Quick Recap
Creating a sweet bike room where our messy, disorganized, and unused office used to be.
BEFORE
BEFORE
Updates
Yesterday we cleared away the space and moved the desk to the other side. The plan today was to get the bikes in the room and to figure out exactly how we wanted to arrange everything.
Step 1: Assemble new bike stand
We purchased another Delta Michelangelo Gravity Bike stand (Amazon, $45). We’ve been using one for our road bikes for almost a whole year now and we love it. For apartment dwellers (or people who just don’t like to drill holes in the wall), it’s perfect. It fits two bikes and does not waste any space. It’s also quick to assemble (took him about 10 minutes). And let’s be honest–I would not have been able to handle mismatching stands…
Delta Michelangelo Gravity Stand, purchased on Amazon for $45.00
Assembling the bike stand
Step 2: Figure out where bikes are going to go
We really weren’t sure if the bikes were going to fit where we wanted them to. We crossed our fingers, and started putting them up.
So the good news was that they both were able to fit…but only because we are willing to put up with this:
I would much prefer to NOT cover up a window. Luckily this room has two windows, though.
As you can see in the other pictures, the other wall doesn’t have a window, but we installed all sorts of shelves and things. It would have been more of a pain to take all that down than to just cover the window.
So, I would recommend that you take all kinds of measurements, including how much space you need to put the bikes where you want, before you do ANYTHING to the room. Remember to measure the length (60 inches for these bikes) as well as distance from the wall, and extra space so it’s easy to take the bikes off/put them back on.
Step 3: Reward our hard work with pizza and garlic bread
Paul Newman Thin Crust + Alexia Garlic Bread (all frozen) YUM YUM!
Next step…organizing and sorting. Now the real work begins…
I love these! I’m going to have to buy one.
Yea they are great! And amazon has them sooo cheap! We first saw them at REI for $80 or $85 bucks!!
I love the look of those stands! If I’d seen them earlier I would have got one for our little house here. As it is we’ve had to make a space in the kitchen.
Bikes in the kitchen? I can imagine that being a little annoying at times–is it? It can be so hard sometimes to find space for bikes. We’ve been struggling for years, but finally realized we had to let go of the office since we never used it. Or, well, we used it but just to dump stuff in. I’m happy we did this whole thing because it’s making us use our space more efficiently. Anyway…thanks for commenting!
Thank you for checking out my site. I came by to see pictures of your bike room. Great job! We have talked about creating a bike room too so thanks for the motivation!
Do you find that getting the mountain bike up on the top rack a bit of a challenge or is it pretty easy? I have wall mounted racks but will be moving across the country again in a couple of weeks and would look for an easier solution given the opportunity.
Jason: Yea it’s fine. Seems to work well enough for us, just took a little trial and error to set up for the slanted top tube. Feedback Sports has a hardcore version of this type of stand if you want something sturdier too.
Me: I have incredibly weak upper body strength. Seriously, I was laughed at by my physical therapist and cannot do a single pull up. I look a little funny getting my bike up there but I can do it just fine.
I just read your first article after buying your mountain bikes and notice that they’re both hardtails. I’m just wondering if the rear suspension and mounting bracket on the underside of my top tube would be a issue like it is on my bike rack for the car… either way, looks awesome.
Hmmm…Jason says it might be a little annoying but the hooks on this stand that hold the top tube aren’t very deep. So you wont have to slide the tubes very far. It’ll just be a matter of wiggling the bike a little just to get the hook in between the gap, between the shock and the top tube.
We have problems getting these on our car rack too because of straps and stuff, and we have to push the bikes far back.
Does that make any sense? As he was telling me this I was even confused so this might not work explaining with words….interpretive dance might be needed.
interpretive dance would definitely work. Get Jason to record this, put it on YouTube, link it through the blog site and maybe I can learn from such a masterpiece. Other than that, yes, I get what he’s saying.
Challenge accepted.