First, Start Small. With urban growth seeming to have no real brakes on it, finding a place to store your bike can be the hardest part of owning one. However, if you bother to look around, you’ll find that there are products suitable for the needs of even cramped apartment-dwelling cyclists.
If a fullblown bike rake is too bulky for your needs, try bike hooks. Besides being cheap with average prices well under forty dollars, they can be lifesavers for when you need to make the most of what little space you have. These hooks allow you to store your bike upright or to one side, instead of jutting out from a rack. More expensive models will even let you store your bike on your ceiling! Think of all that space up there you’re not using! Most varieties of these hooks are forearm-sized mechanisms of steel, easy to clean and easier to move around if you want your bike in a different place.
If Small Isn’t Best, Go for Tradition
On the other hand, bike racks are very popular and classical means of storing bicycles because of how effective and useful they are, space issues aside. They’re definitely sturdier than a hook, and an average model will hold at least two bikes, as opposed to hooks where you’ll need to most likely buy one hook for each bike. A bike in a rack is also less trouble to get out and put back in than a hooked bike would be. This can be an optimal solution for you if you have some garage or storage shed space, but expect to spend at least fifty dollars, potentially even up to the triple digits, for a good model of rack. If All Else Fails, there’s always your van.
Don’t have any room at your place whatsoever? There are wheel-only racks designed specifically for vehicular use, if that’s what you need. Then you can simply drive around with your bike on the back, knowing you’ll have it whenever you need it, and not have to waste any space at home! However, these kinds of racks are even pricier than regular bike racks. That’s the price you pay for specialty engineering. And regardless of what kind of rack or hook you settle on, of course, you need to make sure to get enough storage capacity for all your bikes, and no more. Don’t get extra unless you really think you’ll need it, otherwise you’ll be wasting quite a bit of money.
Tags: bikes