So I Fitted a Sliding Hook Storage System

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So, I’ve been waiting to set up my bicycle workshop since we’ve moved house. I’m lucky that we’ve got a whole garage block with plenty of space.

The main problem has always been how to store the numerous bikes. As a family we have at least 10 bikes on the go and I usually have a couple more that I’m fixing for people plus I tend to buy & sell the odd thing here & there so storage with ready access to each bike can be difficult.

I decided to go for a sliding hook on a rail type system.

I’d long coveted the SpaceRail system which looks very slick but the set-up I’d need would be £1200 or so. Extra hooks are £65. They are very clever as they rotate around to let you store the bikes to & fro and it’s a great looking system. Just not for my pocket.

Buller Ltd do a good system and £400 would have got me a good set-up in easy to order packages with everything included. Their hooks are £20-28.

Then I found an eBay seller – rak.bike – who supplied the rolling hooks in various sizes & strengths for £10-15 per hook & advised you to source your own 41x41x2.5 slotted channel inexpensively.

Result! I ordered 6 regular & 4 heavy duty hooks then ordered 3.8m of slotted channel (3m & 80cm) & a joining piece & some bolts from Superlec.

On arrival, the standard hooks looked a bit weedy. Nothing wrong & they worked fine but I prefer having a bigger hook to hang the wheel on so I returned 4 & ordered 6 more heavy duty hooks. The seller was great to deal with & quick to refund me & send the new hooks.

I put the rail up into the beams of my workshop then encountered a problem. I’d used M8 hex head self tapping bolts but the heads stuck out too far and the sliding hooks caught on them. I’d checked for clearance before assembly but hadn’t factored that when you slide them they tilt a bit and needed more clearance. Rak.bike advised me they used flat headed fixings & were generally super helpful.

Seeing as I’d already made 8mm dia. holes in the beams I searched for M8 screws with flat heads & struggled until Amazon Prime sent me waffle head M8 versions.

That was it. Putting it all together was simple. You mount the rail according to the radius of the biggest wheel you’ll be holding (29er) and go from there. I do have end stops to stop bikes sliding off the end but don’t really need them as the sidewalls serve that purpose.

Being able to slide bikes together for storage then move them apart to get one out is great. I’ve got 12 on my 3.8m rail & could get 15 -18  if had to.

£170 on hooks. £30 on the rail, fixings & postage (£9 as it was so long). £200 total & Extra hooks can be added for £10-15.

Now to sort out the rest of the workshop…

https://www.superlecdirect.com/cable-management/channel/41-x-41-channel-slotted-pre-galv-3m/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126246928758?_skw=rak.bike&itmmeta=01JCX5V8GKTAKPYHV49D8H4Y42&hash=item1d64e74176:g:fxYAAOSwBNNlhKKm&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAAwHoV3kP08IDx%2BKZ9MfhVJKnnAb%2F6ZO8mCMDPNZAIwLo7pgfB02hbYv3fpNdJ%2BZaajiVglchsB44LDgvm9vuNjl%2FYQ1NLJ%2FUfsHxwqqvAwMwasAHjUs4k3v3qC%2BvqCKumR1fkg6Tp7%2Bq5jPQWKG4Zj3OyRvcumKrRW3ptg3ESOy35nzSt%2F533LMCPU4JiwP05xFt3ofJ43Cl%2BYvMk%2BhDJ7rJ6xW9bft8vKpiJcjSTnoqrcgChc%2BoVUXpWVwD8o%2FpWAg%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR6yI7aXnZA

That looks very nice!

3 empty hooks, it’s going to end up costing a lot more than £200 🙂

That

Is

Fantastic

I do wonder if this style of system would free some space up in the cellar. Time to measure things I guess. It looks great!

What is the length required to hold 10 bikes?

[bikerevivesheffield]

bikerevivesheffield

Full Member

What is the length required to hold 10 bikes?

Well Rak.Bike say you can fit 9 in 2m but that’s if you top & tail them & they have narrow bars I’d guess.

3m would be more comfortable for 10.

In the pic it’s 3.8m & there are only 9 bikes up but you can fit a lot more.

What is the length required to hold 10 bikes?

That is absolutely AWESOME! Holy crap, I need that. I have bike storage that works up on the wall already, But I am wondering if I can work that into the shed.

Brilliant

Thanks for this

How do you guys get on with hanging bikes with open brake systems like Hope? I’ve previously been told not to store Hope brakes vertically but this system would save me loads on space.

How do you guys get on with hanging bikes with open brake systems like Hope? I’ve previously been told not to store Hope brakes vertically

I have a very similar system. Mine came from rolling centre

Hope brakes do not care if you store them this way. If your hopes do have issues. They are either poorly bled or are leaking.

What’s the length of the assembly to end of the hook? And your height from beam to floor? My garage didn’t have the clearance for the space rail system so I’m wondering if your version is any more compact?

Gear blocks are the same idea but then I kept finding free files for 3D printing the trolleys.. just don’t have a 3d printer 🙁

Its not really 2m for 9 bikes though is it. Its 4 if you want the second one from the end surely? Like you need to be able to move them all somewhere to get at a specific one?

What’s the length of the assembly to end of the hook? And your height from beam to floor? My garage didn’t have the clearance for the space rail system so I’m wondering if your version is any more compact

From the top of the rail to the bottom of the heavy duty hook is 23cm or 17cm to the standard hook – which will still take a 2.4″ tyre.

The bottom of the beam is 230cm.from the floor.

FYI the longest bike is a Haibike Nduro 7 (mullet) on a heavy duty hook & it has 11cm clearance between rear tyre & floor.

Looks good but I still think having the ability to turn the hooks slightly would be beneficial so you can offset the handlebars and push each bike slightly closer

[dc1988]

dc1988

Full Member

Looks good but I still think having the ability to turn the hooks slightly would be beneficial so you can offset the handlebars and push each bike slightly closer

I’m sure it would but with the amount of space I have & my unwillingness to spend a lot of money my set-up suits me perfectly.

Looks good but I still think having the ability to turn the hooks slightly would be beneficial so you can offset the handlebars and push each bike slightly closer

Great thread op

Excellent

How do you guys get on with hanging bikes with open brake systems like Hope? I’ve previously been told not to store Hope brakes vertically but this system would save me loads on space.

I have had wall mounted hooks with two bikes with hope brakes for 3 years.

No problems.

I have had wall mounted hooks with two bikes with hope brakes for 3 years.

I’m going on for 20 years with hope brakes on wall hooks…

That’s fantastic – and well done for listing all the links and making it easy to replicate. So many posts you see are “check out my awesome XXXX” then don’t follow up with the important info, so thanks.

I invested in Steadyracks years ago when we moved into our current house. If I hadn’t I’d be building this.

Good job.

Nice. What do you do for security?

Is that rail not electricians Unistrut?

Ooft that looks good, it’d be a pretty tight fit in my garage with only 220cm from floor to ceiling and an XL trail bike. Would be nice to have all the bikes on one wall though.

Great thread OP, I’d love something like this but I’ve got the opposite problem to scalded, the garage ceiling is far to high!

Its not really 2m for 9 bikes though is it. Its 4 if you want the second one from the end surely?

Why? To get at any bike you just need 1 bikes width of ‘spare’ space. Then shuffle the bikes till that space is around the bike you want…

Is that rail not electricians Unistrut

That’s exactly what it is. I’d never heard of it until rak.bike recommended it.

I like re-purposing other stuff that’s way cheaper than the proprietary option.

I tried looking for the hooks elsewhere direct from a supplier but came up blank. Rak.bike are very helpful & easy to deal with so no complaints there.

What do you do for security?

I live in NE of Scotland. That takes care of it.

namastebuzzFree Member
What do you do for security?
I live in NE of Scotland. That takes care of it

Ha! I’d need something for the mean streets of Bristol.

[a11y]

a11y

Full Member

That’s fantastic – and well done for listing all the links and making it easy to replicate

Yeah thanks. Do my best. Just trying to save people the hours of legwork I’ve done to get to this point.

That’s fantastic – and well done for listing all the links and making it easy to replicate

Ha! I’d need something for the mean streets of Bristol

Sorry to hear that.

We don’t even lock our house…

I want to do this myself. Is anybody worried that the whole bike weight is taken on the steerer to fork joint?

dickieFree Member
I want to do this myself. Is anybody worried that the whole bike weight is taken on the steerer to fork joint?

The front end of a bike gets utter hell in normal use, so no it wouldn’t concern me at all

Heh, don’t look down at your front axle under braking, the flutter will alarm you…

There have been a few threads on DIY sliding rail systems that I found really useful when refitting my garage:

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/garage-bike-storage-3/

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/upright-bike-storage-on-a-sliding-mechanism-thing/

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/planning-a-hanging-rail-system-for-bikes/

I had a lot of existing hooks I wanted to re-use, so I used FH Brundle roller trolleys, bolted into scraps of wood. I got a mixture of single pair and double pair trolleys for hanging different wheels and bikes but could have just used singles for everything, because they are rated to 40kg. The bodies are all metal, with roller bearings and nylon shod wheels.

https://www.fhbrundle.co.uk/products/41L001

With the stud mount, you can lock a hook up at any angle you like, or even just snug up the bolt enough to let you rotate the hook if you want to change the angle later.

I used some spare bolts, washers and springs I had lying around to make latches to hold the trolleys in place. This stops them running away when I am hooking the bikes on, but allows me to slide them about easily if I want to rearrange things or temporarily shuffle them up to get some space to work in the garage.

There are lots of different suppliers of similar hanging door hardware in the threads linked above.

Looks good but I still think having the ability to turn the hooks slightly would be beneficial so you can offset the handlebars and push each bike slightly closer

easily dealt with by hanging one by the front wheel with the handlebar facing the wheel, the next with the handlebar facing out throw in a hung by the rear wheel for good measure

Looks good but I still think having the ability to turn the hooks slightly would be beneficial so you can offset the handlebars and push each bike slightly closer

I saw a video on Youtube the other day with a guy in Canada that had made a sliding rail using a barn door track and wheels/sliders from amazon and park tool XL hooks, these slotted through the wheels and then had a nyloc nut to stop them coing out but would spin round so you could put them at any angle. I found some similar in the amazon link below but not sure about track needed, maybe this https://www.dciron.co.uk/products/trt001?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FQ8DJH7/

Park Tool 470XX – Oversize machine-thread storage hook with nuts

@namastebuzz that’s a really good set up – thanks for sharing.

Technical question…

Assuming similar bar height across your bikes could you mount two rails on the rafters 150mm or so apart and hang alternate bikes from a different rail to enable handle bars to slide past each other?

I always find hanging a bike from its rear wheel a faf!