Waitrose getting into the bike-courier business

http://stopreadingthisandrideabike.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/waitrose-launches-bike-deliveries/

what a stupid thing.
electric-assisted bikes are well far from an eco friendly or green transport.
you need to produce, charge and recharge and get rid of dead batteries....

hohoho. download teabags. wanker!

what wrong with the normal cargo bike?

The Waitrose on Holloway road will lend you a trailer for free and no money. Which is nice, if you've bought more than you can carry.

what wrong with the normal cargo bike?

it does not work if you are lazy, that's the problem...

Guys, please don't be so prejudiced about this on so little information. This is for a Waitrose in Dorset. I can only assume that the excellent Dorchester-based A to B magazine, which has long championed use of electric bikes, would approve:

http://www.atob.org.uk/electricbikeadvantages.htm

**6. Clean & Green
**Electric bikes obviously consume energy, where a conventional bikes does not (provided we ignore the environmental cost of growing and processing food - see below). However, the amount of energy used is very small compared to a moped, motorcycle or car. Besides fuel, the only consumables are the batteries, and these can normally be recycled when life-expired. As for energy use, electric bikes typically consume fuel at an average rate of 100 to 150 watts of electrical energy, against 15,000 or so for a car (admittedly travelling faster, out of town at least). In terms of fuel consumption, an electric bike achieves about 800-2,000mpg (280 - 700 km/litre). No other commercially available vehicle can match figures of this kind.
If it's hard to place these numbers in your own lifestyle, think of a 100 watt electric light bulb burning for an evening - that's enough energy to propel an electrically-assisted bike for 20 to 40 miles...

Way greener than cars, without a doubt. Of course, not as green as non-electric pedal cycles, but for Waitrose, it makes perfect sense to use electric bikes in a rural or small town environment, as population density will be much smaller and daily distances accordingly greater. It would be a different case in London, but the link made to London in the article seems to be entirely owing to the writer's imagination.

If the scheme is practicable enough to keep running, it will probably be a success.

If anyone can challenge the A to B assessment on technical grounds, go ahead. I can't and will just believe what they say there until shown otherwise.

^^^ +1

I've just googled this and from the picture it looks like they're using a custom Carry Freedom Y-frame trailer. I'm a big fan of cargo bikes, I've been using an xtracycle for shopping/recycling for 2-3 years, but there's just no way you'd be able to load up an xtracycle the same way you can a big trailer, don't think you could load a front loader like a Kemper Filibus as heavily either.

The couple of people I know who should know about this reckon that a front loading cargo bicycle is an inferior solution to a standard bike pulling a trailer. A while ago I discussed with Mike Flanagan (of ANT Bikes and before this Independent Fabrication) having him build me one of these, said he used to build them, was happy to build one but couldn't recommend it, his view was that having used one for years, he'd tried out a BOB trailer and found it a better solution, to qoute him, "I am soon to revamp my site and will be promoting trailers instead of the cargo bikes".

I think you could probably fit a Burrows 8Freight with a similar chest to the one Waitrose have fitted to their trailer and it would be a great solution, but it would for certain be more expensive than the custom trailer+power assist bike. Power assist bikes are not my thing, but I'm seriously looking at building one for my mum to use in the Caribean, with the heat and the hills an unassisted bike will not meet her needs. Yes, with regular riding/training she'd get into shape to manage the hills, but realistically it's not going to happen, she'd be too worried she'd give herself a coronary in the process. Same deal with Waitrose, presumeably they want to be able to get as wider range of ordinary folk to jump on one of their bikes and deliver stuff, they don't want to be tied to recruiting an elite corps of bike riding enthusiasts. Just think it's about uisng the right bike for the right task and in this instance power assist fitted the bill.

I accept there's an issue about power assist bikes only being as green as the electricty source they use to recharge their batteries. It's still very early days but I'm looking at getting around this for Mum by using a micro-hydrogen fuel cell to power the bike and solar power hydrolosis to harvest the oxygen and hydrogen to power it :)