The Bikes Stand Because of the Bike Stand

Very little embarrasses me, but I am going to publicly humiliate myself by showing you a picture I took of our garage this morning.

And another one for good measure.

 

There are many things wrong with the above, but I identified the biggest problem (besides having children in the first place) was the kids’ bikes.  I must have a dozen children, because there are almost that many bikes in here.  And everything without training wheels is just lying wherever it was dropped.   Messy.  Sloppy.  Not particularly usable. 

When I began researching making my own bike stand, I found a few good sites.  I finally chose this design (for the four-bike option) and then drastically altered it to work best for us.  My changes are listed at the end.

This is what I got when I followed the directions:

Unnecessarily tall.  My kids will grow and their bikes will get bigger, but they will never have front wheels large enough to make this design necessary.  And this just holds four bikes.

 

So I went out again and got more T-connectors and altered it to this:

It has room for six bikes, and although the vertical height didn’t really take up extra room in the garage, I like it better cut down to 2/3rds its original height. 

 

Did a 10-minute clean up of the garage, made a pile of get-rid-ofs, swept up a year of dirt, and now have a reasonable path through the garage.

 

I got two bonuses out of this.  1) Now that the bikes are upright, the helmets can be hung on the handlebars instead of being thrown on the ground. 2) The back of the rack is also a rack.  I put a few rarely-used scooters there.

 

Total cost:  About $34 with tax.  Probably could have done it a little cheaper had I planned for the final product, not the first attempt.  McLendons didn’t carry the contractor-size bags of connectors, so I overpaid about $5 than had I gotten them all at Home Depot (but don’t buy them individually there—very expensive!)

What I would do differently:  Definitely not make it so tall, like the original directions called for.  The originals also called for different cuts—several 9 3/8” pieces and also 9 1/2” pieces.  I would make the six long pieces that make up the tire holder all the same length; somewhere between 9” and 10” work great.  This would have saved a lot of time. The three long pieces in between each tire holder could also be cut the same length as the tire holder, but I used 8.5” because that’s what I cut for the original design. Then a bunch of 1 3/4” and T-connectors, and six 90-degree elbow connectors, and you’ve got yourself a sturdy bike stand in less than an hour.  Well, if you don’t have to cut the pieces by hand.  I used our chop saw, a power tool I have a powerful crush on. 

Want to make one?  Come over and we can cut the pieces together and I’ll give you all my leftover materials, saving you approximately $5.