New series, because active mobility is important to me.
Once in a while, I go shopping. For instance when I need milk for my coffee. After all, you only get top-quality coffee froth with excellent fresh milk. My favourite is the 3.8% fat milk you get at demeter. It is available in brown one-litre glass bottles. For me, it is important that the container is glass, because products like milk in the tetra pack or yoghurt in plastic containers are a no-go in my book as a matter of principle these days. Just like I also never buy beer in tin cans.
Close to my house, the milk I want is only available at a bio-market called denns. It opened some time ago on the Putzbrunner Strasse in Ottobrunn, not far from where I live. The shop is part of a bio-chain with the same name. They are probably quite the experts when it comes to really earn money with the label “bio” (unless they become their own enemies by offering poor service in their chain stores).
The entrance seems to welcome you, but that is a misconception. As soon as you enter, you see the PAYBACK machine to the right. – PAYBACK are those who currently do the “ONLINE SHOPPING HAPPINESS WEEKS“. In my book, PAYBACK is a modern way of bullshitting customers. And as I see it, bullshitting customers is not really something that should go with “bio”, is it?
My other experiences in the same place, too, are in accordance with “pretty is what pretty does”. When at the check-out, I also always have (too) long to wait and the service persons are not particularly friendly, either (at least as far as I was concerned until April 2017). There is exotic fruit and non-exotic fruit at the wrong time of year. Everything looks too much “bio, bio, bio” to me. On the whole, it seems more appearances and show than anything else.
Usually, most of the customers come shopping in their big limousines, although they live just around the corner. That, too, is something I would not associate with the attribute “bio”. Here is a metaphor: the typical customers are not do-gooders wearing Birkenstock. Instead, we are talking the chic super-mom who, driving her SUV, looks more like a super-bum. However, some customers come by bike – and so do I.
In my opinion, a rather exciting criterion for determining “customer friendliness” is how bike-riding customers are treated. There is at least some symbolic meaning to be deduced from the fact that only the most simple of – alibi – bike racks can be found at a rather remote place. And if said bike rack does not even have a roof, although the entire building has a long overhang, then this is also a message.
But what is the “evil cyclist” supposed to do when there are many customers and the “cyclists’ parking” is chaotically overcrowded?
;-)Then we evil cyclists will park our bikes on a common parking space – if there is a vacancy. And why not?
The highly motorized Denns customers will probably not like this “evil” behaviour.
Generally, many car drivers get annoyed with all those bikes on parking places. Some of them get so upset that they start yelling at people – and, depending on the personality and stress level of the car driver, said yelling might be intense, aggressive or even offensive.
Whenever someone starts this kind of trouble, I remain polite. I do not reply to the accusing words of the car driver with my favourite expletive “What do you want, you car driver!”, neither do I stoop so deep as remaining unperturbed and saying something like “Again, you can see that car drivers are definitely the lowest of the low”.
In former times, that is what I would have done. But I have become older and more sedate. Consequently, I give them a very friendly smile and tell them ever so politely that “parking places, after all, are for parking vehicles, aren’t they? And aren’t bicycles also vehicles?”. Naturally, if there is a parking place that costs fees, I am more than willing to pay.
Trouble is pre-programmed. More and more bicycles will appear, among them also some for transport of heavy material. There is no other alternative if we want shopping to be possible in the cities. Even now, the problem – no bicycle parking – arises more and more often, not just in front of shops with many customers, for instance discounters, but generally in the public domain.
Even today, there are many shops where cyclists are appreciated and taken seriously. Here is a beautiful example, also quite close to my home, in Neubiberg.
At the Neubiberg REWE, there used to be just a very small parking place for bicycles. Now the management reacted and installed a big, roofed area for bicycles right next to the entrance!
There is just one downside: whenever many customers are shopping here, the new and really not very small bike rack is also too small. However, you could easily remedy this by parking in the second row as well (with a passage between the two rows). For the users, it would be easier if there were a marking on the tarmac to indicate where the second row is supposed to begin. How about this idea of mine to improve matters? Basically, a cyclist does not need a bike rack when shopping. The marked free area that cyclists should then use with discipline is a lot more important.
In this place, the friendliness towards cyclists is symptomatic for the entire service. Whenever I shop at the Neubiberg REWE, I notice with approval how nice the shop looks inside and how friendly and eager to help all the service persons are. Maybe there is a correlation between “cyclist-friendliness” and “good service for the customers”? And probably being cyclist-friendly is more and more profitable for the shops! Because there are more and more cyclists who have more money than many car drivers – and who very much appreciate quality.
RMD
(Translated by Evelyn)
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