Looking for three month hire in northern canals

[Jon57]

37 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

There are some very nice (and expensive) bags for the front mounting, but sadly since mine is the electric model, that space is taken up by a mounting that supports the battery, held inside a small bag.

I bought the larger size battery bag, so I can get maybe 15 litres of stuff in there (stuffed in around the battery), but there is I think about a 10kg weight limit on all of those front mountings, so its not a solution for a weeks shop. You could add a rixen and kaul klickfix seatpost clamp, that will allow a 20 litre shopping bag to be attached to the seatpost.

So by using maybe 4 smaller bags combined, you can have 50-60 litres of shopping space held around the bike- but that can start to feel like a faff. Many times I just grab the large rucksack to save time.

And there's that annoying situation where you take enough bags to hold the stuff that you anticipate buying, but on the journey you see something else that you'd like to buy,  but you have no luggage space left for it.

So I do try to leave some contingency luggage space nowadays.

But people do get around the shopping challenge in different ways, as you'll already know. E.g. many people spending 3 months aboard or living on a boat will use the supermarket delivery service, and get their shopping delivered to a local pub car park, or even a bridge (so I've heard). 

I've still not tried this service whilst on the boat- I remember when I tried it from home a few years ago I received a lot of very short dated stuff, and on a boat that is worse than useless. I like to get to the supermarket in person, so that I can reach right to the back of the shelf and pick out the longest-dated items. 

But if shop deliveries work for you, then the brompton becomes more of a single-item or quick-dash ad-hoc shopping tool, or for local exploring. 

But here's a live scenario:  I'm in Manchester now, and I need to go to a launderette about a mile away (I carry the laundry in a very large rucksack).

I cant take the 20 inch ebike because of fear it will be stolen if chained outside the laundry- so in this case, when in a big city with typical big city bike theft problems, I have to take the brompton because I know I wont be challenged if I take it inside the launderette with me. 

So in this case it has to be the brommie, and I can put up with some rough surfaces for a one mile ride.

Here in the big city, because it can go indoors anywhere, the brompton has become the mandatory choice for any bike trips. Any other ebike probably couldn't be safely left outdoors in any city centre location, even with a good chain. 

 

 

 

Though I had problems going shopping on my Brompton. Only had the plastic carrier bag supplied from the supermarket. Didn't last long swinging about with gay abandmet until it emptied its contents all over the towpath. Quick thinking removed shirt and formed a designer carrier bag to put was left of the shopping in. Got some funny looks on my way back to the boat. But worse was to come from SWMBO. 😂