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We’re testing two new vertical bike hangers, but for now, if you need something simple to hang your bike, we think the Delta Leonardo might be the way to go.
Cyclists who live in confined spaces know the mystery: You want your bike to be easily accessible, but hate to constantly trip over it. After spending over 30 hours researching dozens of indoor bike storage racks, we’ve rounded up and tested the 10 most viable options for keeping our bikes at their mercy for days (or sometimes weeks) on end. Ultimately, we think the Delta Cycle Michelangelo Gravity Stand is the best way to store a bike indoors for most people. The stand requires very little effort and experience to set up, and is lightweight yet strong enough to hold one or two bikes of any type: mountain bikes, road bikes, hybrids and even step cruisers.
To be precise, we interviewed about 3,000 of them – members of the suburban community who live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where living space is at a premium.
We’ve taken a look at what features people who buy these racks want most, and more importantly, which ones they don’t like and why.
We built every rack we tested and installed them in our own homes to see how difficult they are to assemble.
For example, Delta Cycle Michelangelo filled our writer’s living room with bikes for nearly three months.
This elegant yet durable dual bike carrier is easy to install and remove and can be easily adjusted to fit any type of bike.
The Michelangelo is easier to assemble than all the other options we’ve tested, all you need is a Phillips screwdriver and a drill. It’s also not very shockproof, requiring a total of one screw to mount it to the wall – while the instructions strongly recommend attaching the bracket to the wall, many people we spoke to didn’t bother at all and never had any problems (Watch your quakes! ). Plus, its trapezoidal frame is made from thin yet strong steel tubing, keeping the brackets from dominating your interior decor scheme.
The support arms that support the bike on the Michelangelo are removable, allowing the stand to be used for bikes with sloped top tubes or complex full-suspension frames. To change the position of the levers (don’t do this when the bike is on the rack!) just twist them until they move freely – here you don’t need any tools at all, which means this rack is more assembled after assembly. than all the others too Customization. Michelangelo even has a couple of extra accessory hooks so you can hang your helmet on anything other than the handlebars.
This foldable rack can accommodate a variety of tires and is also the easiest vertical bike rack to install and retrieve bikes.
Hanging the bike vertically (i.e. by the front wheel) allows you to mount it on the wall behind a door or in a corner. Steadyrack Classic Rack Unlike some of the other upright storage options we’ve tried that required you to lift the bike off the ground by turning the wheels to hook it, the Steadyrack Classic Rack folds out from the wall like an old-fashioned ironer. To put your bike on this rack, you simply lean it back onto the rear wheel and roll it forward until the front wheel is on the rack that is wide enough to accommodate mountain bike tires. In fact, it’s almost a good choice if our top pick, Michelangelo, is out of stock.
Not only can the arms be adjusted to fit almost any bike frame, you can also change the distance the post protrudes from the wall.
If the gravity stand doesn’t work, but you still want to hang your bike parallel to the wall, then the Ibera Adjustable Bike Wall Mount is perfect for you. It is highly customizable: you can change the height and width of the support arm with a simple ratchet mechanism, and the support arm is easily locked into the desired configuration. The shelf itself mounts to the wall with telescoping tubes, so you can also adjust how far it protrudes into the room—another handy feature for small spaces.
Although expensive, this stretch rack allows you to store two bikes anywhere in the room without drilling a single hole in the wall or ceiling.
If your wall space is full of windows, doors, bookcases, and artwork, the Feedback Sports Velo column, which holds up to two bikes, might be the way to go. It can be squeezed between the floor and ceiling. You don’t need to nail or screw it into place, so it can be easily moved if you decide to rearrange your furniture. The rack is solidly built and the arms are easily adjustable to fit different types of bike frames.
This elegant yet durable dual bike carrier is easy to install and remove and can be easily adjusted to fit any type of bike.
This foldable rack can accommodate a variety of tires and is also the easiest vertical bike rack to install and retrieve bikes.
Not only can the arms be adjusted to fit almost any bike frame, you can also change the distance the post protrudes from the wall.
Although expensive, this stretch rack allows you to store two bikes anywhere in the room without drilling a single hole in the wall or ceiling.
For this review, I asked cyclists on the San Francisco Commuter Group mailing list (of more than 3,000) — a place where cycling infrastructure is expanding but personal living space is shrinking — about how they keep bikes safe and out of the way. I spoke to Chris Hodney, who works with Hacker Architects in Portland, Oregon (another bike-crazed city) and specializes in estimating bike storage space in residential and office buildings. I read Eben Weiss’s Bike Owner’s Handbook to see what the opinionated Bike Snob NYC (Weiss’ alias) has to say on the subject. I consulted with Lennard Zinn (a frame builder who wrote a book on bike repair), David Kendall of Calfee Design (the workshop is the last resort for those with a broken carbon fiber bike) and Wheel Fanatyk Rick Hjertberg (where you can find everything everything you need to build a wheel, from finely forged spokes to fine tuning tips) get their opinion on storage options – and make sure you can actually hang your bike on the front wheel, even if the rims are made from expensive and easily damaged carbon. (Think twice though if you have hydraulic brakes. More on that later.)
One of the perks of my current apartment is the spacious two-car garage that I share with the neighbor downstairs. But a few years ago, as my bike fleet began to grow—now there are five, and my boyfriend has five more—I realized I needed to install a wall-mounted bike rack in the garage so that my neighbor could use her bike without flipping her bike over. wheels and frame. This was the beginning of my personal research into bike storage. I’ve also been a magazine editor for almost 25 years and I’ve spent many, many hours reviewing Wirecutter commuter bikes and bike tools.
While there are half a dozen indoor bike storage options, good storage systems have a few key characteristics in common: An indoor bike rack should be easy to assemble, with well-made parts that fit together securely. It needs to be strong enough that you can confidently trust it with your bike (and anything else your bike might drop). It should be versatile enough to accommodate many different types of bikes. The trunk should also be as discreet as possible, at least when the bike isn’t hanging from it – you don’t want your roommate or workmate banging his head on the trunk while you’re riding.
Why are there so many different types of indoor bike racks? Ideally, your bike will take up space that would otherwise be wasted, but the extra space can vary depending on your living situation. “If you have 12-foot ceilings, go higher,” says my friend, also a cyclist who also just renovated his house. “If your front door has two feet of wall space next to the hinges, buy a door stop and hang your bike vertically outside the door.”
In this guide, we have covered all the options: hooks that hang the front wheel of the bike on the wall; racks that hold one or two bikes horizontally with overhead tubes or rods that run parallel to the wall; and ceiling hook and pulley systems. that allows you to tow a bike on it. We tested a free-standing bike rack, but in the end, we couldn’t think of any situation with a small space where a bike rack in the middle of the room would help, so we didn’t include that option.
Our shelf prices at the time ranged from $25 to $170. Of course, if you consider the shelf decorative and sculptural rather than a shipping accessory, you can certainly spend $170 more. Kickstarter, Etsy, Pinterest, and design blogs like Apartment Therapy, TheCooList, and TrendHunter are filled with expensive bike racks and mounts. Keep in mind, however, that while many of these options are beautiful, they are not always practical. (The elegant Knife & Saw Bike Shelf sells for $325 and is designed for bikes with traditionally thin, straight top tubes. Many other bike frames don’t fit or look good.) Also, a lot of what I see in the blogosphere, bike images found racks turned out to be failed Kickstarter projects or products that didn’t survive in the market and are no longer available.
Together with consulting bloggers and design experts, we reviewed listings of bike storage locations from REI, Amazon, and Overstock, as well as specialty online stores like Competitive Cyclist, and home organization websites like The Container Store and Wayfair. I looked at customer reviews on Amazon and other online retailers. I asked the cycling community for my opinion on the best options we found, as well as any storage ideas we might have missed. I also walked around the aisles of the Sea Otter Classic and the (now defunct) Interbike to make sure we didn’t miss out on anything new.
As we began to determine which stances to test, we excluded those that were reported to have severe functional problems. The colorful Cycloc Solo, for example, looks great, but his bike sits too close to the wall and a handlebar over 23 inches wide can’t fit, even with an extra set of extensions. Some frames also have a conceptual problem: the Clug is designed to balance the bike in the rear by grabbing the front wheel, but that means you need to choose a Clug depending on whether you have a road, cross or hybrid bike. bike, or mountain bike… or all three.
Surprisingly, our bike experts agree that hanging your bike by the front wheel will not damage the wheel. “I’ve hung countless bikes this way over the decades and haven’t seen any damage,” Zinn told me. “This is definitely something I’ve been worried about for a long time, but I’ve never had a problem with it and have fitted a lot of bikes with very expensive carbon rims. spokes or valve stems. The only bike storage warning I got was from Zinn who pointed out that if you hang a bike with hydraulic brakes upside down, air bubbles can get into the rear calipers and you won’t stop the first time you try to brake. “However, if the brakes are properly bled and not leaking,” he adds, “twitching the brake lever a few times can restore the brakes.” If you choose to store your bike this way, make sure your brakes are on before you pedal!
After narrowing our list down to the top two candidates for each type of rack – so-called gravity mounts (which mount against a wall and support one or two bikes through the top tube), compression racks (for example, wedged into works like a tie rod between brackets) floor and ceiling , can hold two bikes), wall hooks or vertical brackets (bicycles hang on it from the front wheels) and ceiling hooks – I called for samples. Then I started mass installing them in my own apartment and testing them on different bikes: road bikes, hybrid bikes, dirt bikes and full suspension mountain bikes.
Sometimes the rack comes with a regular hex or flat wrench (stamped metal, nothing fancy), but you should have a set of hex wrenches, a socket wrench, a drill with a range of woods and a hammer and nails. (to start drilling) available for assembly. Many Amazon users have complained that the hardware that comes with most of these shelves is substandard: the included screws aren’t long enough, the anchors pull out of the drywall too easily, and the threads can easily come off by accident. I didn’t have any issues with the shelves when I installed them, but if you’re dealing with drywall, you can go to a hardware store and buy the strongest anchors you can find, as well as a nail finder. Many of these shelves come with drywall or plaster dowels, but it’s always safer to bolt the shelves to the studs. And, if your building uses newer metal studs instead of wood studs, that’s a good reason to choose our top pick of gravity braces.
Finally, before you decide to give your bike space on a sofa or restaurant sideboard, consider what Portland architect Hodney said: “I have a really nice road bike, but I really don’t want to hang it in my living room. Houses. Many times my bike has been soaked in rain and street oil and I don’t want to drag it through my house. I know a lot of people who feel the opposite – they almost think it’s a reflection of their personality, like hanging a guitar on the wall.”
This elegant yet durable dual bike carrier is easy to install and remove and can be easily adjusted to fit any type of bike.
While there are many options – both in terms of where a bike rack can be located in an apartment and in terms of the type of bike rack – we feel that the Delta Cycle Michelangelo Dual Bike Gravity Stand is the best option for most people who need store the bike. or two in a small bicycle apartment. If you have a relatively free wall that is wide enough to fit a bike in portrait (about six feet), then you should use this rack. The mount is easy to install, lightweight yet strong, and its arms can be adjusted and repositioned to fit any frame shape. It is also very low-impact: you only need to drill one hole in the wall according to the assembly instructions.
At first glance, the main body of the stand seems barely capable of supporting one bike, let alone two: the steel tubes are just over an inch in diameter, and the sections are connected with simple cross-head bolts. The levers are not attached with bolts, screws, or any other hardware, although you insert the twisted end of each lever into the frame of the stand, once you move the lever to your desired location, the plastic sleeve ensures that the lever stays in it. place a little. The other end of the arm is flattened and covered with rubber to keep the bike frame from slipping and scratching.
Despite the thin-looking piping and low-tech assembly method, this mount is much stronger than the other Racor PLB-2R gravity mount we’ve tested. The heavy steel rods that make up the PLB-2R just don’t fit together securely, causing the whole structure to wobble unexpectedly. The Michelangelo is also more forgiving than the PLB-2R: it doesn’t need to be flush with the wall, but the PLB-2R does, meaning things like chair arms can render the PLB-2R useless.
You can adjust the height of the Michelangelo armrests when assembling the shelf or after installation. It’s not hard to figure out how to unscrew and tighten the levers – with the upgraded rack, you don’t even have to remember to put an o-ring on the bottom of the lever when you’re done, as Delta no longer needs those o-rings. One arm can even be taller than the other, which means you can put your bike on the stand even if it has a sloped top tube or no top tube at all. The shelf also comes with a pair of small accessory hooks that screw onto the tubes of the shelf like hanging brackets. I wouldn’t trust them with anything really heavy (they tend to fall off whenever I lift the rack to move it), but they can be used for helmets or locks.
The whole process of assembling the stand took me about 20 minutes, and I didn’t even pay enough attention to it. (The TV was on.) Unsure if this design would work, I set up a stand in the living room, loaded it with two 30-pound bikes, and left them there for nearly three months without moving an inch. (This is the previous version of the rack; the new version is still just as stable, but we will continue long-term testing to be on the safe side.)
One note: the box we received had a notice on the outside that said “lean against the wall – no bracing required!” This is contrary to the instructions inside, which state that the “wall stabilization chain” you provide must be attached to the shelves and wall to prevent “accidental tipping of the shelves”. (This is the hole you need to drill.) It’s certainly a good idea to follow these instructions, especially if you have children or live in an earthquake-prone country. To be honest, I ignored it and never heard a rumble. The figure-eight legs of the rack kept the center of gravity of the combo bike and rack comfortably close to the wall, even when I tried to pull the top of the rack towards me. Stopping is not impossible, but you need to do it consciously and not accidentally touch the trunk.
Who else likes this booth? The real question is, who didn’t? At the time of our last update, the overall Amazon rating is 4.4 stars out of 5 out of over 4,300 reviews, and it is by far the most recommended rack among the cyclists I surveyed.
No problems were reported by the staff who performed long-term testing on Michelangelo; in fact, one of them moved in with a new boyfriend a few years ago, who brought three Michelangelos with him, which he has been successfully using for the five years that Kiro has been working. We learned from a reader that one of the levers on its mount slipped out of place after 15 minutes of use; after checking the photo of the setup he provided, we realized it didn’t have the mount that every bracket should have. sealing ring. Delta has since redesigned the frame to eliminate the need for o-rings. We bought one of these new racks to test; it’s been running great for over two years now, but we’ll keep monitoring it to be sure.
According to a very tall Amazon buyer, if you’re riding a big bike (we’re talking 60cm because bikes are usually measured that way), you probably won’t be able to fit two bikes that size on this rack. His solution was to pair one of his bikes with his wife’s much smaller bike on a rack. Also, these accessory hooks can easily come off if you move the shelf around the room.
This foldable rack can accommodate a variety of tires and is also the easiest vertical bike rack to install and retrieve bikes.
If you only have enough wall space for upright bike storage, meaning space no wider than your bike’s handlebar width, a wall rack that lets you hang your bike on the front wheel is best. , as our experts repeatedly reminded us, will not harm your bike. These dainty looking spokes can handle more stress and strain on even the shortest drive to the store than if they were hung on the wall.
Our pick of the best vertical rack for most people is the Steadyrack Classic Rack. In fact, it’s almost a good choice if our top pick, Michelangelo, is out of stock. While it’s not as sleek and minimal as the stand we tested, it’s design is much better. The rack basically wraps around the bottom of the front tire, and this design has three main advantages: it can accommodate tires of all sizes; very little effort or maneuver is required to reach the shelf.
If you can put the bike back on the rear wheel (imagine lifting a horse), you can put the front wheel back in place. (Alternatively, with a hitch frame, I have to lift my road bike uncomfortably high to hook the hook onto the rim. When I try to hook a dirt bike or mountain bike onto the hitch, I have to spin the wheels and the entire side of the bike – lifting them all at the same time – to compress the tires with the handles (this gets annoying quickly.) You can also fold the Steadyrack almost flat when you’re not using it. On the wall, this is a big advantage for small apartments. If you plan to take advantage of the swivel rack, be sure to install (included) a rear wheel stabilizer – it keeps the bike upright and prevents the rear wheel from sliding sideways.
There is no doubt that a rack is more difficult to install than a hitch – you need to put the rack on the floor and level it with the bike (meaning you may need an assistant to lift the bike) to figure out how you need to. Place shelves on the far side of the wall. It is easy to mistakenly install the rack upside down – despite the fact that the end of the metal base is clearly marked “TOP”. In addition, there are four mounting holes on each end of the base, but only four screws. Finally, fender bikes don’t fit the classic steadyrac, however the company sells slightly more expensive fender versions, as well as fat tire and mountain bike versions (although we had no problem getting mountain bikes into ours) to address these situations. .
Not only can the arms be adjusted to fit almost any bike frame, you can also change the distance the post protrudes from the wall.
If the gravity stand doesn’t work, but you want to hang your bike parallel to the wall, the Ibera Adjustable Bike Wall Mount is your best bet. The biggest benefit of using an Ibera is that the armrests are very easy to adjust – you can set them as high, wide and flat (for a horizontal top tube on a big bike), or as low and closer together but still flat ( for small (horizontal top tube for bicycles) horizontal top tube) or one high and one low (for bikes with sloped top tube).
The ratchet lets you move the arms as needed and then locks them in place, making this rack especially handy if you’re sharing it with other people or using it for multiple bikes. Telescoping “suspension beams” (metal tubes that attach the shelf to the wall) allow you to vary the distance the shelf protrudes from the wall. A minimum of 8.5 inches and a maximum of 12 inches, if you add the width of the frame itself, there is enough room for all but the widest mountain bike handlebars.
Post time: Apr-10-2023