Trail Construction: Bike Racks and Storage

Bicyclists need ways to keep bikes safe while they go about their business. Especially, touring bicyclists need safe places to park overnight.

Bicycle Storage in Public Places

Many bicyclists are reluctant to leave their bikes simply locked to an open rack. In part they don't trust locks, but beyond that they don't want to lose things attached to the bikes, like seats, pedals, odometers, tools, pumps, and so on. One way to address this is with storage lockers, but there is risk of those lockers becoming storage lockers for "stuff" or even habitations. The Dutch have a middle ground, in the form of cages that are open to view but closed to curious or acquisitive fingers. The key idea here is the open sides and doors, which protect the contents but discourage use for general storage. I think these are too small to be habitats, but the open sides and fronts would also discourage that use. The roof keeps the worst of the weather out.

The first image shows an installed unit that has some open (but roofed) racks and some enclosed cages. The second image is a interior view of the cages. We're looking in through the door of an empty cage, seeing the back of that cage and into the cage on the other side of the unit. At the bottom of the photo we see how the lower part of the cage is divided diagonally to accommodate wheels of longer bikes while preserving the full width of the cage for handlebars. This is sort of similar to the way our "blue-bikes" boxes divide the volume, but I think it does a better job of letting you store bikes with panniers. However, it probably adds construction costs, and it's not essential to the main idea..

Remember, the Dutch are serious bicycle commuters ...

Bicycle Storage at Lodging

We toured the Danube from Passau to Vienna in 2004. This route is a popular bike touring route, and the inns are completely prepared to handle bikes. Here are some of the places our bikes stayed. The first was behind the inn, open to the private parking area. The second faced an interior courtyard, accessed by heavy wooden gates just to the right of the picture. The third was an enclosed building in the parking lot of the inn.

In student housing at the University of Limerick, each cluster of apartment suites has a bike storage room (indicated by red arrow). The room has a proper locking door and two banks of racks for bikes. It looks reasonably secure, except that a dozen or so other bike owners have access. My odometer was stolen during the week I stayed in these apartments; I'm pretty sure the bike was in the storage room at the time.

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