Parking?

[Quailboy]

I am new to the whole biking thing, and now I am getting ok at it I am doing some short errands to shopping centres etc..

So I pull up to a shopping complex (Meadowlands) and ride around wondering where to park the bike, there is the footpath that goes around the building where people walk- but thought I shouldn't block the path.

I thought about parking in a designated park but don't want to get blocked in.

So I ended up parking it at a isoated path at the other end of the carpark as I thought this would give the theives a good opportunity and it is out of the way of people.

So, I was wondering where everyone parks at shopping centres? Any tips?

[fliplid]

get a decent lock, and for preferance lock your bike to a suitably anchored/secured post with a decent chain or cable.

[slofox]

If there's a bike park, I park there. If not, I just occupy a car space. If I was in the car I would park there anyway so what's the diff?

[PirateJafa]

If there's a bike park, I park there. If not, I just occupy a car space. If I was in the car I would park there anyway so what's the diff?

I just park over by the bicycle parks, or on the footpath out of the lines where I would expect pedestrians to walk.

Usually right next to the front door.

[jtzzr]

I just park on the footpath , I don`t give a rats (as long as I`m not inpeading people).It`s not as I`m going shopping for a 52" plasma and going to be there all day, I`m only going in for a munch or a perv

[Nasty]

if there are no bike parks then in a carpark ... you don't really see cars getting blocked in so I guess I can always get out if they can.

[sunhuntin]

ditto to nasty. just occupy the front half of the park so no cars are half in before they realise you are there. i always park nose out, with the front tyre level with the rear tyres of the car next door. makes you easily visible to all would-be parkers and also allows other bikes/scooters room to sneak in behind you.

i have also parked on the hatched areas that mean no parking due to lack of room. there is often no good reason for that area to be no parking except for lack of space if a car was there. they are the perfect size for a bike and dont block things up like they would if a car parked there. i dont however park on the hatched area next to a disabled park, though i have seen it done by scooters.

[Little Miss Trouble]

i dont however park on the hatched area next to a disabled park, though i have seen it done by scooters.

Yep, see that one all the time, very tempting to kick the bloody things over! how does it not compute that, that particular area is there so the disabled people have wheelchair access to their vehicles?

[madbikeboy]

I'm kind of a bit different to everyone else here - I park scoot on the hard, next to the doors, but out of the flow of traffic. What I mean by hard, is on the edge of the sidewalk/footpath - but with loads of foot traffic passing it. The last thing I want is to have my bike sitting alone in an island of SUV's where a thief would have all day to play locksmith.

Further, I make the point to car drivers that I'm taking up one less car space by doing it.

Also, if there is a security hut, park next to that - be civil with the guards, and don't ask permission, but show them a little respect, and you're normally okay.

Be cheeky, do it with confidence, I've only ever had a couple of people whine to me, both fat women in their 40's - one I just stared at until she looked down and went away (why argue with a stupid person), the other was having a bad day and started telling me bikes were dangerous, and I was a temporary NZ'er etc, etc, etc. I asked her what it was about morbidly obese people that make them such assholes. Kind of killed the conversation, although there were loads of sniggers from the bystanders.

Like Miss.L, I will never park near, in, between, on a disabled space - it's in such poor taste.

[vifferman]

I look for somewhere near the main door, for convenience, but also so I can leave my backpack on the bike. At our local supermarket, there's a yellow striped line by the front door, I think for taxis to drop people off, so I park at the end of that, against the curb.
Anywhere else, I park wherever I can, often on the footpath of shops, with the bike on the sidestand so it leans towards the shop's front window/wall.
Sometimes (like at my old workplace) I park in the left-hand side of handicapped parking, where there's a diagonal striped line beside the park (not in the park itself). No-one ever used the park, so I figured it was OK.

It sounds like you're on the right track - just look around for spaces that are a bit out of the way but in full view so people don't mess with your bike.

[CB ARGH]

I'm also getting into the whole "parking thing", if you can call it that. I usually park right next to the front door (obviously not in the line of pedestrians), in the pushbike parking bit, or in a very well seen car park.

And don't forget the bike lock!

[MarkH]

i have also parked on the hatched areas that mean no parking due to lack of room. there is often no good reason for that area to be no parking except for lack of space if a car was there. they are the perfect size for a bike and dont block things up like they would if a car parked there. i dont however park on the hatched area next to a disabled park, though i have seen it done by scooters.

I would never park in the hatched area next to a disabled park - they are there for a good reason, like allowing for room for a wheelchair lift to operate.

I often park in a car spot if I don't see anywhere better. But I do often see better spots - At Sylvia park there is a good spot near the entrance by Foodtown, they painted some parking spot guides by the curbing and the curbing curves leaving a small area in front of the front most parking spot where nothing but a bike or scooter would fit. Not the easier to expain and I can't be arsed drawing a diagram.

[Sparrowhawk]

As always, depends on the situation. I have no problem taking up a car space if I need to. But at my local supermarket, there's a gap between the trolley parking thingee, and the next carpark over, that's about 1.2m wide, and two carparks long. We can fit 3 bikes there nose to tail. They aren't in a walkway, aren't taking up a carpark, nowhere near a disabled space, and you can lock the bike to the bars of the trolley bay. Perfect reawlly.

[vifferman]

I would never park in the hatched area next to a disabled park - they are there for a good reason, like allowing for room for a wheelchair lift to operate.

Wah.
Like I said, the disabled parks at our old building were never once used by disabled people in the two years I was there. They seemed to be there solely for the purpose of meeting council regulations, like the wheelchair-friendly toilets in our 'new' buidling - on the first floor of a building that has no wheelchair access to it.

I don't park on or near other disabled parks, part from one outside our local pharmacy. Immediately adjacent to, and to the left rear of the carpark, there's a bike-sized space which has no apparent purpose, except for me to park in as I have done many many times when I've stopped to collect ant-mentalness (FAIL!!) medicine.
I'm aware of disabled parking needs, but I still shake my head at some of the people that have disabled parking cards - like my mother-in-law, who can go for several kilometre walks, yet wangled keeping her card after my father-in-law died. Yes, she's had three major back operations, but she's reasonably mobile. And how is it that some 'disabled' persons have to park right next to the front door of the supermarket, yet can walk several hundred metres around the inside of a large supermarket quite happily?
The criteria are obviously very slack. I suspect I could get a card by dint of my dodgy arthritic joints (right hip's nearly due for some titanium race parts), but feck that for a joke. I'll pretend I'm abled for as long as I can, then it's the knacker's yard for me. A few grams of lead injected into the right spot'll fix it.

[Guided_monkey]

As above the hatched areas are good areas.

When in doubt ask at the help desk where the bike parking is....... often they don't know as they haven't included that in there thought process when designing the parking.

Then make a suggestion.... preferably near the main doors (lots of visibility/foot traffic), in the aforementioned hatched areas.

Sometimes you even get a positive response.