I’ve just read through this exchange between mavvik@lemmy.ca and yourself. It is rather humorous the assumptions being made.

You’ve said you live minutes from the grocers, then go on to change the argument stating you’d be riding hours a day more than you could drive. Comparing an apple to an orchard is a touch disingenuous. You are right in that it’s arduous to do a big shop on a bike. But when living within a stone’s throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month. Being so close, it’s hardly a more time consuming venture.

It’s all good though, you keep driving. Honestly this post is a poor place to try and get people interested in replacing car trips with bike trips. Though when it comes to a “waste of time”, it does bring to mind the difference in life expectancy between the inner city driver and bicyclist.

This comment went much longer than I expected, and in general I don’t think it useful to beat anyone over the head about riding a bike. Doubly so on a post than ostensibly has nothing to do with bike riding.

::: spoiler Enjoy the read.

It’s always a fun read to see groceries as the prime excuse for taking the car. Is the trolley used for the initial collection of the foods closer in size to a car than it is a bicycle? Perhaps a Smart ForTwo.

Oulu, in Finland, has the same population density as London, Ontario. Three quarters of the population in Oulu rides a bike on a regular basis, with a quarter of all trips being by bicycle. About 40% ride through the winter, even though Oulu is consistently colder than Toronto through the entire winter. Just about every child rides their bike to school all year round. If an elementary student in Finland can do it, a grown adult in Canada certainly can.

Despite worse conditions in winter, Oulu citizens (Oluans?) cycle circles around Canadians. The reason is pretty straight forward. Oulu has more dedicated cycling pathway than Ontario has Highway 401, at nearly 1,000 kilometres. More importantly, Oulu has its most frequented cycle pathways plowed inside 3 hours of a 2cm snowfall with a guarantee that snow won’t accumulate more than 4cm. In comparison, Toronto doesn’t even start plowing their roads until 5cm of snowfall.

When the infrastructure is in place, and the snow is properly managed, people can go about their day just as they would otherwise. Oulu does snow management so well, people there don’t even use studded bicycle tires.

“When your only exposure to winter is the walk across the parking lot to your car, you never get used to the weather, and you get an exaggerated sense of how cold it gets.” - some guy

:::

You’ve said you live minutes from the grocers, then go on to change the argument stating you’d be riding hours a day more than you could drive.

The grocers are not the only place I go. Today I actually spent two hours driving to and from a roleplaying game I play with a group of friends, for example. I give a lift for one of them, and pick up food for the rest on the way there. This would have been impossible on a bike.

But when living within a stone’s throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month.

You’re being rather free with adding a bunch of things to my schedule, aren’t you? How do you know I have time to do a grocery trip every few days? Once again, I have more things going on in my life than travelling to and from a grocery store.

recently they just just released a new standard for sodium ion batteries that operate normally at -40c

so its already changing. also they are like $10 kwh, they are making them in series with lithium ion for range, sodium ion for extreme temps, +/-.

im with ya there. if they really care about getting everyone into EVs to “save the planet” or whatever. it shouldnt matter where we get them from, or how cheaply. we are already quite fucked climate wise, so letting us have a cheap ev for the apocolypse is the least they can do lol.

did not know that was possible

There’s no malice here. I wasn’t saying you specifically should be making smaller and more frequent stops at the grocery. I was only meaning that’s how it’s done when not getting such a large quantity of food at once.

Your example of picking up a friend is perfectly valid. That takes a more specific bike set up than something standard with a rack on the back - at least to do comfortably. Beyond teenage years, I don’t see people doubling up on handlebars anymore. That said, there are many ‘off the shelf’ solutions available for transporting both a shopping trolley worth of groceries and an additional person across a city. Saying something is ‘impossible’ is a little short sighted.

I’m sure driving about works just fine for your lifestyle specifically. For myself, it takes longer to drive across my city than to ride to the same destination. I wasn’t trying to talk you into trading your car for a bike. I was only making a suggestion about the most common trip people take in case you hadn’t thought of it.

I don’t mean this rudely, but it’s not as though you and I know one another personally. I have no vested interest in what you do. I was just chiming in to share an alternative perspective. After all, isn’t variety is the spice of life?

Cheers

Weird. My EV works perfectly fine ne in cold weather. Thanks for the info tho Elmer FUD.

I wasn’t saying you specifically should be making smaller and more frequent stops at the grocery.

You said exactly that. You also said I was being disingenuous.

Chinese EVs are very bad for Canadian national security. China cannot be trusted and is actively antagonistic to Canadian interests. The fact that any Canadian would want Chinese EVs on our streets and in our garages is a complete mystery to me.

Honestly a massive game changer if one uses a bike for transportation.

I see why my comment gave that impression. When I wrote:

But when living within a stone’s throw of the most commonly visited store, you just go every few days instead of twice a month.

I wasn’t using ‘you’ in the specific, I was using it in the general sense. I should have written “one just goes”. That would’ve made my meaning more clear. If I had said it verbally it would have been obvious by inflection, though text is so often a poor analog for speech.

Anyway, insofar as the disingenuity, yes. Making a straw man argument is disingenuous. Talking specifically about grocery trips then shoehorning in every other errand under the sun isn’t a good faith argument.

Regardless, it’s good of you to give a lift to friends to go meet the group. One less car on the road contributing to traffic congestion.

Talking specifically about grocery trips then shoehorning in every other errand under the sun isn’t a good faith argument.

And as I’ve said in other comments, going to the grocery store isn’t the only thing I do in my life. Not everything is about the exact circumstances of how I keep the pantry stocked. I do a lot of things with my time so every use of that time is a tradeoff against those other things. If it takes an extra hour each week to shop for groceries, that’s an hour I don’t get to spend on other things that I value. I’m not a grocery-shopping robot designed only for grocery shopping.

I’d buy one of those if they were available, frankly, and thus save even more of my personal time to do things I consider more important. And then people would complain at me even more about the resources I was “wasting.” But they’re my resources and at a certain point having people telling me I’m bad and wrong for how I use them gets offensive.

He did, however, say that he was not here to debate.

You aren’t unique in this. Everyone does things beyond grocery shopping. I don’t see suggestions that you should take to the dentist, the hardware store, the cinema all on a bike. It’s all been about something we all do: groceries. If you took the bike to pick up the milk, your car doesn’t get sold out from under you while you’re away. If you like pens and use a pencil to sketch something, it doesn’t mean you can never use pens again.

Going on about all the other things a car benefits you for is irrelevant when the conversation being had was about one specific circumstance. Now I’m not sure what to think about your statement on going for groceries two or three times a week would cost you an extra hour. If you live so close to the shop, that surely wouldn’t be the case. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes I’d figure, unless you’re spending quite some time in the store? I’m in and out in ten minutes going a couple times a week because I’m not filling the pantry in one go.

At multiple points in this thread, suggestions have been flatly rejected for reasons of false ‘impossibility’ and other responsibilities procluding car alternatives. None of what’s been suggested has been meant to have you sell your car and solely go with a bike. Replacing one or two trips a week on a bike is fine and reasonable, and very possible for anyone living within a short distance of something as common as a grocery store.

Now I will take a note from mavvik@lemmy.ca and bid you adieu. But if nothing else, consider you may be best served in hiring a delivery service in lieu of shopping yourself. Or perhaps toss the car in the river and get a real grocery-getter.

i go every where on a kick scooter now (electric)… I’m now looking into an electric bike as I had assumed they did not work well in winter

When Ford invoked “constitutional crisis” notwithstanding clause for cancelling comppleted wind projects, we knew the interests buttering his buns. Truedau was not particularly firm against disinformation on carbon tax or climate sustainability.

Certainly, Trump is most to blame for scaring away investment committment follow through, but Ford is bribed to sabotage any future Canadian participation in global progress.

A strategy to invest in any interesting Canadian University patentable ideas has always been an exclusive offer to US oligarchy who is already dependent on fossil fuel protectionism. The exclusivity of potential slave masters also means terrible investment terms if the slaver accepts your begging for submission.

Every Canadian has a phone that records everything they do and reports it back to Google, Apple, and Amazon. No one cares that they are being spied on as long as they get their infinite scroll and self-driving car.