Breaking Down Bike Storage Ideas
Bicycle storage is the first and last step of the ride. There are almost as many different ways to store a bicycle as bike frames to choose from, each better suited to a different floor plan.
The only thing every bike storage idea has in common is that it’s better than leaning it up chain-side out and calling it a day.
Here’s the good news: with so many ideas floating out there, you can store your bike using your walls, floors, ceilings, and maybe even add some shelving space while you’re at it. The flip side of the coin is that no one bike rack can do it all (although, without a doubt, this one comes the closest!)
You'll have to come to your perfect equilibrium to pair up your two wheels with a forever home. Most bike rack ideas combine simplicity, space efficiency, and a splash of style to create unique ways to store. All those combinations piqued our curiosity, so we broke down the options and simplified the process.
This guide is the result of our labor, here to help jumpstart your next home improvement project and walk you through what makes a great bike rack.
Our hypothesis is simple; if you need to protect your bike, then you should use bamboo. We’ll let you come to your own conclusion while we walk through the pros and cons of the most battle-tested hooks, knobs, and pulleys in the business.
Why you should [properly] store your bikes:
Before deciding what shape your bicycle storage should take, you must accept that they are necessary. Let’s take a second to talk about why a real bike storage solution is an absolute necessity for any long-term bike owner.
Why not?
Imagine you and your favorite two-wheeler are heading to the grocery store. There are no racks around, but you can’t bring the bike inside with you. Surely you wouldn’t just drop the bike on the ground or lean it against the first free wall space you can find, you’d take a few seconds to ensure it’s safe and secure.
Why not do the same thing when you get home from a ride? There is absolutely no negative risk involved in proper bike storage.
Don’t think too hard about whether or not you should invest in bicycle storage; the answer is yes. Instead, think about your floor plan, what kinds of outdoor shelter your home base offers, and how many bikes you want to store.
Weatherproofing is the key to longevity
Most modern bikes will breeze through a surprise shower on the way home, but the weather will slowly tear away at your bike’s framework. Much like a dream deferred, a bicycle left outside will rot away in the sun, sleet, snow, and rain years faster than one given a place above the mantle.
There are many things a skilled technician can do to a bicycle, but no one can beat rust. Oiling any and all exposed metals and whipping your bike dry after every ride will help stretch out your bike’s lifespan, but you should take things a step further. At the heart of a healthy and balanced bike care routine is the proactive protection of a bike storage stand.
Fewer eyes on your bike
Nobody is saying you need to hire a security guard to keep an eye on your bike constantly, but there is a bare minimum level of precaution to take with equipment as valuable as your bicycle.
Even if you keep your bike locked up to a tree or railing outside, it’s too easy for a motivated criminal to cut a cord and take off. If someone is willing to risk a break-and-entering charge over a Cannondale, that’s a whole other ballgame, but keeping your bike inside will dramatically decrease the potential for bike theft.
Keeping things inside is even more critical for bike storage in small apartments without exterior privacy. A lock against the lamppost at the front of your apartment complex is only so safe. Especially if you're considering apartment bike storage ideas, just bring the bike inside.
Where to Store Your Bikes:
Hopefully, you’re starting to visualize your bike stored right, whatever that means to you. The perfect bicycle storage for your set-up depends on where you’ve got the extra space.
Indoor Bike Storage:
There is no safer space for you or your bicycle than inside your home. If it weren’t for the convenience of quick access, everyone would be storing their bikes as far away from the outside world as possible.
Two main factors stand against keeping your bike inside: (a) how annoying will it be to get the handlebars through the front door and safely navigate it to the rack, and (b) do I have the free space?
While we can’t help you add a few inches to the width of your hallways, we can show you a few nifty ideas for storing bikes in an apartment. There are ways to beat the system with efficient storage that also helps bring a room together, but the margin for error is slim.
Several solid bike storage ideas don’t create extra space or provide supple storage required for extraordinary scenarios. When the floor plan starts to get studio-sized, a freestanding option won’t cut it. Indoor bike racks are best wall-mounted unless you’re talking about garage, bonus room, or basement storage.
Be sure to look out for bike hooks with multiple points of contact. Having at least two connection points between your bike and the wall studs ensures excited dogs, toddlers, and hip bumps won’t bring your wheels crashing down.
When storing bikes inside small spaces, your rack must be extra versatile and rock-solid, all while looking good. Luckily, we know the perfect rack that checks off all those boxes and sets your living room’s centerpiece.
Outdoor Bike Storage:
You may notice that we take the word ‘outdoor’ quite loosely. The truth is, while plenty of easy bike storage ideas work outside, there is no good way to store things without a roof over their heads.
Bike Storage Sheds
For less than $10 a square foot, you won’t even have to sharpen up your carpentry skills to get “a-shed” for your bike storage. Whether you’re shopping pre-made or spending a few weekends in the backyard, a shed and a padlock is a classic way to store bikes.
We recommend sheds over carports or other covered spaces that don’t include walls. Decent shade is better than nothing, but ideally, any place you store your Peugeot will be completely enclosed.
Bike storage sheds make a lot of sense if you’ve already got a front or back yard, especially now that you don’t have to know how to build a shed to stick one in the yard. Pre-made models will work fine for bike storage; make sure the walls are tough enough if you use a wall mount.
Bike wall mounts are the most efficient way to store bikes in sheds, the only exception is if your shed is solely for bike storage. Whatever you do, don’t think that just because you have a shed means you can lean your bike against the wall and call it a day. Remember that bikes have wheels, and wheels roll, causing things to fall and create chaos.
Just like any other storage unit, you’ll still want something that locks your bike into place. That way, you can work on your bike without using one hand as a stabilizer. Even a simple knob system will prevent you from ever showing up to the shed ready to ride, only to find the bike on the floor with the chain out of whack.
A secondary benefit of a bike storage shed is your ability to lube up a chain without worrying about staining the floor. The right shed will store your bike, pack your gear, and serve as a workspace, as long as you’ve got some free space in the driveway.
Garage Bike Storage
Bike storage ideas in garage floor plans are among the greatest things ever happening to suburban neighborhoods with bike paths. Garages combine the functionality of outdoor storage with the weather protection of your living room to serve as a no-brainer option. It’s safe to say that if you have a garage, it’s the best place to store your bike.
Great ideas to hang bicycles in garage spaces will take into account cars, lawnmowers, and camping chairs to fit into a larger storage ecosystem. When you first move in, it may feel like you’ve got limitless storage space, but things will quickly fill up.
You don’t want to wait until after you can’t walk across your garage before you start to get serious about organization. Map out your space before the folks at the bike shop even finish putting together your first ride to get ahead.
Garage bike storage is a straightforward option as long as you plan properly. You can use any rack type and even shape up your system with multiple racks. Eventually, you could pimp out your space with a ceiling pulley for the time trial bike, a horizontal wall mount for your daily rider, and a vertical adjustable bicycle wall hanger for the rest.
How to Store your Bikes:
Once you know where to store your bikes, deciding how to store them should be much easier. These four main mounting styles make up most successful bike storage ideas. Each one’s strengths and weaknesses will surround how much space they make up and how many bikes they can store.
For example, a solid combination of simplicity and style makes many freestanding bike racks an excellent choice for homes with some extra room, but they make for pretty horrible small apartment bike storage ideas because they just don’t do anything to create space. It’s fine in spacious garages, but your apartment floor space is too valuable.
If you want to boil it down even further, just ask yourself where you have the most accessible space: on the floor, walls, or ceiling.
Free Standing Bike Storage
Free Standing Bike Storage can take the shape of any rack that doesn't rely on your walls or ceiling to store bikes.
This style is also sometimes known simply as a bike rack, and it's a great way to store bikes if you have a good slice of extra floor space. Some styles will quickly clip into your front and back tires, while other bicycle storage racks will hold up to 5-6 bikes loosely in place by the front tires.
The genius of free-standing bike racks is in their simplicity. You won't have to drill any holes in the wall or re-decorate the room to get freestanding storage set up. Most of these racks can also easily be moved from room to room when it’s time to sweep up.
In exchange for all this convenience, this particular genre of bike storage ideas does almost nothing to reduce the amount of space your bike takes up, and they will also rarely offer any extra storage for the rest of your gear.
Bicycle Ceiling Storage
Ceiling bike storage solutions are bold ideas for smaller places. Ceiling racks use a pulley system or sturdy bike storage hooks to lift your bike off its feet and onto the ceiling.
Done with a bit of grace, this can turn your bike into a delightful addition to any space with a plethora of headroom, all without adding any clutter to your typical usable square footage. It’s the most space-efficient bicycle storage system but also the least convenient.
Pulley systems aren’t always a breeze to get the hang of, especially if you’re looking for a way to store the kid's bikes. Getting your bikes up and down can be so complicated that most people use ceiling storage only for long-term storage or when a bike has transitioned from workout equipment to an art piece.
A ceiling system efficient for daily bicycle deployment is tough to find. You’re better off saving ceiling storage for a special occasion mountain bike or a niche style that isn’t your everyday rider.
Vertical Bike Wall Mount
Vertical Bicycle storage is an effective way to store multiple bikes. The system generally implies hanging up your bicycles by the front wheel or through a few brackets along the frame, allowing the height of the bike to stick out towards the middle of the room without taking up much horizontal space.
With the right bike storage hooks, a vertical bike wall mount will help you quickly move your bikes on and off the wall, but you’ll still have to lift the entire weight of the bicycle every time you’re ready to roll.
Vertical mounts are an excellent choice for a wall full of bikes that need a resting place. Any vertical bike wall mount worthy of your investment should have at least two bike storage hooks dedicated per bike. Make sure you spread the weight, and this garage system will pay dividends.
Hanging the entire weight of your bike on one spot is doable, but gravity's slow pull can eventually lead to bike tire frame damage. Any great bicycle storage should hold firm for decades from multiple contact points.
Horizontal Wall-Mounted Bike Storage
The best Ideas for storing bikes in an apartment or any other situations where extra space is lacking will usually involve an adjustable bicycle wall hanger. Horizontal bike storage can be as simple as two knobs against the wall or as intense as a bike shelf above and bike hooks below.
A horizontal bike rack is the most efficient way to store your daily rider, for equal parts easy access and secure storage. The arms that attach directly to bike frames are the most critical facet of horizontal bike storage. When done right, these bike racks will support many different shapes and bike styles.
Over our extensive research, we found the most potential for one-bike storage in this particular genre. Nobody had yet sorted a perfect system, but horizontal wall mounts were capable of storing things while being incredibly space-efficient, sturdy, and downright good-looking. So, we took matters into our own hands.
Who Should You Trust to Store Your Bikes?
There are five W’s but only one Grassracks. As we’ve seen today, there are loads of different bike storage ideas, and the Rackcycle is the best. We’ve spent over a decade crafting the best bike storage for small spaces that also knows how to bring a larger room together.
The first thing we noticed about bike racks is that nobody trusted natural ingredients to store bikes. Bamboo has a higher tensile strength than steel and grows significantly faster than most other accessible lumber.
That combo creates the best rack on and for the planet.
Sustainability is crucial, but no bicycle storage ideas are worth their weight if they don’t correctly take the load off your bike. Two key ingredients to our iconic mounted bike rack’s load ability are the triangular mounting system and two separate points of contact conveniently located stud distance apart.
These padded points can hold mountain bikes, streamlined road bikes, and kid’s bikes without switching up the installation pattern. Our triangular system means you can install your rack in less than an hour and easily take down the rack if it’s time to re-arrange. It’s the simplest way to get your wheels up in a hurry.
But we didn’t stop there because when you reach your goals, you don’t stop either; you make new ones. Storing your bike inside also means your bike stand should look as good while it protects your bike.
We undertook that next challenge, streamlining and simplifying our design to make centerpiece bike storage racks. Our crisp bamboo and premium birch fit any design scheme and help your bike rest comfortably while standing out.
Finally, we filled out our racks with plenty of quality detail work. A great bike rack shouldn’t just store your bike and provide space for your helmets, shoes, and snacks. With two hooks below the bike frame and a solid shelf above your bike, the Rackcycle is a one-stop shop to get you on the road faster.