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Permalink Reply by Debra J on July 25, 2012 at 2:17pm

Hi, I was going to start a new, similar thread, but came across this post and thought I could piggy back off of it.  Here is my situation, I live in a building that offers in-door bike storage for a yearly fee.  The storage room where I have spaces for my bikes currently has racks that can accommodate 225 bikes.  The issue is that the racks are spaced very closely together, so it's impossible to walk down the aisle to get to your bike with out dodging handlebars from the hanging bikes.  Also, the hooks on the racks are spaced so closely together that there is a lot of overlap with the bikes.  You kind of have to swing the bikes on either side of you out of the way to get your bike on the hook.  The hooks are staggered high, low, high, low and I know some people in my building have trouble hoisting their bikes onto the higher hooks.  The hooks themselves barely accommodate some thicker tires and everything is complicated by bikes with racks, bikes with butterfly handlebars, bikes with kid seats.  Finally, it is hard to get a u-lock through both your frame and a tire in many of the spots.  I'm ok using multiple locks on my bikes, but not everyone does.  So, security is not optimal for a lot of people. 

As much of a pain it can be getting my bikes in and out of their spots, I've been able to manage ok for the most part.  Since I have multiple bikes and three of them are assigned to three spots in a row, I've been able to figure out the best way to line them up so that I can get them out without the most difficulty.  But for people who can't do this (for example where people have an upright-type bike next to another upright-type bike) there is a lot of overlap between their bikes and getting them in and out.  So, for all these reasons, people sometimes have their bikes on the floor as opposed to on the hooks.  I think some people give up trying to get them into assigned spots.  And then, in some cases, the bikes just don't fit in their spots due to the issue with the spacing of the racks and the hooks.  Long story short, one night coming home from my commute, I had to move three bikes out of the way to get to my spot.  The next morning I had to move four bikes out of the way to get my bike back out.  All told, it was adding time on to my commute, and I wasn't comfortable manhandling other people's property.  And I really couldn't get the bikes back into the space without blocking someone else's way.

So, I brought up the issue with the building manager.  And he's like, what do you recommend.  Obviously, they should look at doing a better job of spacing the hooks.  But I think there's only so much they can do with the rack system that they have. 

I'd like to be able to make a recommendation for other rack or storage options, but I don't even know what's out there or what is realistic given the space that is available and the need to store about 200 bikes in that space. 

Any chainlinkers out there who know of any resources, or web sites that have info on planning and selecting bike storage, or even options that I can recommend to the building manager for companies that make and sell solid racks?  Any ideas or leads is appreciated.

Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Chris B on July 26, 2012 at 2:57am

Im putting a proposal together for our condo bike room too which is overcrowded. Both my condo bike room and office bike room have these old time types (at work they actually mounted this on the wall):

http://www.globalindustrial.com/g/safety/parking-lot/bike-racks/por...

Those are horrible for many reasons.

I've been looking into different racks, for vertical ones everywhere I look I can only find these Saris and VeloGrip ones:

http://www.bikerackshops.com/commercial/indoor/

though they do have this alternative by Dero

http://www.dero.com/products/ultra-space-saver/

I have a really bizarre bike room to try to get more space. (On top of coming up with a solution to make sure we get rid of old bikes when people move out, there are bikes that haven't been used at all in the 6 years I've been there).

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Lakes on July 27, 2012 at 2:51am

Donate the old bikes to West Town Bikes!

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Kersten on July 27, 2012 at 3:05am

One of the things I did when I got on our condo board was to tackle the problem of year of bikes wasting away in our cramped storage room that hadn't been used in years and most likely belonged to people long gone. It took a while but I think we came up with a fair process that resulted in a much cleaner space and no complaints. Essentially, we have a sticker system so everyone must register their bike with the office and put a small sticker on their bike. We advertised well ahead of time to basically say that any bike without a sticker would be donated in I believe two months using a process in which after on month our maintenance guy went down and put a small red ribbon around any bike that did not have a sticker and was therefore slated to be donated. Then, we advertised that again telling people to get down there and check their bikes. By doing this in stages, we got a bunch more people to register after the first notices went up, and more after the ribbons went on. A few people whose bikes had stickers but got ribbons had plenty of time to check and simply snip the ribbon off. Now our bike room looks great. Our racks are nothing special and just old school but we also don't pay anything for bike storage so most everyone is fine with that.

Chris B said:

Im putting a proposal together for our condo bike room too which is overcrowded. Both my condo bike room and office bike room have these old time types (at work they actually mounted this on the wall):

http://www.globalindustrial.com/g/safety/parking-lot/bike-racks/por...

Those are horrible for many reasons.

I've been looking into different racks, for vertical ones everywhere I look I can only find these Saris and VeloGrip ones:

http://www.bikerackshops.com/commercial/indoor/

though they do have this alternative by Dero

http://www.dero.com/products/ultra-space-saver/

I have a really bizarre bike room to try to get more space. (On top of coming up with a solution to make sure we get rid of old bikes when people move out, there are bikes that haven't been used at all in the 6 years I've been there).

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Permalink Reply by LOWELL NELSON on July 27, 2012 at 3:10am

I manage an office building and have the reverse issue...we have plenty of storage space and I want to have nice neat racks to encourage people to bike commute. We have had a Dero space saver http://www.dero.com/products/ultra-space-saver/ for a couple years and it works great, except a couple folks can't or don't want to lift their bikes onto the hooks and use the old school rack http://www.globalindustrial.com/g/safety/parking-lot/bike-racks/por... that is also in the space.

I have a second rack on order from Dero. It is their Campus Rack http://www.dero.com/products/campus-rack/campus-rack-setbacks.html but wall mounted rather than floor mounted. I want to keep the floor free of obstructions where bikes are not parked there. They said the custom rack will take 6 weeks, but the price is the same as the standard floor mounted rack.

I worked with Bob Aldrich of Dero on both of these racks. Bob was very helpful and I'm sure if you send pictures/drawings of the storage rooms he or one of the other reps will be able to find a good solution.

As for the clutter of old bikes, I'd say a couple months notice, a bolt cutter and a call to West Town or Working Bikes for a pick-up of donation bikes would be the way to go.

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Permalink Reply by Joanne McSweeney on July 29, 2012 at 11:21am

We design condo and office bike rooms free of charge. we use 3 different type bike hooks and or racks depending on size of space. Once design is approved we offer 25% off our rack and hook pricing.  please email us at dj@ontheroute.com

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Permalink Reply by Debra J on July 29, 2012 at 12:06pm

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I am going to share the info with my building's manager and hope that they can make some changes.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Petersen on August 7, 2012 at 3:53pm

I don't know if this would help out much with the problem of having 225 bikes in a storage room, but I make stylish, individual, handmade, wooden bike racks.  They're great if you're interested in hanging your bike in your condo or apartment unit (or even in your office) like a unique piece of artwork.  I'm based right here in Chicago and came up with the idea for these racks after dealing with the same type of situation you have.  You can check out my work at www.trophyclubracks.com, and I'll try to attach a picture below too.

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• c IMG_3142.JPG, 842 KB

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