Here's the analysis of IKEA locations by bike-friendliness we mentioned in the video: mobycon.com/updates/which-cities-in-canada-have-the-most-cycleable-ikea-store/
Not surprised to see Edmonton below average. South Edmonton Common, one of the largest power centres in Canada. I hate driving there, can't even imagine myself riding a bike to get there.
Interesting that you would remark on farmland being close to high rises. This you will find all over the Netherlands. Once you cross city limits, you're in farm country. It's what you get when cities aren't allowed to boundlessly sprawl
from Ottawa here 🙋🏿♂️ it’s remarkable because it’s not on the edge of the city, but in the *middle*. Dow’s lake and downtown to the east, a hospital to the north, and single family housing suburbs south and west EDIT: see the green patch at 5:21
Ontario also has the same rules about urbanised and rural areas. You are only allowed to develop within the official urban area. You can't just build random houses in the countryside like you can in the United States. Look at any Ontarian city on a satellite view and you will see a clear border between the developed and undeveloped areas.
I live in Calgary, which scored highest In Canada on the IKEA bike-friendliness index, and I did a similar ride to the Costco (which is in the same area) and honestly the worst part of the ride was navigating the horrifically hostile parking lot that surrounds these big-box retailers. Looks like yours may be a tad friendlier. Great video 👍🏻
Is that the Deerfoot Meadows Costco and Ikea? Did you use 11th Street SE & 42 Av SE, and what was the rest of your route from City Hall or downtown? How many kilometers was it, and was it suitable for a bike towing a trailer or a large cargo bike as in pathway width and hills???
how fast do people drive there? Because one in Hamburg also has a sea of parking, but limited to 10 km/h. The other one even has a bike lane (which the city has build more like a maze on their part…) and a bus stop between (!) the parking lot and the main building.
My local IKEA has dozens of rows of covered bike parking right next to the entrance, accessed by a dedicated bike path connecting to other municipal paths in every direction. Yes it's in the Netherlands. Fun fact, for tax evasion purposes it's registered as one of Ikea's global headquarters.
I'm curious, do you usually have stuff from Ikea delivered due to size / weight of boxes? About the only thing I imagine picking up would be really small stuff like glassware or linens, otherwise the furniture boxes have all been too big to carry on our bike trailer (maybe a cargo bike if we had the space for one)... ...though, in our case it wouldn't matter because the nearest Ikea is a city away / too far by bike anyway :( (we're in southern Sweden btw)
@@tinatiel3765 I actually live only a few hundred metres away so I have brought home large items like matresses and carpets by walking home with those sitting on my bike. For people further away IKEA rents cargo bikes for €2,50/h.
Recently did the same test in Florence (Italy) and to my surprise 90% of the trip was in dedicated bike path and the last 10% was divided 1/2 on a makeshift path in a field and 1/2 on an heavy industry road without even a sidewalk... All in all a lot better than i thought
The O train line will also bring more bike paths and a new highway pedestrian bridge. A bike trip from downtown to IKEA could be done completely off roads and along MUP
I remember taking a similar route when I biked from Nepean to the University of Ottawa during my second year of undergrad in late 2017. I absolutely loved it, especially the fall colours and the fact of biking through the middle of a farm in the city. Hopefully I'll get the chance to cycle through those trails again.
Pro Tip from someone who lives in Sandy Hill and visits his wife who works in collage square on her lunch and takes the route a lot. If you want to avoid that nasty bike gutter before the round a bout, turn left into the park and follow the paths until you get to the locks then hang a left again and go down to the street again.. there is a intersection there that connects you back to the experimental farm and really only adds 5 mins on the trip. I suggest it to anyone that does not feel comfortable being that close to big moving hunks of steel with out a separation barrier.
I’d really love to see your guys’ take on Victoria cycling infrastructure! We’re smaller than other cities in Canada, but we’ve got the highest percentage of cyclists per capita and one of the best mixed use trail systems I’ve seen - very similar to the ones in this video. The city’s also been embarking on building a network of protected AAA bike lanes throughout the city. Hope to see a video on your take of Vic one day :)
One note on the split Walking/ Cycling path way, we need to advocate for a walking part that is "walker friendly". Making that half concrete, which is way harder than asphalt, and much harder on the knees will lead to walker and especially runners moving to the softer surface to save knees and ankles.
This is the same route we take to go to the brewery in Bells Corners some evenings. Typically we start in Centretown and then take the Experimental Farm through nearly the same neighbourhoods to Centrepointe, then Bruce Pit and Bell Arena Park, then through a few more suburban neighbourhoods to Kichesippi. Grab a few pints and then continue northwest a bit along the Greenbelt Pathway to the Trans Canada Trail, following that eastbound through Britannia Park until it becomes the Ottawa River Pathway again. It's a little less than 50K and a lot of fun with some friends. Happy to share more details if you'd like. Another one that's a bit longer is taking the Ottawa River Pathway all the way east to Orleans and out to Cumberland to hit up the Black Walnut Bakery. It's about 75K from downtown. The eastern pathway itself is much nicer since there are fewer people, it's wider, flatter, and there's more tree coverage.
You could have stayed on the MUP rather than turning right into Iris. It’s less direct but would keep you on paths all the way to where they’re building the otrain construction bridge at Iris. It also brings you to a much safer way to cross Woodroffe, in front of the fire station close to Baseline. Did you take the same route back, or did you head north along the transitway to SJAM?
That farm reminds me of Mudchute farm in East London. It's right next to the Docklands financial district. Very surreal place. Something weird about seeing Llamas next to skyscrapers!
thank you canada for good memory,all canada my favourite place,i was travel six months to explore montreal,quebec,sdney,halifax,vancouver,and charletone
I used to live near an IKEA in Barcelona and would ride there on my longboard. But I've also lived 2mi/3km from one in Russia and there was no way to even walk there, just the highway. World of difference
I never rode to Ikea while living in Ottawa (always wanted things that were too large for a bike :P) but the NCC bike pathways were a godsend for all the riding I did, whether for commuting or joy. Lovely to relive them again through your eyes! Also fun to compare this to Not Just Bike's great videos of riding to an Ikea in Amsterdam. Needless to say... it seems much friendlier over there. :) Great video, thank you!
As someone who lives in the east side of Ottawa, I'm quite jealous. We have paths here, but nothing at all that links up to the rest of the city. If you made the same trip eastwards towards any point in Orleans, you'd find it much less pleasant and definitely less safe. I suppose you could go well out of your way along the bike paths parallel to the George-Etienne Parkway, but they don't link up with very much, leaving you on painted bike gutters, if you have bike infrastructure at all. It's a pity, because the Prescott-Russell trail is a very nice ride this time of year. I do recommend it if you can manage to get to it safely.
The lack of direct paths leading out of Orleans is frustrating. There's just the Multi-use pat along the river. It's scenic, but takes forever to get anywhere. Really which they would just add a path that follows the 174 through the greenbelt.
The east side of Ottawa, all the way out to Blackburn Township is downright hostile to bike traffic. The car people are seriously mentally disturbed, making it not just "no fun", but dangerous for cyclists. I get the impression that the bike infrastructure away from downtown is for tourist brochures, and not for actual use to get anywhere. Downtown is fantastic though, and should be applauded.
I've actually biked from South Keys to IKEA and back many times after we moved there. Usually I was just going there to pick out big orders to be shipped.. but sometimes I was carrying smaller items or parts back on my bike. I always look for the multi-use pathways even if they take a bit longer. There are several bike racks just inside the ground level of the IKEA parking garage. I always get the cheap hotdogs and Lingonberry juice to fuel me up.
On Google maps I compared the size of parking lot for Ikea in Winnipeg versus Ikea in Amsterdam; I think Winnipeg's lots are 3x the size. They are always empty. The Winnipeg Ikea is located right along a bike path going east-west, but the north-south route is stubbornly ended right at the Ikea for 2km alongside a busy 80kmph stroad, where again it restarts and joins up with the rest of the southern lines.
I loved seeing these trails I have used so many times growing up in Ottawa. I lived in the areas close to the experimental farm for the majority of the time I lived in Ottawa. And that one trail after you passed the experimental farm was at the end of the street I lived on for a period. As a kid, I would take that trail alone on my bike to my friends house without any issues, even though it was quite a distance.
You can avoid the unpleasant uphill on Prince of Wales by continuing on the MUP on the west side of Dow's Lake heading south to the locks, then turning west from there to the Farm.
My Ikea in Richmond is not such a great experience to bike to. It's a lot closer, which helps, but the absolute best route is a big arterial with bike gutters followed by a somewhat busy two lane road with no bike lanes that, of course, drivers get annoyed about me being on. The alternative route is a wide arterial that connects to a highway with no bike lanes all of the way, but I almost prefer that because at least it's always wide enough that cars pass me properly. Either way, it kinda sucks but I've done it several times. It's very easy to get to by transit but a big bag of Ikea stuff on the bus is awkward
I see you made it up to the top of Carlington Park hill! One of the best sunsets in the city so go back to see it! I take that route a lot and I see the Farm as an enormous park where you can have a nice picnic (not actually sure if this is allowed but I don’t care) with great views and lots of space.
Carlington Park hill was a cool spot that we'd like to come back to but it was a little confusing seeing a faded "no trespassing" sign when leaving the MUP!
Yay Ikea! You could have gone down the John A McDonald parkway's path too and would have avoided some of the traffic at the end. Probably a little less direct but still. I used to live just north of thar Ikea, and we would bike downtown on the parkway and then back basically the way you mentioned. Super fun!
What to get at IKEA when you just end up there: food! Their frozen pizza is actually nice. And pancakes or waffles and frozen smoothies are great too. Plus I've heard it's where you get lingonberry jam outside of the Nordics.
That's a really nice route, and a big advantage of the multiuse pathway I don't think you mentioned is not having to stop at intersections as often thus preserving momentum and speeding things up
The nearest Ikea to me is in Elizabeth NJ and if anyone's ever been to that one, you'd know that even attempting to get there by bike is a death wish. It directly connects to Port Newark so most of the road traffic is semis, there's no bike infrastructure anywhere near there, to get there you have to take 2 highways where cycling is explicitly prohibited and then cross 2 more highways over a long overpass with no sidewalk. It's not just dangerous, it's impossible.
Sure but it's not unreasonable, it means that people without cars can take a bike to Ikea, see the furniture, and order delivery. Delivery will be done by a truck carrying multiple orders I assume, so that also significantly cuts down on emissions.
@@ChaplainDMK Sadly, I only had one chair to order, so it wasn’t done by Ikea delivery, it was done by Canada Post. Which decided, even though I was home and my building had an elevator, they’d just give me a notice saying they couldn’t deliver it, and I had to walk to the nearest post office (a 30 minute walk away) with a hand trolly so that I could then pull the box home… 😔
I really wish they would close the roads around the lakes on the grand rounds in Minneapolis sometimes. They really waste that space for car parking and through traffic much of the time
I'm enjoying the topic; you'd also get some surprising results for IKEA bike accessibility in the US. The location for Atlanta, one of the poster children for sprawl, is easily accessible by bike, and is located only 2-3 miles from downtown.
The real reason all those lovely scenic bike paths are dismissed by commuters is that they're useless for commuting unless you won the work-location-home-location lottery. THey're often separated from places you want to be by stroads, and are frequently isolated from the city around them. They are truly wonderful for taking a casual jaunt. The Lachine Canal bike path has the same mixed blessing, and at least it has walking trail along pretty much its entire length.
If you long for the familiarity and size of ikea but it is just too damn far, you can now visit the soulless parking garage at Dow’s lake (insert Price is Right losing sound )
I live in Ottawa. I think it's important to also consider that Ottawa's bike pathway is not feasible for majority of the population. People that live in Kanata, Orleans, or Barrhaven can't get to downtown. I live in the central core by South keys and I also still have to bike on stroads in-order to get to downtown.
I question rankings that put a downtown Toronto Ikea as less bikeable than a bunch of suburban ones. Apparently is scored low on "attractiveness" which seems to suggest that long stretches along a river path will score better than being able to get there in a reasonable amount of time. It also apparently got super high comfort marks and super low safety marks which seems impossible, since comfort and safety are pretty closely correlated.
It's a nice video! I have also taken the sidewalk on that portion of Prince of Wales. Hopefully with the hospital it gets proper bike lanes in the future. I just wanna comment on your quick endorsement of the Claridge homes Icon. As much as I agree with increasing density, on paper that building is great and all but a construction worker died there while building its 9 story deep parking garage. I think that's pretty tragic and the building shouldn't be what we point to for what development should look like here in Ottawa.
Have you ever taken the Rideau Canal? It's wild how quickly you go to widnerness and farmland after the flight of 8. At least a few years ago. Only way this Ikea could be improved would be by adding a canal branch with boat parking.
The intersection at dows lake and the end of the multi use path way is dangerous. you are 100% correct in saying it is unequipped for the amount of foot traffic it gets. Cars here are aggressive and the visibility of the pedestrians is low. to make my hate for this intersection greater, i was rear-ended here last month while i was waiting in the left hand turn lane…
The IKEA in Croydon, Surrey, England I would say is not very bike friendly but is a bit better than what was seen in this video but the roads around the store is always filled with traffic with little to no bike lanes not counting a shared path next to the nearby Croydon tramlink tramway of which the nearest tram stop is a 5-10min walk away along with the nearest bus stop...
this seems alot more pleasant than my bike ride to Ikea in Montreal! -- it takes you to this stroad-to-highway bridge where you have to basically bike on this tiny sidewalk - and cross the road where forks allow cars to go onto the highway -- very unpleasant!
Here's how you can get to the brand new IKEA in the bush capital -- you can choose two beautiful separated cycleways, one that swoops from the north, and a short one from the old city (not one in the middle). Now, you're a few hundred metres from the IKEA, having travelled some 10km to the airport from the north. Do you see the IKEA? Yes, it's just past that -- wait, why on Earth did both paths suddenly vanish into a 6-lane highway?! It's literally right there, just _one more_ underpass (you've already gone under two), and you can get to the IKEA, where it has its own little road! Well, no veggieballs today 🏳
Heh! "My" Ikea is in Etobicoke (Toronto). Not a very bike-friendly ride for us. And when we get there, only one, small, outdoor bike rack to park at. Only room for about 6 bikes. Not that it matters, I'm always the only bike there.
Why did it rank higher than the downtown one when the one downtown is right next to Gerrard st which has protected bike lanes. Also how did Calgary top this list, if you search up the Calgary Ikea you’ll find that it’s not home friendly at all.
@@lemonade4181 you're right! I could take the Bloor bike lane almost the whole way from my place (Old Mill) to the new Aura Ikea downtown. There's not a bike lane, path or track anywhere near Ikea Etobicoke that I can think of. Every approach is very car-centric. Not sure how Etobicoke scored higher than Aura.
@@knarf_on_a_bike I looked into the study and realised that they look at the route from the town hall of the city to the IKEA and base the rankings off that route, rather than bikeability of the surrounding area of the IKEA. That’s why Etobicoke is above average; the bike path along the waterfront encompasses a large portion of the journey.
In the next episode, our intrepid IKEA cyclo-shoppers return with a Billy tall bookcase -- on their extended cargo tandem bike. 🙂 Really enjoying your videos, folks!
Much easier to bring your Ikea Purchase home on transit then on bike!😊 The last time I bought a 4-ft high 2 door bar-fridge that was too big for my car, I just spent $2.75 to buy a 90 minute transit ticket to go to Home Depot, where I got them to strap my $300 fridge purchase to the hand truck dolly that I brought with me on transit, and home depot even gave me a $10 discount as they were being extra nice 🙂. Suffice it to say I brought that fridge home by CTrain and low floor bus on the same transit ticket I used to go there , and I also saved myself a $60 delivery charge. (outside of rush hour when passenger traffic was low)🙂
I love the Rideau Canal and find it to be such a great feature of Ottawa for walkability and liveability alike! You should do a video on the skate way it turns into for the winter. 7km of special Canadian winter urbanism would make for a really interesting topic I think! I'd be curious to know if people use it for actually getting around the city? Skates can be pretty fast...
i used to use it to commute to and from my high school, and would see a decent amount of other skaters at the same time. in the Summer's i'd bike along the canal to school
Great to highlight bike accessibility of popular destinations outside Ottawa's downtown. It's a bit odd to describe this a suburban though, the new Ottawa Official Plan considers Ikea to be "Inner Urban". Kanata, Stittsville, Barrhaven, and Orleans are considered Suburban.
It's automobile-oriented big box stores right beside a highway in the middle of a sea of single-family homes, two or three kilometres from the Greenbelt. Many of the nearby residential streets don't even have sidewalks. I think it's fair to call that suburban!
The IKEA in Montreal I'd imagine is practically impossible to bike to. I work around there I no way in hell would I cycle anywhere around Cote-de-liesse
I protest! Quebec City deserves a better score! XD The author of the article clearly blindly trusted Google to show him the way from the City Hall to Ikea, hence the low score on safety and attractiveness since he goes through narrow St. Foy road and an industrial zone. But you could do the whole trip by using bike lanes and even the bike lane following the St. Lawrence River for an extra picturesque trip. Yes, it would take 1:14 instead of 47 minutes and impact the directness, but you'll enjoy every minute of it!
The only Ikea near me is adjacent to the Mall of America ... I have biked near it, but I can't image biking to the Ikea (or Mall of America). You'd be hard press to find a more car-focused area that the Mall of America (ironic).
I hate the Rideau pathway when it's busy. Side note, did you know there's a pathway connection between the canal path and the Experimental Farm pathway? Or did you decide to not take it?
What a coincidence. I went to Ikea to return wrong lightbulbs in Montreal yesterday. I had to cross 3 highway off/on ramps. Only one had a signal. I wasn't supposed to be there honestly. There is a ""safer""" very indirect route, but what's the fun in that.
If I had known my usual bike route was this close to the IKEA, then I would've been walking inside the concrete maze and coming out with some meatballs almost every other time
If you're looking for a four letter word 🇸🇪Swedish Furniture Paradise JYSK might be a better option than IKEA, as JYSK it's cheaper and has more locations.
there's actually a much better route! Bike to Carleton, either on the CBY side or QED side, and you can start the farm route from there, no need to ride with traffic (ok, just a very short section of canal access road no one uses...). You can then continue as you went. PS I love this route! Glad to see others recognize it
Exactly, I would have crossed the Flora footbridge to the other side of the Canal, then follow path west until the locks crossing at Carleton U, walk bike over the locks (there is a bike rail to go up the steps), then onto experimental farm path from there. Cuts distance and avoids interaction with cars at Dow's Lake.
Density without (excessive) height is possible. Skyscrapers and high rises = vertical sprawl. Optimal building height is about five stories. It's more than dense enough for public transportation, parks, services etc. Tall buildings creates a distance/barrier between the inhabitants of the buildings and the street and tall buildings also require a lot of infrastructure on a relatively small space (such as parking spaces). High rises surrounded by asphalt is bad for human life.
We love Montreal-style ground-oriented density and we've covered the benefits of that housing in lots of other videos. I have to disagree with your strong condemnation of taller buildings as “vertical sprawl” though. Taller buildings are an important source of housing supply in high-demand areas. You can talk about the downsides of living higher up (less connection to the street) but at the end of the day that’s a personal preference that not everyone shares. Lots of people will happily take a better view over faster access to the ground. I do agree on disliking the “towers in a parking lot” model but that’s just one style driven in large part by onerous municipal regulations mandating lots of parking.
@A you should watch Oh The Urbanity!'s other, amazing video on this very topic! :) As always with these guys, it's a video that doesn't make anyone who disagrees feel attacked, made fun of or any other negative emotion that prevents open discussion. That's very hard to find on any subject, so thanks a lot, guys!
Going down your technically correct line of reasoning, IKEA is actually a non-profit registered in the Netherlands for (tax purposes), and not a furniture company. It just happens to be founded in Sweden, by Swedish people, be owned by Swedish people and have Swedish people in all top positions. But yeah, totally a Dutch non-profit.
You could have followed the Rideau Multi-Use Pathway until the next set of locks, then turned into the Experimental Farm from there, and avoided biking on Prince of Wales completely.
Just like IKEA instructions, the manual telling you how to get there is confusing and open to interpretation. The comments here are filled with suggestions of alternate routes and I'd guess y'all had to stop and check directions a few times. It's a bit harder than "Take the 417 West and exit at Pinecrest. You won't miss the IKEA". That's biking in suburban Ottawa in a nutshell. Knowing that one tiny footpath that cuts between suburbs which will take 10 minutes off your ride, getting onto a multi-use path that ends and dumps you nowhere, crossing a stroad into another suburb then cutting through a stripmall into another multi-use path filled with geese. It's doable, but Ottawa is too addicted to cars and urban sprawl and is allergic to sweat and medium-density. I'm so glad I live in Montreal right on the REV.
Ikea is barely suburban given the sprawl of Ottawa in three directions. It’s actually closer to downtown than the original Ikea location in Bells Corners. Now that’s suburbs! For decades that mall has been considered to be just in the city west end.
My Ikea in Edmonton is no where near bike friendly. South Common is a business district and would make any urban designer or civil engineer lose their heads
Ironically IKEA are now subject to far more stringent planning & location restrictions in their home country of Sweden than they are in North America where they can build virtually where they like, with little or no consideration of sustainable transport or effects on city centre retail. .
I walk at 6kph. I wouldnt want joggers blowing past at nearly twice my speed. :-) I would send a WTF complaint to my city's complaints email. Unless of course 10 kph limit was for a localized hazard, such as a 180 switchback on loose gravel. That certainly does not look to be the case.
@@HweolRidda I walk at between 7 and 8 k/h depending on the day and how much of a hurry I'm in, and I'm fine with joggers passing me at double my speed. Good for them for getting that exercise in. And at least I'm not passing *them*, like happens with some slower joggers.
The 10km speed limit is only near major bus terminals where there would be lots of people around. The majority of the pathway network is indeed 20km/hr
Genuinely curious how they came to that score for the Toronto Etobicoke location. You can take the Wickman underpass from Evans which is probably the safest/nicest route because taking Queensway by bike is less than ideal (actually it's quite shite)
I am a fan of using the bike (or public transit) over the car whenever it makes sense. But isn't IKEA one of those places where it makes the least sense to go on a bike? You usually buy furniture there in big, heavy boxes that won't even fit into a cargo bike and even when you only plan to buy a couple of smaller items, you end up with more than you can carry or fit in a regular backpack (the magic of IKEA!)
There are some smaller things to buy at IKEA that could easily fit into a bike trailer, and someone could also want to bike there to check out some furniture before in person before ordering it delivered. But we definitely won't deny that cars are generally very useful for IKEA trips.
I live so close to this Ikea, but because I would have to ride down the Greenbank to get there, I never bike there, since I value my life 🥲 It is good that the most part from the central part of the city is nice though :)
In the city where I live, there is a station where you can borrow a cargo bike for free. (as long as you bring it back in one piece) This way, I could buy Ikea furniture by bike. Buuuuut unfortunately, the local Ikea bike route is basically a death sentence. Win some, lose some I guess :D
Another RUclipsr with more of a background in video than us suggested that recording in 60fps wasn't very useful (a drain on battery and bigger file sizes without any clear benefit unless we wanted to slow down our footage). We tried it out and so far haven't noticed a difference. Previously we did 60fps in most videos (except when a majority of the footage came from one of our cameras that only does 4k30).
Interesting that you went this route instead of the Parkway. If you wanted to make it seem even easier (which I know isn't the point) going on the weekend when the Parkway is closed to cars
That's interesting. We find Ottawa a pretty excellent place to explore and enjoy by bike due to the canal/river/other pathways. On the other hand, we don't find the city as fun or interesting to walk around in, especially compared to Montreal but even Toronto.
Here's the analysis of IKEA locations by bike-friendliness we mentioned in the video: mobycon.com/updates/which-cities-in-canada-have-the-most-cycleable-ikea-store/
Not surprised to see Edmonton below average. South Edmonton Common, one of the largest power centres in Canada. I hate driving there, can't even imagine myself riding a bike to get there.
You should pin this...
@Eric Elfner Thought I did. Fixed.
Interesting that you would remark on farmland being close to high rises. This you will find all over the Netherlands. Once you cross city limits, you're in farm country. It's what you get when cities aren't allowed to boundlessly sprawl
from Ottawa here 🙋🏿♂️ it’s remarkable because it’s not on the edge of the city, but in the *middle*. Dow’s lake and downtown to the east, a hospital to the north, and single family housing suburbs south and west
EDIT: see the green patch at 5:21
Ottawa is mostly farmland, if you look at its true size the urban and suburban portions are tiny compared to the rest of it.
Ontario also has the same rules about urbanised and rural areas. You are only allowed to develop within the official urban area. You can't just build random houses in the countryside like you can in the United States. Look at any Ontarian city on a satellite view and you will see a clear border between the developed and undeveloped areas.
@@OntarioTrafficMan is that a good or bad thing? Genuinely curious.
@@Kishanth.J good. It’s incredibly hard and expensive to get essential services out to random houses
I live in Calgary, which scored highest
In Canada on the IKEA bike-friendliness index, and I did a similar ride to the Costco (which is in the same area) and honestly the worst part of the ride was navigating the horrifically hostile parking lot that surrounds these big-box retailers. Looks like yours may be a tad friendlier. Great video 👍🏻
. It just happened to be near a trail. Everything about those kinds of stores suck whether you’re driving to them or not.
Is that the Deerfoot Meadows Costco and Ikea?
Did you use 11th Street SE & 42 Av SE, and what was the rest of your route from City Hall or downtown? How many kilometers was it, and was it suitable for a bike towing a trailer or a large cargo bike as in pathway width and hills???
how fast do people drive there? Because one in Hamburg also has a sea of parking, but limited to 10 km/h. The other one even has a bike lane (which the city has build more like a maze on their part…) and a bus stop between (!) the parking lot and the main building.
My local IKEA has dozens of rows of covered bike parking right next to the entrance, accessed by a dedicated bike path connecting to other municipal paths in every direction.
Yes it's in the Netherlands. Fun fact, for tax evasion purposes it's registered as one of Ikea's global headquarters.
I'm curious, do you usually have stuff from Ikea delivered due to size / weight of boxes?
About the only thing I imagine picking up would be really small stuff like glassware or linens, otherwise the furniture boxes have all been too big to carry on our bike trailer (maybe a cargo bike if we had the space for one)...
...though, in our case it wouldn't matter because the nearest Ikea is a city away / too far by bike anyway :(
(we're in southern Sweden btw)
@@tinatiel3765 I actually live only a few hundred metres away so I have brought home large items like matresses and carpets by walking home with those sitting on my bike. For people further away IKEA rents cargo bikes for €2,50/h.
Recently did the same test in Florence (Italy) and to my surprise 90% of the trip was in dedicated bike path and the last 10% was divided 1/2 on a makeshift path in a field and 1/2 on an heavy industry road without even a sidewalk... All in all a lot better than i thought
Can't wait for the Otrain to reach out here, would make small shopping trips actually feasible.
The O train line will also bring more bike paths and a new highway pedestrian bridge. A bike trip from downtown to IKEA could be done completely off roads and along MUP
yes
Can't wait for your analysis of the O train unreliability fiasco
@@andrerenault they already did, like a month ago.
I remember taking a similar route when I biked from Nepean to the University of Ottawa during my second year of undergrad in late 2017. I absolutely loved it, especially the fall colours and the fact of biking through the middle of a farm in the city. Hopefully I'll get the chance to cycle through those trails again.
Pro Tip from someone who lives in Sandy Hill and visits his wife who works in collage square on her lunch and takes the route a lot.
If you want to avoid that nasty bike gutter before the round a bout, turn left into the park and follow the paths until you get to the locks then hang a left again and go down to the street again.. there is a intersection there that connects you back to the experimental farm and really only adds 5 mins on the trip. I suggest it to anyone that does not feel comfortable being that close to big moving hunks of steel with out a separation barrier.
I’d really love to see your guys’ take on Victoria cycling infrastructure! We’re smaller than other cities in Canada, but we’ve got the highest percentage of cyclists per capita and one of the best mixed use trail systems I’ve seen - very similar to the ones in this video. The city’s also been embarking on building a network of protected AAA bike lanes throughout the city. Hope to see a video on your take of Vic one day :)
One note on the split Walking/ Cycling path way, we need to advocate for a walking part that is "walker friendly". Making that half concrete, which is way harder than asphalt, and much harder on the knees will lead to walker and especially runners moving to the softer surface to save knees and ankles.
This is the same route we take to go to the brewery in Bells Corners some evenings. Typically we start in Centretown and then take the Experimental Farm through nearly the same neighbourhoods to Centrepointe, then Bruce Pit and Bell Arena Park, then through a few more suburban neighbourhoods to Kichesippi. Grab a few pints and then continue northwest a bit along the Greenbelt Pathway to the Trans Canada Trail, following that eastbound through Britannia Park until it becomes the Ottawa River Pathway again. It's a little less than 50K and a lot of fun with some friends. Happy to share more details if you'd like.
Another one that's a bit longer is taking the Ottawa River Pathway all the way east to Orleans and out to Cumberland to hit up the Black Walnut Bakery. It's about 75K from downtown. The eastern pathway itself is much nicer since there are fewer people, it's wider, flatter, and there's more tree coverage.
If you want a much longer route, keep going past Bells Corners all the way to the Ashton Brew Pub.
You could have stayed on the MUP rather than turning right into Iris. It’s less direct but would keep you on paths all the way to where they’re building the otrain construction bridge at Iris. It also brings you to a much safer way to cross Woodroffe, in front of the fire station close to Baseline.
Did you take the same route back, or did you head north along the transitway to SJAM?
We planned to take SJAM back, but we wanted to get home faster so ended up deciding against that. Good point on staying on the MUP for longer!
That farm reminds me of Mudchute farm in East London. It's right next to the Docklands financial district. Very surreal place. Something weird about seeing Llamas next to skyscrapers!
"Mudchute Farm" sounds a lot more interesting than "Central Experimental Farm"!
thank you canada for good memory,all canada my favourite place,i was travel six months to explore montreal,quebec,sdney,halifax,vancouver,and charletone
I used to live near an IKEA in Barcelona and would ride there on my longboard.
But I've also lived 2mi/3km from one in Russia and there was no way to even walk there, just the highway.
World of difference
I never rode to Ikea while living in Ottawa (always wanted things that were too large for a bike :P) but the NCC bike pathways were a godsend for all the riding I did, whether for commuting or joy. Lovely to relive them again through your eyes! Also fun to compare this to Not Just Bike's great videos of riding to an Ikea in Amsterdam. Needless to say... it seems much friendlier over there. :) Great video, thank you!
As someone who lives in the east side of Ottawa, I'm quite jealous. We have paths here, but nothing at all that links up to the rest of the city. If you made the same trip eastwards towards any point in Orleans, you'd find it much less pleasant and definitely less safe. I suppose you could go well out of your way along the bike paths parallel to the George-Etienne Parkway, but they don't link up with very much, leaving you on painted bike gutters, if you have bike infrastructure at all.
It's a pity, because the Prescott-Russell trail is a very nice ride this time of year. I do recommend it if you can manage to get to it safely.
The lack of direct paths leading out of Orleans is frustrating. There's just the Multi-use pat along the river. It's scenic, but takes forever to get anywhere. Really which they would just add a path that follows the 174 through the greenbelt.
The east side of Ottawa, all the way out to Blackburn Township is downright hostile to bike traffic. The car people are seriously mentally disturbed, making it not just "no fun", but dangerous for cyclists. I get the impression that the bike infrastructure away from downtown is for tourist brochures, and not for actual use to get anywhere. Downtown is fantastic though, and should be applauded.
I've actually biked from South Keys to IKEA and back many times after we moved there. Usually I was just going there to pick out big orders to be shipped.. but sometimes I was carrying smaller items or parts back on my bike. I always look for the multi-use pathways even if they take a bit longer. There are several bike racks just inside the ground level of the IKEA parking garage. I always get the cheap hotdogs and Lingonberry juice to fuel me up.
On Google maps I compared the size of parking lot for Ikea in Winnipeg versus Ikea in Amsterdam; I think Winnipeg's lots are 3x the size. They are always empty.
The Winnipeg Ikea is located right along a bike path going east-west, but the north-south route is stubbornly ended right at the Ikea for 2km alongside a busy 80kmph stroad, where again it restarts and joins up with the rest of the southern lines.
I love the low key subtle snark/Shade y’all throw, sort of the Canadian version of “bless your heart”
I loved seeing these trails I have used so many times growing up in Ottawa. I lived in the areas close to the experimental farm for the majority of the time I lived in Ottawa. And that one trail after you passed the experimental farm was at the end of the street I lived on for a period. As a kid, I would take that trail alone on my bike to my friends house without any issues, even though it was quite a distance.
You can avoid the unpleasant uphill on Prince of Wales by continuing on the MUP on the west side of Dow's Lake heading south to the locks, then turning west from there to the Farm.
My Ikea in Richmond is not such a great experience to bike to. It's a lot closer, which helps, but the absolute best route is a big arterial with bike gutters followed by a somewhat busy two lane road with no bike lanes that, of course, drivers get annoyed about me being on.
The alternative route is a wide arterial that connects to a highway with no bike lanes all of the way, but I almost prefer that because at least it's always wide enough that cars pass me properly.
Either way, it kinda sucks but I've done it several times. It's very easy to get to by transit but a big bag of Ikea stuff on the bus is awkward
A large chunk of this video followed my route to work! I love it, though there are some rough bits like heron road.
I see you made it up to the top of Carlington Park hill! One of the best sunsets in the city so go back to see it! I take that route a lot and I see the Farm as an enormous park where you can have a nice picnic (not actually sure if this is allowed but I don’t care) with great views and lots of space.
Carlington Park hill was a cool spot that we'd like to come back to but it was a little confusing seeing a faded "no trespassing" sign when leaving the MUP!
Yay Ikea! You could have gone down the John A McDonald parkway's path too and would have avoided some of the traffic at the end. Probably a little less direct but still. I used to live just north of thar Ikea, and we would bike downtown on the parkway and then back basically the way you mentioned. Super fun!
What to get at IKEA when you just end up there: food! Their frozen pizza is actually nice. And pancakes or waffles and frozen smoothies are great too. Plus I've heard it's where you get lingonberry jam outside of the Nordics.
That's a really nice route, and a big advantage of the multiuse pathway I don't think you mentioned is not having to stop at intersections as often thus preserving momentum and speeding things up
The nearest Ikea to me is in Elizabeth NJ and if anyone's ever been to that one, you'd know that even attempting to get there by bike is a death wish. It directly connects to Port Newark so most of the road traffic is semis, there's no bike infrastructure anywhere near there, to get there you have to take 2 highways where cycling is explicitly prohibited and then cross 2 more highways over a long overpass with no sidewalk.
It's not just dangerous, it's impossible.
I live on that route, so Ikea is pretty easy for me to get to by bike.
Getting anything I buy home, though… Need delivery.
Sure but it's not unreasonable, it means that people without cars can take a bike to Ikea, see the furniture, and order delivery. Delivery will be done by a truck carrying multiple orders I assume, so that also significantly cuts down on emissions.
@@ChaplainDMK Sadly, I only had one chair to order, so it wasn’t done by Ikea delivery, it was done by Canada Post. Which decided, even though I was home and my building had an elevator, they’d just give me a notice saying they couldn’t deliver it, and I had to walk to the nearest post office (a 30 minute walk away) with a hand trolly so that I could then pull the box home… 😔
I really wish they would close the roads around the lakes on the grand rounds in Minneapolis sometimes. They really waste that space for car parking and through traffic much of the time
I'm enjoying the topic; you'd also get some surprising results for IKEA bike accessibility in the US. The location for Atlanta, one of the poster children for sprawl, is easily accessible by bike, and is located only 2-3 miles from downtown.
The real reason all those lovely scenic bike paths are dismissed by commuters is that they're useless for commuting unless you won the work-location-home-location lottery. THey're often separated from places you want to be by stroads, and are frequently isolated from the city around them. They are truly wonderful for taking a casual jaunt. The Lachine Canal bike path has the same mixed blessing, and at least it has walking trail along pretty much its entire length.
Maybe when it comes to the Ottawa River pathways, but the Rideau Canal route is very functional for people living in the central city.
If you long for the familiarity and size of ikea but it is just too damn far, you can now visit the soulless parking garage at Dow’s lake (insert Price is Right losing sound )
I live in Ottawa. I think it's important to also consider that Ottawa's bike pathway is not feasible for majority of the population. People that live in Kanata, Orleans, or Barrhaven can't get to downtown. I live in the central core by South keys and I also still have to bike on stroads in-order to get to downtown.
Cool vid, but I was looking forward to you bike trucking a big box back. 😞😉
I question rankings that put a downtown Toronto Ikea as less bikeable than a bunch of suburban ones. Apparently is scored low on "attractiveness" which seems to suggest that long stretches along a river path will score better than being able to get there in a reasonable amount of time.
It also apparently got super high comfort marks and super low safety marks which seems impossible, since comfort and safety are pretty closely correlated.
It's a nice video! I have also taken the sidewalk on that portion of Prince of Wales. Hopefully with the hospital it gets proper bike lanes in the future.
I just wanna comment on your quick endorsement of the Claridge homes Icon. As much as I agree with increasing density, on paper that building is great and all but a construction worker died there while building its 9 story deep parking garage. I think that's pretty tragic and the building shouldn't be what we point to for what development should look like here in Ottawa.
Nautical miles? Finally those of us who like aviation can relate.
Have you ever taken the Rideau Canal? It's wild how quickly you go to widnerness and farmland after the flight of 8. At least a few years ago. Only way this Ikea could be improved would be by adding a canal branch with boat parking.
The intersection at dows lake and the end of the multi use path way is dangerous. you are 100% correct in saying it is unequipped for the amount of foot traffic it gets. Cars here are aggressive and the visibility of the pedestrians is low.
to make my hate for this intersection greater, i was rear-ended here last month while i was waiting in the left hand turn lane…
Rear-ended in a car or on a bike?
@@lkym2481 in a car... its bad for cars and bikes
The IKEA in Croydon, Surrey, England I would say is not very bike friendly but is a bit better than what was seen in this video but the roads around the store is always filled with traffic with little to no bike lanes not counting a shared path next to the nearby Croydon tramlink tramway of which the nearest tram stop is a 5-10min walk away along with the nearest bus stop...
this seems alot more pleasant than my bike ride to Ikea in Montreal! -- it takes you to this stroad-to-highway bridge where you have to basically bike on this tiny sidewalk - and cross the road where forks allow cars to go onto the highway -- very unpleasant!
Great script, great video
Here's how you can get to the brand new IKEA in the bush capital -- you can choose two beautiful separated cycleways, one that swoops from the north, and a short one from the old city (not one in the middle).
Now, you're a few hundred metres from the IKEA, having travelled some 10km to the airport from the north. Do you see the IKEA? Yes, it's just past that -- wait, why on Earth did both paths suddenly vanish into a 6-lane highway?!
It's literally right there, just _one more_ underpass (you've already gone under two), and you can get to the IKEA, where it has its own little road!
Well, no veggieballs today 🏳
Heh! "My" Ikea is in Etobicoke (Toronto). Not a very bike-friendly ride for us. And when we get there, only one, small, outdoor bike rack to park at. Only room for about 6 bikes. Not that it matters, I'm always the only bike there.
Why did it rank higher than the downtown one when the one downtown is right next to Gerrard st which has protected bike lanes. Also how did Calgary top this list, if you search up the Calgary Ikea you’ll find that it’s not home friendly at all.
@@lemonade4181 you're right! I could take the Bloor bike lane almost the whole way from my place (Old Mill) to the new Aura Ikea downtown. There's not a bike lane, path or track anywhere near Ikea Etobicoke that I can think of. Every approach is very car-centric. Not sure how Etobicoke scored higher than Aura.
@@knarf_on_a_bike I looked into the study and realised that they look at the route from the town hall of the city to the IKEA and base the rankings off that route, rather than bikeability of the surrounding area of the IKEA. That’s why Etobicoke is above average; the bike path along the waterfront encompasses a large portion of the journey.
@@lemonade4181 well that explains it then. I don't live near City Hall, soooo. . . 😉
In the next episode, our intrepid IKEA cyclo-shoppers return with a Billy tall bookcase -- on their extended cargo tandem bike. 🙂 Really enjoying your videos, folks!
Much easier to bring your Ikea Purchase home on transit then on bike!😊
The last time I bought a 4-ft high 2 door bar-fridge that was too big for my car, I just spent $2.75 to buy a 90 minute transit ticket to go to Home Depot, where I got them to strap my $300 fridge purchase to the hand truck dolly that I brought with me on transit, and home depot even gave me a $10 discount as they were being extra nice 🙂. Suffice it to say I brought that fridge home by CTrain and low floor bus on the same transit ticket I used to go there , and I also saved myself a $60 delivery charge. (outside of rush hour when passenger traffic was low)🙂
I love the Rideau Canal and find it to be such a great feature of Ottawa for walkability and liveability alike! You should do a video on the skate way it turns into for the winter. 7km of special Canadian winter urbanism would make for a really interesting topic I think! I'd be curious to know if people use it for actually getting around the city? Skates can be pretty fast...
i used to use it to commute to and from my high school, and would see a decent amount of other skaters at the same time. in the Summer's i'd bike along the canal to school
Great to highlight bike accessibility of popular destinations outside Ottawa's downtown.
It's a bit odd to describe this a suburban though, the new Ottawa Official Plan considers Ikea to be "Inner Urban". Kanata, Stittsville, Barrhaven, and Orleans are considered Suburban.
It's automobile-oriented big box stores right beside a highway in the middle of a sea of single-family homes, two or three kilometres from the Greenbelt. Many of the nearby residential streets don't even have sidewalks. I think it's fair to call that suburban!
@@OhTheUrbanity Can't argue with that! Hopefully the LRT and related redevelopment improves things
This was great to watch
The IKEA in Montreal I'd imagine is practically impossible to bike to. I work around there I no way in hell would I cycle anywhere around Cote-de-liesse
I guess the one in Boucherville is probably better?🤔
I protest! Quebec City deserves a better score! XD
The author of the article clearly blindly trusted Google to show him the way from the City Hall to Ikea, hence the low score on safety and attractiveness since he goes through narrow St. Foy road and an industrial zone. But you could do the whole trip by using bike lanes and even the bike lane following the St. Lawrence River for an extra picturesque trip. Yes, it would take 1:14 instead of 47 minutes and impact the directness, but you'll enjoy every minute of it!
The only Ikea near me is adjacent to the Mall of America ... I have biked near it, but I can't image biking to the Ikea (or Mall of America). You'd be hard press to find a more car-focused area that the Mall of America (ironic).
I only live 3.2 km away from a CostCo, but don't go there on bike due to terrible road conditions and scary traffic.
Build, baby, build!
I hate the Rideau pathway when it's busy. Side note, did you know there's a pathway connection between the canal path and the Experimental Farm pathway? Or did you decide to not take it?
What a coincidence. I went to Ikea to return wrong lightbulbs in Montreal yesterday. I had to cross 3 highway off/on ramps. Only one had a signal. I wasn't supposed to be there honestly. There is a ""safer""" very indirect route, but what's the fun in that.
If I had known my usual bike route was this close to the IKEA, then I would've been walking inside the concrete maze and coming out with some meatballs almost every other time
For us it is quite the same with the location of the Ikea close to a sliplane of an highway in Europe.
If you're looking for a four letter word 🇸🇪Swedish Furniture Paradise JYSK might be a better option than IKEA, as JYSK it's cheaper and has more locations.
You can kind of give IKEA a pass for being more car-centric. After all, the stuff you’re buying there can’t exactly be hauled on foot or bike
I lot of people only have small cars and so they just go there to pick orders and have IKEA send them for delivery.
there's actually a much better route! Bike to Carleton, either on the CBY side or QED side, and you can start the farm route from there, no need to ride with traffic (ok, just a very short section of canal access road no one uses...). You can then continue as you went.
PS I love this route! Glad to see others recognize it
Exactly, I would have crossed the Flora footbridge to the other side of the Canal, then follow path west until the locks crossing at Carleton U, walk bike over the locks (there is a bike rail to go up the steps), then onto experimental farm path from there. Cuts distance and avoids interaction with cars at Dow's Lake.
If these were non-Bluesfest times, I would take the bike lanes on Laurier West to the Albert MUP and then down the Trillium path.
North York IKEA: right beside a GO train station, no direct connection to station
Density without (excessive) height is possible. Skyscrapers and high rises = vertical sprawl.
Optimal building height is about five stories. It's more than dense enough for public transportation, parks, services etc. Tall buildings creates a distance/barrier between the inhabitants of the buildings and the street and tall buildings also require a lot of infrastructure on a relatively small space (such as parking spaces). High rises surrounded by asphalt is bad for human life.
We love Montreal-style ground-oriented density and we've covered the benefits of that housing in lots of other videos. I have to disagree with your strong condemnation of taller buildings as “vertical sprawl” though. Taller buildings are an important source of housing supply in high-demand areas. You can talk about the downsides of living higher up (less connection to the street) but at the end of the day that’s a personal preference that not everyone shares. Lots of people will happily take a better view over faster access to the ground. I do agree on disliking the “towers in a parking lot” model but that’s just one style driven in large part by onerous municipal regulations mandating lots of parking.
@A you should watch Oh The Urbanity!'s other, amazing video on this very topic! :)
As always with these guys, it's a video that doesn't make anyone who disagrees feel attacked, made fun of or any other negative emotion that prevents open discussion.
That's very hard to find on any subject, so thanks a lot, guys!
I've never seen and IKEA, let alone been in one. Was hoping you'd give us at least one shot of the interior.
Considering that IKEA is a Dutch company (despite the Swedish-themed. branding), you would think they might have a more cycling-friendly philosophy.
Going down your technically correct line of reasoning, IKEA is actually a non-profit registered in the Netherlands for (tax purposes), and not a furniture company. It just happens to be founded in Sweden, by Swedish people, be owned by Swedish people and have Swedish people in all top positions. But yeah, totally a Dutch non-profit.
For IKEA it doesn't matter how people come to them. They are only supposed to buy buy buy and go away.
It was founded in Sweden, where it is registered is just a tax evasion thing...
If IKEA is a Dutch company then Gazprom is also a Dutch company
@@ottoreinstra9323 Not yet...
The route was so nice, you guys forgot why your going to Ikea in the first place XD
Theres tons of bike parking in the covered parking lot, beside the exit doors
whenever i get to that intersection at prince of wales, i become so confused
You could have followed the Rideau Multi-Use Pathway until the next set of locks, then turned into the Experimental Farm from there, and avoided biking on Prince of Wales completely.
Ottawa is a good place for biking and walking
By canadian standards perhaps, but it could be so much better. Admittedly it's improving, slowly.
Just like IKEA instructions, the manual telling you how to get there is confusing and open to interpretation. The comments here are filled with suggestions of alternate routes and I'd guess y'all had to stop and check directions a few times. It's a bit harder than "Take the 417 West and exit at Pinecrest. You won't miss the IKEA".
That's biking in suburban Ottawa in a nutshell. Knowing that one tiny footpath that cuts between suburbs which will take 10 minutes off your ride, getting onto a multi-use path that ends and dumps you nowhere, crossing a stroad into another suburb then cutting through a stripmall into another multi-use path filled with geese.
It's doable, but Ottawa is too addicted to cars and urban sprawl and is allergic to sweat and medium-density. I'm so glad I live in Montreal right on the REV.
Ikea is barely suburban given the sprawl of Ottawa in three directions. It’s actually closer to downtown than the original Ikea location in Bells Corners. Now that’s suburbs! For decades that mall has been considered to be just in the city west end.
My Ikea in Edmonton is no where near bike friendly.
South Common is a business district and would make any urban designer or civil engineer lose their heads
Ah, the rural atmosphere :)
Very interesting trip!
10 km/h seems a very slow limit for bikes.
Ironically IKEA are now subject to far more stringent planning & location restrictions in their home country of Sweden than they are in North America where they can build virtually where they like, with little or no consideration of sustainable transport or effects on city centre retail. .
10 kph is a 9:40 minute mile. That would be an insane speed limit for jogging let alone biking.
I walk at 6kph. I wouldnt want joggers blowing past at nearly twice my speed. :-) I would send a WTF complaint to my city's complaints email.
Unless of course 10 kph limit was for a localized hazard, such as a 180 switchback on loose gravel. That certainly does not look to be the case.
@@HweolRidda I walk at between 7 and 8 k/h depending on the day and how much of a hurry I'm in, and I'm fine with joggers passing me at double my speed. Good for them for getting that exercise in. And at least I'm not passing *them*, like happens with some slower joggers.
I would love to get a speeding ticket for exceeding 10 kph. Put in a frame it would be a piece of ready-made art.
The 10km speed limit is only near major bus terminals where there would be lots of people around. The majority of the pathway network is indeed 20km/hr
Genuinely curious how they came to that score for the Toronto Etobicoke location. You can take the Wickman underpass from Evans which is probably the safest/nicest route because taking Queensway by bike is less than ideal (actually it's quite shite)
I am a fan of using the bike (or public transit) over the car whenever it makes sense. But isn't IKEA one of those places where it makes the least sense to go on a bike? You usually buy furniture there in big, heavy boxes that won't even fit into a cargo bike and even when you only plan to buy a couple of smaller items, you end up with more than you can carry or fit in a regular backpack (the magic of IKEA!)
There are some smaller things to buy at IKEA that could easily fit into a bike trailer, and someone could also want to bike there to check out some furniture before in person before ordering it delivered. But we definitely won't deny that cars are generally very useful for IKEA trips.
@@OhTheUrbanity Valid point 💁🏻♂️
I live so close to this Ikea, but because I would have to ride down the Greenbank to get there, I never bike there, since I value my life 🥲 It is good that the most part from the central part of the city is nice though :)
Have you seen the ‘Not Just Bikes’ video on cycling to IKEA in Amsterdam?
"unique air freshener" lol
which neighborhood in ottawa did you choose to live in?
A timer while biking would have been cool
In the city where I live, there is a station where you can borrow a cargo bike for free. (as long as you bring it back in one piece) This way, I could buy Ikea furniture by bike. Buuuuut unfortunately, the local Ikea bike route is basically a death sentence. Win some, lose some I guess :D
Ottawa’s ikea is definitely not in the suburbs, I live 5 minutes from there
Out of curiosity, how come this video is in 30fps instead of your usual(?) 60?
Another RUclipsr with more of a background in video than us suggested that recording in 60fps wasn't very useful (a drain on battery and bigger file sizes without any clear benefit unless we wanted to slow down our footage). We tried it out and so far haven't noticed a difference. Previously we did 60fps in most videos (except when a majority of the footage came from one of our cameras that only does 4k30).
2:50 lmao
that's lovely how low expectation is for cycling in Canada: just staying alive and not get hit by a car ("close call") isn't it lovely ?
Interesting that you went this route instead of the Parkway. If you wanted to make it seem even easier (which I know isn't the point) going on the weekend when the Parkway is closed to cars
0:23 They are also hostile to anyone inside a car, let's be clear here
I just find that Ottawa biking is extremely boring. I biked around Ottawa for 15 years when I didn't have a car. And I just never seemed to enjoy it.
That's interesting. We find Ottawa a pretty excellent place to explore and enjoy by bike due to the canal/river/other pathways. On the other hand, we don't find the city as fun or interesting to walk around in, especially compared to Montreal but even Toronto.
@@OhTheUrbanity I love biking to Westboro beach from the centre. Too bad it's closed this summer!
In a bike versus goose conflict, the smart money is on the goose.
Was there a proper bike rack at IKEA?
Do they let you ride your bike inside the Ikea??? 😊 as they make you go through the entire store just to buy one thing....
"deep in the suburbs" 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Was there much in the way of parking for bikes at Ikea?
Other people have commented that they have some there that we missed