Building Bike Racks

[rangerclaymore]

Hey there, I am leading my first theme camp this year.

I definitely want to build some bike racks to keep bikes off the street and give people something to lock their bikes to.

What are your experiences, or opinions on the best bike racks, easy to assemble, transport and store?

Can you share plans and maybe pictures here?

Thanks,
Claymore

[Elderberry]

Here's one idea. http://playatech.com/downloads/bike-jack/


And here's another. Dang it. Too hi-res to see it all. But you can see it here http://www.mudskippercafe.com/gallery/b ... -the-camp/

[SnowBlind]

The picture that Elderberry posted looks like the bike racks that DPW builds. They have detailed plans on how to build them online. They are a little bit more involved to build, but a tried and tested design.

The Playatech one is a little simpler and potentially easier to build. They also have plans online.

[Elliot]

Those are nice designs, and wood is easy to work with. But the Resto people keep saying that wood is a major generator of MOOP. And I know perfectly well how often a sliver breaks off when I use wood here at home. So I'm thinking metal.

[ygmir]

I'd bet with some scrounging, an EMT conduit rack could be made for next to nothing,and no welding. I see tons of metal conduit fittings at the Habitat store,and often at yard sales and such. I bet a CL ad would bring in tons, cheap or free.
and metal conduit is pretty cheap, and again, on construction sites and such, a person might get "off cuts" up to a couple of feet long, cheap or free..

[tamarakay]

One of our campmates (hi tinkermom!) took a futon frame, flipped it around and we sued that. I'll find a picture. Cheap, folds flat, and worked great.

[ygmir]

bike parking.........

[Elderberry]

We have valet parking for bikes in L.A.

[Elliot]

Hmmmm.... I guess I just found a use for all the damaged fence rail tubing I was about to set out for the scrap man. And a friend just bought a bunch of 1/2" EMT that she wound up not using. Now all I need are a couple coat hangers for welding rod.

[ygmir]

Hmmmm.... I guess I just found a use for all the damaged fence rail tubing I was about to set out for the scrap man. And a friend just bought a bunch of 1/2" EMT that she wound up not using. Now all I need are a couple coat hangers for welding rod.

or 1/2" emt fittings...........

[FIGJAM]

And a bender!!!

[Elliot]

All right... I feel spunky today. Right now I need to run a couple errands, and I should be back before 5. Then I will attempt to build a bicycle parking rack before it gets dark.

[Elliot]

.
...And... Go!
You are looking at the inspiration for the design. In a previous post, somebody mentioned futon frames, and I have long thought of using such. These blue ones happen to be bunk bed frames (which are headed for my guest bedroom). Now I will figure out suitable dimensions for our purpose, and build a unit out of fence rail tubing and EMT.

[Elliot]

Well, now…. Somebody went and moved Greenwich again, suddenly throwing off my estimate of when it would get dark. But I have good lighting in the barn.
Of course, everything takes longer that we hope for.
Here is the first frame, just very loosely tacked together.




I quickly found that the bicycles will tip over with this design. They need something to steady the front of the wheel, perhaps something like I’m illustrating here:




But it would be more elegant if the wheel is supported by the opposite frame. That would mean longer verticals and a quite narrow A. I think. But a taller A would require the verticals to be curved, to clear the axle and fork. Of course, I could do that. Perhaps two bottom horizontals and only one top horizontal? And stack/nest these fixed As for storage and transport. More experimenting to follow.

The horizontals are 68” long. They are damaged pieces from three “carport” awnings that were tumbled by the wind at an event here in town previous weekend. The verticals are ½” EMT – a.k.a. conduit.
Both are galvanized, which means they have a coating of zinc and maybe other metals. The welding fumes are toxic, so be sure you never breathe such fumes. The correct way is to sand off the galvanizing first, but who has the patience!

[Elliot]

All right, I'm calling it a day. This is turning into a fabulous project. By that I mean it is a good challenge. Of course, I'm trying to build The World's Most Perfect Bicycle Parking Rack.
At the moment I'm leaning toward an open-top design, like the plywood ones.
Activity resumes tomorrow.

[Jackass]

If you stand that bike rack up more near vertical, won't that stabilize the two wheelers better?

[Elliot]

Yes, but then the "foot" of the rack would not be behind the tire to keep the bike from rolling backward out of the stall.

[Jackass]

How about a 2x4 screwed into the dirt in front of the rack to serve as a chock?

[ygmir]

copy a commercial bike rack?

[Elliot]

Both of these are valid ideas.

[LowePro]

Great ideas.
We used an old cheap futon, picked up for free from the curb, much like the one in this pic. Dismantled and used just rectangle tube-frame with crossbars.
On the playa, we pounded a 5-foot piece of rebar 18 inches or so into the ground vertically, then used about 10 zipties to lash the futon frame to the rebar. Add another rebar post at the other end of the futon frame, more zip ties, and we have a standing bike rack with very few parts. It worked fine as long as the bikes have their own kickstands (which they should anyways).
It's not the sturdiest design, but easy, cheap and light. Might try a modifcation this year by drilling a hole into the futon frame tube so the rebar can actually slide over the vertical tube of the frame, and be a little more stable.

[Elliot]

No time to work on it today, but I like the idea of lagging "wheel chock bars" to the ground separately. I use a lot of lag screws anyway -- no problem putting in a few more.

[trilobyte]

I've built several playatech bike racks over the years. I like that they're relatively easy, and the flat-pack design makes them easy to store in the off-season, but I wish they accommodated more bikes. Last year I switched over to a modified version of the DPW design (linked above, as is the playatech version), I really like it. They take a bit more work to build (especially since mine had arty endcaps), but I think I easily had a dozen or more bikes on each 10 foot rack. I tried to take a bunch of pictures of our camp infrastructure and thought I did a decent job this year, but looking back through my pics I somehow managed to not take any decent pics of the new bike racks... d'oh! The pic below will have to do..

[Elliot]

I like it, Trilo! The arty end caps change the game completely. Great idea! (Maybe I can use bicycle wheels as end-caps.)

And the one thing I did with this project today was to set the-frame-I-tacked-together-yesterday vertically, and that should work fine. It just needs six more vertical members to hold bikes from the opposite direction.

I want to use up all the damaged steel tubing I have here. But I'm now willing to use wood also. I just need to study each piece of wood for potential shedding of moopy splinters.

Next work session probably late tomorrow.

[danibel]

I like bike racks. But note - these racks with wood tend to "chip." The bike tires roll over the wood and over time chunks come off and are a bit moopy. I spent a few hours mooping the center camp bike racks on Monday. Lots of wood chips. So add a little bit of time to your moop sweep calculations.

[Elliot]

I like bike racks. But note - these racks with wood tend to "chip." The bike tires roll over the wood and over time chunks come off and are a bit moopy. I spent a few hours mooping the center camp bike racks on Monday. Lots of wood chips. So add a little bit of time to your moop sweep calculations.

If I didn't mention the wood-splinter problem earlier, I meant to. So... being a flexible and open-minded sort of person, my design is not frozen until the piece is completed. And I now feel pretty sure I can use bicycle wheels as end caps. So these things will probably be all steel. I'm thinking quick-release pins of some sort for assembly.

[trilobyte]

The key to success is basic woodworking, IMO. Use a decent wood (crappy wood and OSB will tend to splinter and chip easily), and sand it once you're done making your cuts. I used a nice router to really round off the edges on the arty endcaps of the newer MonkeyBoy/DPW inspired racks, but even using a couple sanding blocks and a cheap rasp on the playatech design I got great results.

Granted, my camp doesn't see anywhere near the traffic that Center Camp does (but I don't imagine many do)...

[Doctor VonBacon]

Anyone ever consider making a bike rack out of PVC pipe?

Time to start scrounging some leftover PVC...