BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

There was a thread on this a while back started by someone in CMUs industrial design or mech e department. I can't find it, but the jist was the ability to get a u lock around the frame and wheel along with some kind of locker to stash lights, helmets, etc. I don't remember seeing anything on what they ultimately designed.

It'd be cool if you could lock both with the same u lock and not decrease the racks bike capacity due to the integrated locker. I guess you need to go vertical with the storage and some long skinny D shape to lock the bike and locker door through to accommodate various frame shapes without needing a jumbo lock.

I like the three river racks. I just wish they came in black and gold.

Old thread.

I like this, but I'm sure it's very expensive & it would be very tempting to "reserve" the rack by leaving your lock.

I've had an idea in my head ever since talking with Marty and the gang at OTB about their troubles with taking the parking stall in front of the place and converting it to bike parking.

PennDOT says you can't have anything fixed - like a bollard or typical steel bike rack - within the lane of travel - apparently the parking stalls count as well.

So why not a softly balanced, P-shaped, square tube steel arms that drop off a post out of the driving lane. think of the " drinking bird" type arm. whereas, the loop in the P is what you lock up to, but when not in service the P-shape is held upright and out of the travel lane by a soft counterweight. Soft, in that, the weight provides enough resistance to keep the P-shaped tube upright, but not so much that it quickly lifts away from the lowered position once you detach your bike from it.

Marko82

They had several of those at the metro station near my house in DC. Cool idea but I wonder if the hinge is a weak point.

One time, I had my bike chained up to a pole on the sidewalk on Western Ave. I was away from the bike for ~45 minutes. When I came back, the rear wheel was totally destroyed - bent almost in half. The bike was completely on the sidewalk when I left, and the lock wouldn't permit it to move into the street. It was pretty clear that someone getting into or out of a parking spot somehow rammed into it and bent it. (And, of course, didn't leave a note or anything.) It was a brand-new wheel, too, so I ended up getting two completely new wheels in a two-week span, which was rather costly.

Since then, I'm very wary of locking up a bike too close to the edge of the kerb. Based on that, I wouldn't trust any bike parking that put me in the street.

http://sogreni.dk/Streetfurniture.php

@Ben - how does that work?

We just purchased a bunch of these for our city's parks:

http://www.dero.com/products/hoop_rack/hoop_rack.html

NYC just had a rack design competition and they essentially came up with a combination of this and the three rivers rack.

From the few photos of it i have seen, and one third party description, looks as though the hole at the top is intended for a U or cable lock for the bike.

Personally I'd like to see it a bit taller/easier to lock through. Perhaps a double fold or something?

the simple hoop rack is a good design and simple to manufacture

I never thought about locking up to both parts of the hoop before. With a one bar lockup it seems like if you made the hoop about a foot higher and you had an S shaped offset across the top you could get 4 bikes on there for about the same footprint.

The thing is, one-bar lockup designs like the wave rack are not recommended because bikes can easily slide off of them and end up bent and unridable. I can't tell you how many times over the years I've locked to a meter only come back to my bike having fallen to the ground.

I've since bought a kickstand which helps prevent this from happening, but this is the reason a two-bar solution is preferred.

Simple modified u rack incorporating storage.

There exists the possibility that the person on the other side could inadvertently lock your junk in the compartment, not sure how to deal with that.

Wow Edmonds, it even includes a "bike PGH!" sticker... Awsome!

The coat hanger racks seem to work just fine with me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/luton/2843636840/

When I look at that rack, I think it's fairly compact - no more than two 3-rivers racks, say - but would handle 7 bikes, including one at each end.

The example had little artsy things in the corners. I dont' care about that - good design is aesthetic to me. Non-functional fluff makes me roll my curmudgeon eyes. That said, you could do some 3 rivers bran ding in those corners.

Pitt has some with "half hangers" alternating in each direction, but I'm not sure that they would comfortably accommodate twice the bicycles.

There are good racks. The problem is that people and institutions pay good money for bad bike racks.

not sure how to deal with that.

Only one hole on the hinged side. First come, first served.

Ok I have an idea but I have some questions, what kind of things do you want to store so i can get an idea of size.

Thanks.

Things I usually take off and have to carry:

small seat tool bag, odometer, blinkie lights, handlebar light, frame pump, water bottle. Nothing of large intrinsic value but pains in the butt to have taken.

I'm leaving the helmet out because to create a storage for a helmet becomes just an unmanageable volume.

that's what I thought, instead of making a storage area as part of the bike rack, how about something you carry that is lockable to the ulock that holds these items and is collapsible / fold-able. For everything other than water bottle and frame pump you could get away with a rather small volume.

need to work on the idea a bit then I will try to put a sketch together.

Maybe just stenciling in big letters on the side "don't lock my junk".

@dbacklover, how about a chainmail bag with a cable through the throat?

my thought is something similar, about the size of a waterbottle (that would fit in the holder) that you could lock to the u-lock or to the bike that when it was locked it would be locked shut. when I get home I will have to get some measurements and play around with the idea. im thinking PVC pipe might make a good prototype

How about modifying a Cage Rocket, if you're going that route?

that is pretty much what I was thinking about, something like that

thanks reddan.

@edmonds, I like it, but expect Oscar the Grouch to pop out at any moment.

Also a nice design, because one could realistically secure more than one with a single U-lock.

(Is that a screw-top lid, or hinged? I suspect screw-top...)

Screw top.

I already need to re-design it so it carries the u-lock as well.

The Oscar can.

One concern with the screw top (not a huge issue, mind you!) is that it requires greater care in manufacturing, to ensure that the thread is cut such that the retaining rings line up nicely for the U-lock.

If you have a lot of threads and don't require engagement to a specific depth, it probably won't matter at all, as you just turn until the rings match. If you rely on the top screwing on to a precise depth, say, to compress a gasket used to keep out water, you'll need to be a bit more careful in the machining process.

Or one of the retaining rings has to be secured by a band to the case, which slips.

Re-design.

not to be a nay-sayer but I think a bike rack with movable parts (hinges) is not a good idea, at least for longevity. If you remove the center hinged section and just left the upside down loop and cross bar I think it would be a good design.

Also not everyone uses U-locks so those holes wouldn't work well for a cable lock as the end loops can be very big and rigid.

I was thinking that a cable or even a chain lock user would just use the part of the rack below the compartment, they just wouldn't be able to store stuff.

Also the curved part of the door would prevent anyone putting significant weight on the door.

You're gonna have to lock up that Brooks saddle too...

Ha!

That lockable thing is pretty rad.

A friend of mine recently rode to LAX and realized

that he had a seat bag/co2/tool with him that he

could not take past screening. He couldnt risk

missing a flight by not carrying it, and he didnt

want to let it sit there.

He risked it by covering the saddle with a plastic

bag with the under the seat bag jammed up inside.

Your drawing is a great idea.

The more I think about it, billet aluminum would be mm, mm, good.

I just needed to let my brain out to play today.

Mick's comment about people and institutions spending "good money on bad racks" made me think...

Who manufactures these racks? Can we get them to stop it? Not necessarily "quit making junk, yo!" but maybe if it's like Bike Rack's R Us we could get them to alter their offerings to be at least slightly more useful. Or is it Joe Schmoe's Machine Shop who bid the lowest and throws something made of metal together for their junior welders to practice on, and we really do need to educate the buyers? I'm just hoping that if there are fewer manufacturers than buyers, it may be easier to educate the manufacturers than the buyers (which we only realize need education AFTER the good money is all spent). Especially if "customer satisfaction" can be played as a card.

ejwme, you may be right, but for right now, I would more lean on businesses that don't have any bike rack at all to put in a few 3RRs.

With a few exceptions, buyers of bike racks are only concerned with meeting building codes or gaining LEED points. Actual performance or "customer satifaction" would rarely be evaluated.

I'm thinking bad racks are primarily produced by well meaning "Designers" who have never actually participated in any of the activities for which they are designing. Convince manufacturers that better (as in more functional, not more whoop-de-do) design will sell more products, and there you go.

I just did what I'm sure a lot of non-cycling building owners/architects did:

I googled "bike rack" and got a bunch of stuff for mounting them to cars.

I then googled "sidewalk bike rack" and got this: http://www.theparkcatalog.com/items.asp?cc=BR&wcw=google&mm_campaign=e3b3bd2055f04156de7412f7fa9ed921&keyword=bike%20rack&utm_source=AdWords&ad_type=X&gclid=CP2C2Z6mt6UCFRLLKgodXHcGXw

The whole site is actually run by something called "Highland Products Group", which I can only find that catalog web site for. Their "best sellers" provides the prime offendor as the cheapest "per bike" advertized locking spaces ($29/bike). If we could get them to modify that somehow, to actually fit 10 bikes, that would be fantastic. The catalog pictures show bikes propped up in the rack, not even locked.

When I get off this phone conference, I'll give their sales # a call and see if I can get someone on the phone to give me answers.

Why redesign something when workable designs already exist?

Another option is for someone to go to the LEED certification people and get them to require demonstration that (average sized bike with average sized wheels) CAN be locked securely by the frame to the rack in the quantity claimed. Or in some other manner encourage people who don't know to purchase racks that function.

Notably, that link led to something that certainly could be changed, i.e., that company shows a "GSA" list, that is the General Services Administration, which provides materials and equipment approved for Federally funded projects. Some of those crap racks should definitely be removed from the approved list. The GSA list also tends to have an effect on projects that are not specifically Federally funded, since items on the list tend to be perceived as having that stamp of Federal approval. This seems like something that a national organization like LAB might go after.

who are LAB? I like the idea of removing things from the GSA list - I can get my head around what that is/means/would take (the first time my employment and my hobbies are crossing paths, cue twilight zone music). That makes more sense than calling up this distributor and trying to tell them why their products are... ineffective. Or trying to get google to point "sidewalk bike racks" to something more usefull instead. Or trying to revise LEED requirements. That was going to be my next path, going to the LEED people.

League of American Bicyclists, deals with national-level policy, this might be an issue they would be interested in. There may be other orgs.

http://www.bikeleague.org/

is BPGH a member organization of LAB?

They're on the resources page, whatever that means. There's also the Alliance for Biking and Walking and America Bikes that appear to be national.

"With a few exceptions, buyers of bike racks are only concerned with meeting building codes or gaining LEED points."

The city publishes a Bike Rack Standards document (here) that includes specific examples of bad designs and good designs, and outlines the general requirements of a good bike rack.

Does the City building code's requirement for bike parking already require racks that meet the City's bike rack standards? If not, can we get some such requirement into the building code? (Not forcing specific good designs, but perhaps disallowing specific common bad rack designs.)

LAB are the people with the national education programs and the ones with that "Bike Friendly" certification we had the hullabaloo about recently. They're the original national advocacy organization and the only nominally democratic one.

I don't know which local outfits are member organizations, other than the WPW -- which has been since its formation.