In that 1-mile circle around my house are a five of restaurants, a grocery, two art galleries, a convenience store, a hair salon, and numerous other small businesses that I frequent. I wouldn’t think of driving a car to any one of these. There’s no need. And, really, driving would be inconvenient because many of these businesses have limited parking for cars.
Some of these businesses are starting to add bicycle racks. Break Time (formerly Express Lane), at the corner of Grand and National, just added a rack. They did so because customers asked for it.
In the picture below you can see one of the lollipop racks (partly hidden by my wife’s Giant and my Redline) in the small business district at Cherry and Pickwick.
My wife and I met friends for pizza and beer at Imo’s. The fastest and easiest way to get to this enjoyable afternoon with friends was by bicycle. Another nice thing about going out to dinner on our bicycles: After dinner we rode back to our house and sat on the front patio to enjoy the rest of the evening with no break in the conversation between restaurant and home.
Relaxing. Civilized. Pleasant.
Comments 5
I imagine this would be a motivator not to over-eat too!
Posted 17 May 2009 at 3:58 pm ¶Alex… Or, rather, you eat like a hog and burn it off on the ride home
But, yes, if drinking beer along with that pizza, moderation is in order.
Posted 17 May 2009 at 5:33 pm ¶Good for you for going to eat out on the bike.
I am trying to sell your one mile solution in Jacksonville with help from Bikejax.
The bike valet service (at the Riverside Arts Market) by bikejax.org (which I am a part of) got some press on Saturday. Hopefully, more people will get the idea. We have plenty of first time riders who claim they saw us the weekend prior and thought it would be a good idea to ride to the arts market.
Posted 18 May 2009 at 9:02 am ¶I love this. My new kick is “destination promotion.” This is going to be the “hook” in our social marketing campaign. Think of cool destinations (ice cream parlor, pizza join, farmer’s market, etc) or events, demonstrate easy cycling routes from various directions, then promote. It’s something fun and adventurous to do with the family. Riding to someplace is so much more inspiring and empowering than just going out and riding x miles through the neighborhood.
And what BikeJax is doing with the Valet rocks!
Posted 18 May 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶Keri… Oooh. I like the idea of “destination promotion.”
Shek… Cool. Do you have a link for the news coverage?
Posted 18 May 2009 at 4:44 pm ¶