IKEA Singapore

It's hard to find anywhere these days that doesn't have an IKEA. Inexpensive, easy to assemble and reliable, you can trust the Swedes. The whole store sells a vision of idyllic Scandinavia, from the array of  candles, soft furnishings and home lighting for the dark winter nights to outdoor furniture, crayfish and ciders for the long summer evenings. For the urbanist the store is adorned with all those practical fixes for urban living and even sells us an eco vision of self-delivery. So hej hej why not just take your new flat pack furniture home by bike?

The problem of course is everything is not just the ideal you have been seduced into believing it is. In Singapore using the Park Connector routes (huge positive) I could cycle a whole 7km to IKEA without using one single road. My cargo bike has a capacity of 100kg for flat pack (or a very large child) and I was good for at least a bookcase. Sorted then? Well not really, because the cycle parking was far from the ideal, hidden away in a corner of the carpark some distance from the exit, with a gauntlet of bollards in between to stop you actually getting back there with all the wonderful things you have bought, some so wonderful you will never even use them. And the lesson in the sorry tale?? Come on IKEA you can do better than that!!! If you tell me to do something inside your store make it possible for me to do it just outside!