I’ve been turning my garage into a man cave and the last step is to find a neat way of storing the bikes.

I’ve got 5 at the moment, but this may increase with the laws of N+1.
I found by trial fitting bikes that when hung at 90′ to the wall they actually take up a fair bit of space. I don’t want to store them against the wall 2 up as it’s a faff and maybe a bit heavy for the GF if she want’s to access a bike at the back.

I figured I maybe able to fit some wedges to fit them at 45′ to save space. I would fit a top chock with the tyre mount and a bottom chock for guidance.

Would this work? Would it save space? Are there any other neat solutions to save space?

i put my hooks straight into the roof – then turned them at 45 degrees and put straight pieces of wood on the wall where the wheel ends up.

bike sits at 45degrees nice and easy.

Sounds essentially like my design- so it should work then? Have you got any photos by any chance?

I could screw hooks directly into the ceiling but I’m worried about all that weight hanging from one supporting brace. I thought distributing the weight more evenly across the wall would be better?

Mount the hooks in the wall and stagger the height of the hooks too so the handlebars don’t clash.

no photos here .

sorry i did put a spreader bar across the roof trusses – then screw hooks to that – that was more because i wanted the bikes closer than the truses allowed.

if you put the hooks too close together you end up with a mess of handlebars/frames etc which is a right ballache.

or you twist the handlebars which is a ballache also.

basically bike storage is a problem.

i am costodian for 7 at last count but have 2 road bikes visiting as well at present. i havent found a really good solution.

staggering hooks is essential. or one front up and one front down. loading becomes an arse then though.

i do front wheel up then the next bike is back wheel up.

That was my plan ^
Rigid & road upside down (as the 29er+ wont fit in anyway)
MTBS up so hopefully the forks, brakes, droppers still work.

What hooks do people use?

What the hell is your GF doing in the garage/mancave!?

This sort of thing
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/lifeline-wall-rack/

I got this as need a lot of hooks for my garage, happy enough with them.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/30PC-STORAGE-HOOK-SET-HANGING-HANGER-GARAGE-SHED-INDOOR-TOOL-BIKE-LADDER-HOOKS-/301657598327

That was my plan ^
Rigid & road upside down (as the 29er+ wont fit in anyway)
MTBS up so hopefully the forks, brakes, droppers still work.

If you can stagger the height of the mounts (I.e. have alternate bikes a foot or so higher / lower than their neighbours) then there’s not a huge amount to be gained by doing this.

If you have a 50:50 split of road / MTBs (I.e. 50:50 narrow/wide) then ideally you want the MTBs to be on the higher rungs with the bars at the top. Have the higher rungs (MTB) bar width apart (I.e. ~800mm) so, when stacked, the ends of the handlebars just touch. Then have a lower rung in between the two MTBs for a road bike. This means that the narrow road bike in between is accessible and there isn’t any interference from the wider mountain bike bars.

The only downside for this is that the (potentially heavier) mountain bikes need to be lifted a bit higher off the ground, but (having thought about this quite a lot recently) I reckon it’s the best compromise. You could do this the opposite way with the MTBs upside down on the lower rungs, which would negate this, but then you’d have the issue with the hydraulic brakes etc pointing the wrong way, and it’s also a lot more awkward to load the bikes with the bars near the floor.

Thanks for the help!
I think i’ll probably buy some of those lifeline wall rack mounts and put them on 45′ blocks at staggered heights. I’ve got a 4.5 meter wall to play with. I think that will do.

Need to work out what length screws I need for the weight..

I mount my hooks at 45 degrees to batten and bolt the batten to the wall. Spacing is 12 inches. Will fit anything from road bikes to 29ers. BMX bikes are the biggest pain due to the location of the bars

It works, but my finding was that due to wide bars on modern mountain bikes, the savings are minimal. If you have a mixed range of bikes, it might be worth it.

I also found that my wife and boys couldn’t unhook bikes and lift them down by themselves.

I decided that the best option was to hang them flat against the wall 2 deep up high, 3 deep on the floor. My son’s and wife’s bikes on the floor (for them to access), with my bikes above.

I have enough width for 2 sets, so I can fit 10 bikes easily like this.

If you can get it so that the bars / front wheel are turned 45 degrees too I think they’ll stack much better. Google some pics of the bike trailer at flyupdownhill at forest of dean to see what I mean.

You might need 2 hooks per front wheel to get it to hang that way though. I keep meaning to have a play with this as rapidly running out of bike space

Edit like this

40mpg – have you seen North Shore Racks?
Clever mounting method. You would probably have to get something welded up to make similar though.

Good idea!
I actually had the uplift service at BPW the other day. Really neat and they fit huge amount of bikes in a small space without damaging them. I’ll try and see how I can mount them. I’ve got a bit of a height restriction too- we’ve boarded the top of the garage for additional space.

I have 7 mounted on the back wall of the garage, back wheels on the floor and the front wheels in Decathlon hangers so the wheels are at 45 deg to utilise the space.

I did this in my garage, keeping all bikes the same way up – might have saved space hanging the bikes one up, one down but it seemed like it would be a pain getting the bike in the hook, front wheel down.

To be honest, although it saved space due to the angle the bikes sit at, they still poke out and get in the way.
I am thinking of getting rid of them and having two bikes against the wall on the floor, top & tail and then two hanging above on the wall, again, top & tail. This would be the most compact solution for me, I think.

I used Arris rail to get the hooks at an angle and ran it down the length of the wall to give the back tyre something to rest on.
I counterbored the Arris rail using a spade bit & then used some fairly large screws/rawlplugs to mount the rail to the wall. The hooks are the type with a thread on the end that hold the front wheel, so I just drilled a pilot hole for these & screwed them in.

I’ve got a photo somewhere from my ‘photo/day 2013’ flickr thing. I’ll go & find it…..

[url=https://flic.kr/p/krcmvP]13-10-20 DSCN5261[/url] by STW stumpy01, on Flickr

Thanks again all!
stumpy01, looks/sounds like that solution isn’t ideal then. I just thought it would look neat and save space.
Maybe I should just get a bar to go 2 up on the wall and then 3 up underneath. I can then buy a another bar for the inevitable N+1.

Tick

I found 2-up on long hooks/racks was actually not as bad as it seemed. Just plan it carefully so that in summer the XC bike and the nice road bike are at the front, and in winter the SS and the winter road bike are at the front, the number of times the other is needed was quite small.

Currently got them nose/tail on wall mounted hooks at 90deg to the wall. I suspect that if you put them at 45deg you’d find they take up more wall. So it depends what constraints you have.

The more I plan my garage, the more I’m tempted to build a shed/box in the garden to keep the bikes in, and just bring them in the garage to work on (and maybe keep one or two bikes for frequent use in there) I could stick it in the back of the vegetable patch and thieves wouldn’t even know it was there.

Just in case anyone was interested, I bought a couple of those 3 bike rack wall stands. Easy to install and could take 3 bikes with a bit of playing. I’ve opted for 2 up and 3 standing underneath. I may put up one more stand in the corner.