Why not electric bikes?
On Monday, 30 March 2026, the Checkers Sixty60 bike noise started in the morning, surged again at lunch, and then built from around 15:00 through 17:30.
Date: 30 March 2026
Another day, another frustration. The morning began with a massive swarm of these low-quality bikes again. Then came a big lunch rush. Then the swarming started up again at around 15:00 and kept building toward 17:30.
It just does not stop. Checkers Sixty60 continues to allow these obnoxious bikes to be used even though the noise pollution they cause has been raised repeatedly and clearly.
The whole day gets swallowed by it
This is what makes the issue so exhausting. It is not one isolated noisy moment. It comes in waves all day: morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, late afternoon. The street never gets the chance to settle.
When the same loud BigBoy bikes keep returning in these swarms, it becomes hard to feel that anyone responsible is taking residential peace seriously at all.
Why are electric bikes still not on the table?
From a resident perspective, the stores appear to be only about 2.5 km apart, which suggests the furthest run is unlikely to be much more than a couple of kilometres. The store roof also appears to carry a large solar installation, reportedly around 100 panels.
So the obvious question remains: why is it so difficult for a company of this size to provide even a modest fleet of electric bikes with swappable batteries to reduce this noise? For a retailer of this scale, that does not look like an impossible ask. It looks like a choice.
What that choice says
From where I stand, the refusal to move away from these loud bikes is becoming harder and harder to read as anything other than contempt for the neighbourhoods they move into and swarm. The problem has been raised for well over a year. The noise is obvious. The alternatives are obvious. Yet the same bikes keep coming.
This problem is solvable, which is exactly why it is so infuriating. At this point, it no longer feels like a difficult operational issue. It feels like Checkers Sixty60 simply does not care enough about the residents living with the consequences to do what is plainly within its power.