How To Store Five (or is it Six) Bikes?
The situation here was getting out of hand.
Too many bikes without any decent outdoor (but undercover and secure) bike storage. There was one in my office (Wife’s bike, Lilac) and one on the upstairs landing (Christine, snarling and growling just outside the bathroom). And Daughter couldn’t get hers out of it’s little shed because her scooter was in the way. And my other two bikes were in a shed originally built for just one, making it a real pain to get either one out or in.
The problem was compounded by the fact that we live in a late Victorian terraced house, built with a small back yard just big enough for the maid to hang out the laundry / flirt with the coalman. So any bike storage could potentially end up consuming all of our private outdoor space. You can see what I’m on about with this satellite image of a nearby street.
And storing bikes takes up a lot of space. I spent ages trying to figure out how to get them all in, and accessible, and secure, and taking up the minimum space. In the end, I found this page on Instructables, showing exactly what I needed to know. Basically you can overlap the bikes, provided that you store them vertically, and allow enough vertical staggering so that the wide bits don’t clash.
And that’s just what I did. Here are two photos showing how to store five bikes plus a scooter in a space that’s a shade under 6′6″ x 3′9″. The photos were taken before I’d built the shed around the bikes, put the roof on, or installed the rabid security wolf (plus the huge wall anchors, shackles, 15′ diameter stone ball to come rolling onto intruders, snake pit, a few claymores, and that big F-off robot from the film of Judge Dredd). But I’m sure you get the picture.
It’s now clad & secured, and all that remains to be done is to repaint that rather scabby looking wall, and the bike store itself to a nice uniform white. Sounds like a job for Wife! 
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 03/13/2008
- Time: 06:47:55
- Total Time: 00:30:00.00
- Distance: 30 miles
- Average Pace: 1:00/mile
Excellent idea!
We’re only at four (plus a couple in boxes), but room’s getting tight.
I’ll have to show that to Jeff! We have 5 hanging upside down from the rafters in the garage, and it’s hard not to bonk your head! (You think your noggin’ cleared the seat post only to get clocked by the handlebars).
I like this. Thanks for sharing, I’ll show Nikki and see what she thinks about changing. I’ll have to do some measuring. The way we are hanging them now would work well in a garage and I really like the xport rack… but I’m not sure it is the most efficient use of space.
Vertical storage like yours appears nice. The main difference is that we don’t have to anchor anything to the wall… which maybe an issue for folks that don’t own their living space. We do… but at this point we don’t view it as a permanent or even long term place?