The Non-Hipster Guide to Car-Free Living

…with bicycles

A couple weeks ago, we published an article on the unexpected benefits of living car-free. Today we are following up with practical tips on how we actually use bicycles for groceries, commuting, and beach trips. So here it is…

Our non-hipster guide to embracing bicycles for car-free living:

Live close to work and groceries (or where ever you travel most frequently) – This is something that we prioritize when searching for a home, and we are willing to trade a few nights out and other entertainment expenses to afford it. Our 20 minute ride to daycare a few blocks from the office is just right, and gives us more family time. We also live near a train station, and appreciate having a better fallback than a car when the weather is less than ideal. Our apartment is on the edge of downtown (CBD), so we avoid certain roads during weekday rush hours, but almost everything is empty for Saturday morning farmers market trips and Sunday casual rides.

Plan your routes – Roads don’t simply end, but bike lanes often do. Before you know it, you are spit out onto a high traffic road at the end of a cycleway. We avoid these situations by planning our routes ahead of time, and following the posted bike routes by Sydney Cycleways. Planning your route is the most important piece of the puzzle for safe, comfortable city riding, where it is always worth taking a slightly longer route that has protected cycleways for the whole ride.

Before we moved, JZ spent time on the Sydney Cyclist forums, and he found a welcoming community happy to share popular routes, where we should look at properties, and how to best commute into the city. Forums and group rides are a great way to learn safe routes from the people who ride them everyday and are eager to help other people who want to ride.

Invest in bags / racks – Getting groceries for the week fills up JZ’s carrying capacity on the bike, but I end up with an extremely light load, if any.  This works for us because he has an Xtracycle cargo bike with sturdy, large bags and running boards. It would be much more difficult to carry CZ and tons of food without them. Since he has us covered for now, I am taking time to choose the right bags for my commuter bike; the goal is something sleek, waterproof, and not too expensive. Wish me luck. 🙂

Regular chain cleaning and tune-ups – Basic maintenance goes a long way to making a ride more pleasant.  I surprised myself when I could tell a difference after my chain has recently been cleaned and lubed. Tune-up frequency depends on how you ride, where you ride, and the weather, but generally, it is every 9 to 18 months. JZ and take our rides into the local shop at roughly this interval, depending on how well he stays on top of the chain cleaning and how much we ride.

Learn to lock up – I rarely worry about things getting stolen in Sydney CBD because it is quite safe and our bikes are not expensive, but that doesn’t stop us from locking up whenever we park. We use and recommend Kryptonite U-locks. They are an investment, and bit heavy if you opt for a larger size. However, if you have a nice ride and proper storage, these locks are worth the price and weight. Make sure that you always run some combination of u-lock and cable through the frame and wheels because the wheels are easily removed. We also remove our front and rear lights, and horns before leaving the bikes…unless we forget.

On one occasion, someone, who will remain unnamed, was in charge of locking up the bikes before our grocery run. He/she was rushing and allegedly extremely focused on getting into the store to help with the groceries. This laser focus prevented him/her from spotting OUR ENTIRE DIAPER BAG (containing my wallet, phone, and keys) that was sitting in CZ’s chair.

All of my personal belongings sat outside, on the side of a relatively busy street, waiting to be picked up by a new owner. Inside the store, we shopped in blissful ignorance. Fortunately, bag remained intact and patiently waited for us to discover it 15 minutes later. All this to say, we got lucky, but also we feel pretty safe.

Electric assist? JZ has long claimed that electric assist is cheating, but as bicycles become our primary transportation, the more I hear about the “utility” of an electric assist setup from him. The frequency of these conversations increases dramatically when we are exploring the beautiful Sydney coastline with CZ and a load of beach gear on the back of the bike. I think if we shared the load more equally, or at all, it might not be necessary, but we’ll see. One more reason for me to pull the trigger on bike bags!

Have a back-up plan – There are times when a bike simply does not get the job done (Ikea trips for furniture), the train doesn’t quite go as far as you need, or it’s raining too much for the little one. For those times, we use our car-share membership with GoGet as a fall back. There is a car right outside our building, and several others within a block or two. It is a little cheaper and less stressful than a round trip taxi ride (carseat + taxi = headaches). We have only used the service a handful of times for those aforementioned large furniture Ikea runs, and quite happy with how much we thrive in our car-free living.

We are excited to share more about our car-free living situation, and plan on incorporating bikes into more future posts. Let us know if you have any specific questions or better yet, biking holiday ideas!