20 bill stuck in a bush! What great luck! I figured it was a little Karmic reward for my Good Samaritanism (to mix religious metaphors). This resulted in a general feeling of increased smugness. Next, however…

The bike rack was blocked by a big construction fence! I was slightly angry, but I was riding on such a wave of smugness that I didn’t really mind so much.

I bought a basketball at the Target, thus using up my $20 bill.

Next stop was Target, which still lacks for a bike rack, as does the EMS next door which actually sells bikes. I felt smug as I locked up to whatever this thing is:

A little more navigation of the big 4-Lane road, and I was back on the bike path. I was definitely moving slower than when the trailer was empty, but it was still easy to pull. Around the Point Street bridge, I passed the stragglers of the Rhode Island 70.3 Triathlon. Evidently a portion of the running course went up Olney Street this year. That’s just mean.

After recovering at home for a bit, I decided to test out my basketball. I pumped it up a little, then took a few shots. The first was a brick, not surprisingly since I hadn’t taken a shot in at least a decade. Soon, however I was landing a few bank shots and even a swish or two. Unfortunately, my basketball net has seen better days. Being stuck outside for years, it’s shrunk at the bottom so the ball will not go through. So, every time I made a shot, I had to jump up and punch out the ball. After making a few close ones, I backed up for a 15 footer. I missed, and the ball headed towards my friends’ car. It bounced once on the pavement and then landed on the windshield – and cracked it.

That’s one way to get rid of a day’s worth of accumulated smugness!

Speaking of accumulated smugness, the dedicated reader(s) of this blog may have noticed that I have not included a check-in on the SmugCalc in a while. This was a spreadsheet I started at the one-year anniversary of being car-free. I used this spreadsheet to track all of the miles I traveled using various forms of transportation (except for planes, that’s where I cheated). I was able to keep going with it for months, even tracking my miles after I broke my collarbone and could not ride my bike for a while (I was racking up transit smugness points instead). Finally, however, it just got boring tracking the miles on the bus. But now I’m back. Starting today, the SmugCalc is in full force. It’s not quite my Carfreeniversary, but August 1 makes for a nice round starting date. I’m at 5.5 SmugMiles so far.

And also speaking of accumulated smugness, the ladies at Let’s Go Ride A Bike are holding their 2nd annual LGRAB Summer Games. I have to do 4 of the following 10 items and blog about them:

• on vacation? rent a bike and go for a ride!
• write a letter advocating for bicycling infrastructure (bike lanes, bike rack, etc) to your alderman/council representative, mayor, or a local business.
• take a picture of something along your commute that says “summer” to you, and explain why
• commute to work by bike or bike/transit if you don’t already
• perform a maintenance task on your bike
• explore a greenway or bike path in your city that you haven’t previously visited
• test ride a different type of bike than you normally ride (road bike, mountain bike, etc.)
• read a book about cycling
• ride your bike somewhere new in your city
• go on a group ride

These things have to be done between July 21 and August 8. I’m late to the game, but there’s still time for me to slay it! * So even though this post may be titled “The End of Smugness”, this is really just a renewal of smugness.

* by “slay it” I mean complete 4 tasks, blog about them, then get entered in a random drawing to win some prizes.