Even Ocean Shores Makes Bike Progress

Brand New Bike Rack at the OS IGA - Not the Greatest Rack or Location, but Securely Installed

Ocean Shores is an odd place. It's got odd ideas about bicycles, with benighted ordinances such as I recounted HERE. Despite my worries, I have not heard of the police tasering a six year-old girl for riding her bike on a local sidewalk and I've not been cited for violating the "extreme right" definition. Some local businesses similarly "just don't get it." One example was recounted HERE. I avoid patronizing such clueless spots. However, today's post is about neither sort of Ocean Shores oddity, but of two businesses that deserve a shout out. One case took a lot longer than I might have expected, and I might have pushed just a tad in the other,  but progress is being made even in Ocean Shores. Perhaps one day we'll even have a bike rack at City Hall!

EXAMPLE 1     The first example is our local IGA grocery store. As I recounted HERE, I was told by a store worker that "they" were the reason the store had no bike rack. However, the store manager told me in his email that they were ordering a rack. This was back in May. Apparently, the bike rack was ordered for delivery via covered wagon because the rack finally got installed week before last. It was a classic "wheel bender" rack that was placed closer to the building than optimum and as far from the front door as possible, but it provides a place for people to lock their bikes that is under the cover of the front roof. That is an advantage that my preferred location of locking to the shopping cart rack does not possess. It was also securely installed, unlike the "pretty" racks at the Colleyville City Center I recounted HERE. Kudos to IGA! My mom was shocked since she'd been asking for a bike rack at the IGA for several years.



EXAMPLE 2     The second example is our local McDonald's. Honestly, I don't go to McDonald's very often, but for some reason I did so yesterday. For much the same reasons as motorists (convenience), I used the drive-thru. Unlike my previous experience with the drive-thru, recounted HERE, I knew to look for an induction sensor which I had no trouble triggering with my bike. LIKE my previous experience, I was told that McDonald's does NOT allow cyclists to use the drive-thru. At least this time, they took and gave me my order.

Well, long-term readers of this blog know that I get GRUMPY about such things, as noted HERE. So, I rode home, printed off the email I received from the store owner (thank goodness I asked for and received one - phone calls leave no records!).

Well, the employee read the email but argued that it meant they should only serve people on 4-wheeled bikes. We didn't discuss how 2-wheel bikes were somehow less deserving of service than people on horses. After a brief stand-off, I suggested we resolve the question simply by calling the store owner, whose phone number was on the email. Almost surprisingly, the employee (a shift supervisor) agreed. During all this, I was worried that the worker bees' eyes were going to pop out, despite the civility of our talk.

To make a long story short, my bike is once again welcome at the Ocean Shores McDonald's and the shift supervisor sent an email to that effect to all the other store management.

Today, I took the "customer survey" and it is reproduced below.