The bitter cold of recent has kept our family indoors far more than we’d like, so the carrier pigeons have been sitting patiently in the garage. While family rides may be rare these days, I have managed to keep the wheels turning for trips to the grocery store.

Grocery-getter trips really enable the box bike design to shine. Just about every time I take a grocery cart full of goods out to my bike, someone stops to ask me questions about the bike’s capacity and handling with all that weight. There is little difference in the size of my typical grocery haul today and that which I used to get with an automobile two years ago (when we last owned a car). Typically, I load four or five canvas/poly bags full of groceries in the pigeon, usually packing well over 100 pounds of goods home. If my list calls for boxed goods or paper products (e.g., toilet paper, paper towels), I might also enlist the rear rack, expanding my loading capacity that much more.

When pondering the impact of the carrier pigeon box bike on my daily life, the grocery-getter trip stands out, as it’s where the carrier pigeon (and cargo bikes in general) can make their greatest impact: the typical short trip. Nearly half of all trips in the United States are three miles or less; more than a quarter are less than a mile*. It’s fair to assume that these trips typically do not require the load-carrying benefits of an automobile. I also venture to guess that in a majority of these cases the bicycle will likely result in a faster trip as well. Back when we owned a car, I took note that I could (on average) travel to my office faster by bike than I could in a car due primarily to traffic congestion and traffic lights/route selection (the bicycle enabled me to use more side-streets).

A bicyclist can cover a mile in four minutes, making bicycles ideally suited to the typical non-intensive errand. If the errand gains ‘intensity’ (e.g., demands bringing more cargo back home), then you modify your trip by using a cargo bicycle as opposed to your cruiser. Bicycles simply offer so many possible cargo carrying options that you can really tailor your ride to meet the demands of your errand.

Mind you, bicycles are not for everyone, and they’re not ideally suited for every trip. Cars do many things that bicycles cannot easily do: carry extremely heavy loads (like a pallet of Bear Bricks); travel extreme distances quickly; and protect riders/passengers from the elements. Additionally, if I’m injured or ill, the last thing I want to do is get on my bike. Sometimes an automobile is the right choice if you choose to travel. The fact is, I have no desire to pedal my pigeon full of passengers to see our family in SE Idaho. This being said, a majority of typical urban trips could just as easily (if not more-so) be made by bike. What’s more, the benefits of going by bike will never fade.

Bicycles are brilliantly efficient machines because of their capabilities, but even more-so because of what they don’t do:

• Bicycles don’t produce a single pound of carbon dioxide emissions, versus a car’s one pound per mile. This is a biggie. If you’re heading to the store for a bag of groceries and the store is less than five miles away, why not burn some calories and save your money? You also won’t be contributing to the air quality problem and global warming.
• Bicycles don’t lock you into a fuel choice that comes with the same global baggage and inherent air pollution consequences of oil. A cyclist has a far wider selection of fuel sources (local and otherwise) for their body than fuel choices for an automobile.
• Bicycles don’t require extensive paving maintenance due to their ultra light weight.
• Bicycle boulevards and paths don’t decrease street-level safety and don’t add traffic noise.
• Bicycles have a negligible rate (percentage) of death when compared to automobiles. Automobile accidents are flat-out the leading killer of Americans age 2 to 24, and the leading killer worldwide of men age 15 to 44.