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 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.

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

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.

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.