Cycling UK Forum

Has anyone else been refused service at a Macdonalds drive thro' as they were on a bike.
Despite being fully loaded with touring gear and in a dodgy area of Manchester they would not sell me a bottle of Evian water on health and safety ground. You must be on a motorised vechicle sir to get served here.

sounds like excellent material for a comedy sketch on Dom Joly's next series, perhaps the ctc should suggest it & get some free publicity.

A good few years ago I was refused a coke (sorry McDonald's Cola at a drive thru and I was on a recumbent trike. Where was the danger ?

I guess it's a health & safety issue, imposed by the totally fair and unbiased insurance industry (!). Their assessment must be that those who feed at McDonalds must lack the basic driving skills required to avoid colliding with a pedestrian or other non-motorised vehicle at the point where the transactions take place. Fair enough?

So, I can't gain access to a McDonalds 'drive-thru' on a bicycle. God is clearly a cyclist and this is yet another reason why I love cycling so much. It gives me the freedom to avoid restaurants where there is a need to have pictures of the food on the menu.

I remember, thirty years ago in the USA, cyclists not being served by Macdonalds was a problem. Blacks had had a simialr problem about ten years earlier, and cyclists copied the tactics of the blacks.

If the drive in window was not willing to serve the cyclists immediately, they simply waited for the restaurant to change its mind, or for them to be arrested, whichever came first, chatting to any passing TV or newspaper reporters meanwhile.

This did, unfortunately, cause the queues to lengthen rather, behind them, but you couldn't really call that the cyclists' problem.

McDonalds too remembered the civil rights struggle, and the problem went away fairly quickly. Now I gather it's beginning to come back in the USA. It's a shame how cyclists tend to forget their history. Maybe its time to remind people.

Jeremy Parker

That's a good tactic if you actually wish to eat that kind of stuff. Personally I prefer the total boycott approach, and I think even my fat old body thanks me for it!

My wife and I were refused service at the Staines ( where Ali G comes from ).

We were on rollerblades - does that count ?

missed out Mc Donalds in that post ...oops.

surely not! who with any conscience eats at mcdonalds? boycott even in your car, I say