Proper angle at which to lock one's bike to a rack

I have always been taught that the proper way to lock one's bike to an "upside down U" style bike rack is to park your bike parallel to the rack.

 

Almost no one outside my building at work ever does this. They all park their bikes perpendicular to the racks. Sometimes, my bike is even dislodged from its parallel position by someone jamming their bike in perpendicularly.

 

I get that it could be a different situation for one of those "wave" racks, but these are stand-alone U racks.

 

Is it possible that I'm wrong about the proper way to lock one's bike? I'm curious to know whether there is consensus or debate on this issue.

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Permalink Reply by Tricolor on July 31, 2013 at 5:33am

Something hit the front very hard.  I posted a thread on it.  It's all taken care of now, but I'm not likely to park perpendicular again.

PFEggs said:

How did this happen?  Did a car knock your rear wheel and that bent the front wheel and break the chain? 

It feels like bad luck just looking at your picture.

Permalink Reply by JeffB on July 31, 2013 at 6:01am

In a pinch, you can put your front wheel over the center of the rack if everyone's perpendicular.  Plus I just like perp. better because there's no tangling of handlebars, cables, and seats.  You just need to make sure there's enough room on the sidewalk to park perp. and that your wheel doesn't hang over the curb.

Skip Montanaro 12mi said:

How so?  Assuming access to the staple as okay all around, you can park two perpendicular or two parallel.

BruceBikes said:

That said, more bikes can be locked to a single rack when parked perpendicular than parallel...

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on July 31, 2013 at 6:41am

CDOT's Request a new bike rack form allows us to speak up for a rack at a particular location. Back in the day these requests were taken seriously and unless a property owner objected, a rack would get installed. In these tight budgetary times your results may vary. 

EDIT: i just confirmed that the form still works by submitting a request for a rack at Lindy's.


h' 1.0 said:

We need to speak up for more racks, and not just make life easy for bike thieves by cutting the theft time in half.  Here's one from last night that the victim tried to jam into a full bike rack:

http://chicago.stolenbike.org/node/194372



Anne Alt said:

I see 3-4 bikes per staple rack quite often in high-demand locations like Wabash and South LaSalle.

BruceBikes said:

In a very extreme case of perpendicular parking, I've seen one bike locked to the outside of each leg, one bike locked to the inside of each leg (backed in and locked to the rear triangle), and one bike locked with the front wheel over the middle of the rack.

I regularly see three bikes locked to a rack in the Loop.

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