Bike Storage Solutions for small condos/apartments?

[redrhodie]

I thought about the same thing when I moved from my house into an apartment. I considered hanging the bikes from pulleys from the ceiling. Then, we just put the bikes where they'd fit, 2 in the hall, 1 in the living room, 1 in the bedroom, while we figured it out, and that's where they still are, 3 years later. Now I just think of them as pieces of art. After all, they are the most beautiful things we own.

[Blueberry]

For the Fridays, there is a rack that holds bikes vertically by the front wheel. I can't find it in a quick google search, but I know the local shop can order it. We have this for the other bikes, and it works really well - very stable. The top tube creators for the Fridays are a pain to use, though - so we've been planning to order the other rack for them.

ETA: I think this was the one I was thinking of for the Fridays...

[sgtiger]

We have the Bikes Aloft (Supergo branded: Performance bought them out) storage rack that we purchased when we still lived in an apartment, and still use for our garage now. Each long arm can support up to two bikes with the purchase of extra cradles. Also a 5th bike can be stored on the back with a pair of short arms. FYI the extra arms and cradles are sold individually and not in pairs.

[pll]

I used to have a Topeak (see here) until I moved to a place with a covered garage. Now my lone road bike sleeps in the garage (and the mountain bike was sold -- no dirty and rocks for me). That rack worked very well in my small kitchen, now some friends are using it.

[emily_in_nc]

Lots of good suggestions here, thanks! For the moment, we have plenty of room for our four bikes in our rather large 2BR apartment, but since we may downsize further eventually (to a 1BR condo), I was getting ideas for the future. Didn't think about the Bike Fridays requiring a different type of mount, but that's a good point - no top tube. We had a couple of hooks to mount them vertically in the garage of the house we just sold and moved from, but they do stick out a lot farther from the wall that way, which may not work in a small space. Will all depend on the particular layout we end up with.

Hanging them from the ceiling (which are typically quite high in the type of condos we're interest in) with pulley systems normally used in garages might be a kind of interesting solution and save wall and floor space. We'd have a lot of patching to do when we wanted to sell the place, tho!

Thanks all!

[loopybunny]

Thanks for starting a helpful thread.

I live in a small 2 bdrm apartment and have 3 bikes. I have very little space with all of my other junk.

I can't really mount anything to the walls and I've been looking at those upright racks. My only concern is the stability.

How will it work on carpet?
Does the heavier bike have to go onto the bottom?
Will it stay upright in an earthquake?

[tzvia]

Thanks for starting a helpful thread.

I live in a small 2 bdrm apartment and have 3 bikes. I have very little space with all of my other junk.

I can't really mount anything to the walls and I've been looking at those upright racks. My only concern is the stability.

How will it work on carpet?
Does the heavier bike have to go onto the bottom?
Will it stay upright in an earthquake?

My brother has on of those "Bikes Aloft' free-standing racks and puts his heavier MTB on top, no problem, and it's fine on carpet. I use a simple hook on the ceiling to get two bikes up, then put the third below them leaning on the storage rack where the cycling tools/stuff are stored. I worry about earthquakes because I live in So.Cal, so also bungie the two hanging bikes to the metal 6ft metal shelving rack that they are hanging in front of. It keeps them from swinging (and I hope, falling) if jarred. If the quake is big enough (been through 2 good sized ones) I'm going to be thinking of myself and my loved ones, and be ready to move (did that one once already- my house's foundation failed in the last one.) At some point, the stuff means nothing, only batteries and water mater. Just remember to keep the rack away from beds (you don't want them falling on you in the dark during a quake), and away from doorways and escape windows.

[Triskeliongirl]

My kids live in a small aparment in Cambridge. It does have a back hall where they found room to install two hooks that hang from the ceiling just inside the door that they can hang their bikes on, and still have room to climb the stairs up to their apartment.

I think it really depends on the layout of your space. In our house, we keep our bikes in the utility room inside the back door opposite the washer drayer. I have thought that if we really needed the floor space for something else, we could hang some hooks on the wall in that area, to get the bikes off the ground.

[gnat23]

+1 to the Michelangelo Gravity rack. No holes in the walls or ceiling, no damage to the apartment at all!



-- gnat!

[redrhodie]

+1 to the Michelangelo Gravity rack. No holes in the walls or ceiling, no damage to the apartment at all!



-- gnat!

And the bikes still look like art!