Thursday 22 August 2013

Bike Storage

It is a well known fact that the optimal number of bikes you should own (x) is given by the formuls x = n + 1, where n is the number of bikes you currently own. The logical outcome of this is that evenually a critical point is reached when you simply run out of space to store them. Over the years I have tried numerous storage strategies, from the old standby of leaning them against the wall in the hallway to fashioning a version of one of those racks beloved of sportive events where you suspend the bike from a horizontal pole by the saddle. In between I have scoured the internet for the ideal 'bike storage solution' but have invariably stalled in the face of eye-watering cost for things which are, frankly, not that well designed.

The best solution which I have found I stumbled across on the lfgss forum. I am sure that it is a method widely practised by numerous cycling emporiums and people 'in the know' but I must confess to not having come across it before other than as a related form in trains, and certainly not as a commercial product. Simply, it involves suspending your bike by it's wheel from a hook (with a short piece of rubber tubing over the metal to protect the wheel), which is in turn suspended from a metal ring on a piece of scaffold pole, mich like curtains on a cutain rail.

The scaffold pole is suspended from two metal joist hangers screwed to opposite walls of the shed. This method is the most space effective that I have come across, so that I can fit up to nine bikes in a floorspace of 2.5 x 1.3 m.

 

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