Grocery bike 700 vs 26

[weaponsgrade]

What's the collective wisdom of the forum on 700 wheels vs 26" wheels for hauling groceries? My current grocery bike is an old Trek road bike with a rear rack and panniers. Sometimes the panniers aren't enough so I load up my messenger bag. It gets heavy, things are swaying and flexing all over the place. I'm thinking of getting a front porter rack to get the load off my back. I've also got an old mountain bike I can use. It doesn't have any brazeons but it looks like p-clamps will work. So, would you rather have a road bike loaded up front and rear or a mountain bike?

[charliedid]

Mountain Bike

[Ken Robb]

I have a Blackburn steel rack on the rear of my MB-3. I can attach 2 grocery bag panniers to the rack and easily ride with both panniers loaded with full grocery bags. Now that paper bags are outlawed in San Diego I can still load the panniers with reusable bags or detach the panniers and take them into the market, load them there and reattach to the rack for the ride home.
No wobbles or wiggles except those caused by a shaky rider. :-) If I needed more capacity I would look at a Wald basket for the front. They are nice and cheap and Rivendell sells them.

[Bradford]

Having done this many times over the years, a touring bike with front low riders and a rear rack is the best solution. The good news is that you can usually get a decent touring bike used for a reasonable price.

Load up the low riders with the heavy stuff and fill out the rear panniers with the rest.

[p nut]

Neither. 20"

https://www.crustbikes.com/products/clydesdale-fork

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1146/9976/products/Fairdale_tif-p1aa7vv98b1gh461gm93100n11lm_1024x1024_520f1f0b-f171-4763-99ba-d87950008c07_1024x1024.jpg?v=1465312420

[seanile]

^i was about to recommend that as well.

get that fork, put it on a 26" bike, AND put a rear rack for panniers on it. you'll be unstoppable.

i just bought the fork & wheel combo myself. im gathering the parts still, but it's going on my '94 gt karakoram. looks/feels great from what i can tell.

here's another example:
http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=188732&highlight=clydesdale
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v507/EricO_/gt%20cargo_zpspd4awzqj.jpg

[stien]

Any reason you can't haul a trailer?

[AngryScientist]

trailer!

for grocery runs, forget about loading down the bike itself. a small trailer will be much easier to load and not bad at all to pull. even a used kid trailer would work great for such a purpose.

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YwUBMzL__u4/WEnNUMpLRaI/AAAAAAAACqo/7XETFTq4SQs2SYMtabZGa8gJ5OowmjhVwCLcB/s940/IMG_1930xxx.JPG

[weaponsgrade]

That clydesdale fork looks pretty cool. I was about to pull the trigger on the Soma Porteur Rack, but I'm gonna have to rethink after seeing that fork. I have a kids trailer, but it's a pain trying to navigate a busy farmer's market and city streets with it, and I don't want to have to assemble it and hook it up every time I go grocery shopping.

[gemship]

That clydesdale fork looks pretty cool. I was about to pull the trigger on the Soma Porteur Rack, but I'm gonna have to rethink after seeing that fork. I have a kids trailer, but it's a pain trying to navigate a busy farmer's market and city streets with it, and I don't want to have to assemble it and hook it up every time I go grocery shopping.

I was going to second the trailer idea but after what you say here I do think that clydesdale fork looks sturdy and doable. Hope you don't mind me saying but you do sound funny writing off the trailer as too much effort. Actually you sound like me. The thing with me is I used to be all about running errands on the bike despite living three miles one way to town and five miles the opposite way to a bigger city. It made sense to use the bike when I was jobless but now that I make money with my truck it just makes too much sense to make pit stops on the way home from work to run my errands. Everybody's life is different....it's interesting how at one time I was a die hard errand boy by bicycle and nowadays I see using a bike, maintaining it as a time consuming luxury. It really just doesn't make sense for me when I spend so much on my truck anyways. Unless I have a day off from work and even then I plan on putting my Honda Ruckus back on the road after sitting idle for the past four years lol.

[classtimesailer]

If you already have a trailer, maybe all you need is a more user friendly hitch. This is a Carry Freedom with my homemade box. At the farmer's market, I park it and load my bags like if I drove.

[merckx]

It's not the size of the wheels but the magic that is in them. Just make sure that it has a big rack.