Can I hang my bike?
 

I know this has been asked befor, but I hang my bikes on the gaurage ceilen. My dad need to get his truck in during the winter. I just got a new bike with a RockSox Tora 318 on it and thought that if it was hanging upside down all the oil would go to the bottom, well the top of the upside down bike. So i looked at the manuels and it says do not hang up side down because it will clog up the dampner. Is this a rule that can be over looked or a must follow?
...oh and they are on the roof so they can be locked up as well.

What do you guys do with your bikes to get them out of the way?
Leo
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Hanging is so barbaric, lethal injection in much more PC. :)

I don't know what clogging the dampners would be a problem, but I'd be concerned with fork oil potentially leaking out the top caps of the stancion tubes.

You might what to look in to one of those rope & pully syetems that lift the bike from the bars & the saddle. Gets the bike up and keeps it rubber side down.

yea, i personally would never hang a bike upside down, just because a bike was built to be standing up. i also personally feel that hanging them by the rims puts unwanted pressure on the places you don't want. to me, it just doesn't look safe for the bike.

but thats totally my opinion, others would probably find no probs. in hanging it upside down, i just don't enjoy taking the risk.

I think there are some myths here. But the grease seems like a valid concern. I definetely woudln't be worried about "added stress" on your wheels.

I've been hanging bikes by the rims like that for years, and never had any problems. None of my bikes have any suspension, so that isn't an issue for me.

Actually, after reading and hearing about what lethal injection involves (sedative, then a paralyzing agent, then an induced heart attack), I think hanging or a gillotine (sp?) would be more humane. We just call it better because we don't have to see blood or pain on the victim.

But anyway, if you don't intend on hanging your bikes from a noose, you're fine. My family has bikes that have been regularly stored hanging from hooks in the garage ceiling for 10+ years and they work just fine. Actually, less adjustments are needed since they don't get bumped around up there.

Good post.

He's joking, of course....:D

During the French revolution, guillotined people sometimes were reported seen moving mouths / making facial expressions. Think of it - no pain from the neck up!!! Only a sudden sense of loss of weight. And then life. Possibly the best of the three mentioned above for condemmed to not suffer their fate.

Suspend bike by pulleys seems a good way to go: Block & Tackle.

Sweet tap dancin' Jeebus! :eek: I inject a bit wit in to my reply and look what happens. <sigh>

What part of that don't you understand?

There is only one way we can get our bikes and truck in our gerage. The truck just backs in under the bikes. So I was hoping that moving them could be avoided.

Thanks for all your help. I will look into a different way to keep them for the winter. It sucks living in Wisconsin.

Leo

If you have to hang the bike, hang it from the saddle and handlebars.

hehe sorry I couldn't help myself. It's been a topic of interest to me recently since the CA government has been declaring its execution methods inhumane and demanding certain changes, as well as my parents recently having to put a dog down and knowing the other dog isn't too far off.

bwt, did you use the word "inject" on purpose? :D

5 of my bikes hang upside down. They range from 5 to 25 years old and all are fine.

Thats fine if there is no shox, I will still hang my cross bike like that. It takes less space and is pretty easy to get up and down.

Now that you mention that, the return elastomer on my mountainbike went bad while the bike was hanging upside down in storage for 5 years. I wonder if the added pressure caused that, or if it was just the rubber getting hard like the shop suspected.

A bike is the same height upside down as it is right side up. ;)

There is no hard and fast rule.

Hydraulic disc brakes and some suspension forks may have some issues when hung upside down.

Some fork manufacturers, like Fox, actually reccomend storing them inverted. This keeps the seals lubricated.

Three of the five are mountain bikes and one is a dual suspension Trek I use for racing. It has been hanging from the ceiling since 2001 whenever it is not in use. It probable gets 500 to 1000 trail miles per year and the Fork and Shock have never needed anything other than occasional adjustments.

That said, If your manual specifically states that you should avoid hanging the bike upside down (mine did too) you would be hard pressed to make a warranty claim if there is trouble with the fork as a result of hanging. I never really worried about this since I really didn't expect any fork trouble but that was my risk. I was merely sharing my experience.

The pulley / hoist systems that are available would work fine of you could make your own if you are mechanically inclined. Look at this one and you can see that you could make something like this from components available at any hardware store. Good Luck and let us know what you end up with.

http://prohoists.com/Shopping.idc?Pr...FQ1bIgodcyvJGg

don't hang it by the seat alone, i used to hang my old bike from an rsj in the garage by just hooking the seat over it, until one of the seat bolts gave in. the bike fell and dented the frame!
gutted!!

Right, and objects come to rest because that is their natural state. The bike was built to be standing up with a rider on it, so you'd better not let it sit upright without a rider on it, either :)

I assume your post was a joke, but the point about rims (and more broadly, spoked wheels) not being designed for pulling that would increase spoke tension is an interesting point nonetheless. It doesn't matter here because the amount of force that's on the rim from a rubber-coated hook is not a problem at all - it's relatively small force (max ~18 pounds against the surface of the rear rim on a 30-pound bike) and as long as you don't hang heavy stuff from your bike while it's upside down it'll be fine.

The oil in the fork, however, may be a viable reason to not hang a mountain bike upside-down if it has an oil-dampened fork. This isn't a general reason against hanging bikes upside down.
I don't know enough about suspension forks to know if this might be a problem. I suspect it won't, but it also may depend a lot on the specific design of the fork. I assume that mountain bike forks are made to not depend too much on gravity for their working since mountain bikes may be ridden at weird angles and definitely with lots of jostling.
I'd say try hanging the thing upside down, leave newspapers underneath, and see if anything happens for a few days.

If you get problems with oil displacement, Hanging the bike upright from the saddle and the handlebars may work.

Or alternately, you could hang the bike right-side-up using hooks in the floor, as I do :D
http://www.unc.edu/~cupery/pics/bike...de-ceiling.jpg
http://www.unc.edu/~cupery/pics/bike...o_bar-tape.jpg
http://www.unc.edu/~cupery/pics/bike..._pink_bike.jpg

I had a bike with a Marzocchi Z2 BAM fork. (oil bath damping). I left it upside-down for an extended period of time, and a significant amount of oil leaked out. So there you go. I would hang it from seat and bars instead.