Make a Grocery Run with the Cart Bike
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA 
on 08.30.07
The Cart Bike doesn't turn corners very well, admits the second-prize winner of our TreeHugger/Popular Science/Instructables Go Green contest—plus, we're not entirely clear how stable the setup would be with a week's worth of groceries—but it's still a nifty concept if you happen to find a derelict shopping cart gone astray. (We probably don't need to remind you that stealing's a big no-no.)
Besides the bicycle and shopping cart (thank you, Captain Obvious), you'll need socket and hex-key sets, a dremel tool, a utility knife, some zip ties, a rotary tool, and a screwdriver. Once you've acquired your hardware, all that remains to be done is to bolt the cart to your bike with a little handlebar surgery.
Think you can design a better Cart Bike? Let us know in the comments. ::Instructables
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I have to imagine that contraction is loud.
Wouldn't it make more sense to buy a Christiania bike or get a bike trailer? It's not like people have spare shopping carts lying around. In fact, how do you even get one short of stealing it? They aren't made readily available to the general public.
That's a pretty cool bike. You could also use a bike trailer.
http://mikebentley.com/bike/trailers.htm
I do agree that the Christiania bike design has pretty much tackled this whole thing. http://www.christianiabikes.com/
In Copenhagen you can see them abundant in the morning hour bike rush, moms and dads hauling the kids to preschool on the way to work. In the afternoon filled with kids and groceries. Here in Reykjavík they aren´t all that common but the municipal gardening service which employs teenagers for the summer uses these to haul equipment around the neighbourhoods they service.
That can't be comfortable? Have you tried pushing a trolley/cart over cobbles? It makes a racket and violently shakes. A basket on the front should be fine.
Creative and silly. I'd like to ride one through the market while I am shopping.
As a kid I used to race grocery carts in parking lots, and if you get them going fast enough, the front wheels start to shimmy, and when they both turn perpendicular to the direction of travel...BOING! You go flying over the top in a spectacular wipe-out.
Could make a great World's Funniest Home Video entry.
As far as I know, even if you find a stray shopping cart, it's still the property of the store.
I get by with going to the grocery store 2-3 times a week on my way home or lunch hour and carting it home in my backpack as I pedal my way home.
3 wheelers with big storage areas are available that are much nicer than this. I use to see middle age and elderly people in my small town with them. Worksmancycles.com is 1 source. I think there are several others too.
I'm actually crying I'm laughing so hard.
Here in Portland, Oregon, there are a LOT of homeless people on the streets. Each one has a cart they push their stuff around in. Consequently, abandoned (defaced, don't-know-which-store-to-return-them-to) shopping carts are very common.
So is making bike mods--I'm surprised I haven't seen this yet! Most roads are smooth enough, and if you're riding slowly, I can see how it would be functional enough for a short trip. It'd be less expensive for a bike kid to weld a cart to a spare bike than to go buy a christiana bike. And twice as rad. (Although there are plenty of christiana bikes here.)