So, I've been on a mission to re-org the shop during the last week. Made a ton of progress. One place I'm hung up: I don't really have any creative way to hang or store the 15+ handlebars I have laying around. Only a couple of the bars have active projects, the rest are waiting for that "special" something to fall into my lap.

Anyone have pics of some reasonable or clever ways to keep bars? Thanks in advance for input!

Not my shop, but that shallow rack seems to work quite well.

I have nested bars and then hung them in bunches of 4 or 5 with bungees.

Bins, the big plastic ones that can swallow quite a few bars and get another one stacked on top.

not the best but it holds my 15 or less HB supply. Although I have been thinking of running them up into the attic for storage.

2 dowels coming out from the wall 14" apart at a 15deg angle up. Itll keep em all together and out of the way since you can store them on a wall away from high traffic spots.

I have the same problem with fewer bars. They take up so much room! Not all of them will nest with the different widths and some are assemblies with stems and brake levers, even taped!

[IMG]P1000641, on Flickr[/IMG]

@oddjob2 that's sort of what I'm doing now (click pic), but this gets really cumbersome, you move one and it's like Jenga, they may all come down. I was trying to think of something that cascades down the side of the rack.


@SJX426 here's something I tossed together on my workbench to keep tabs on taped/lever'd bars before/after polishing them if the tape is in good shape already. Two simple hooks, the wood acts as a stop so things don't rotate. Haven't tried to hang anything on the 2nd pair of hooks, but you could possibly use those to hang extra stuff - keys, computer, ???

PS - It's really interesting what you'll see searching handlebar hanger in Google Images:

[MENTION=413240]francophile[/MENTION] - I like both suggestions. Adding a saddle to cover the stem is cool, plus without the bike, it is a good bike cow.

I'm always trying to find some way to maximize storage so I can actually move around the shop. It's bad enough I'm relegated to the basement to work, doesn't mean it needs to be a clutterfest in the process. Getting tired of "misplacing" things

This weekend I took a long right-angle steel bracket used to bolt server racks to wooden pallets and drilled it them to hold my screwdrivers on my bench on the other side of my stand from the handlebar setup. Then used a 6' sheet of 1x6 to build a caddy for lubricants and waxing stuff and mounted it to the far side. Finally getting my act together and trying to make things more orderly and manageable.

Wheels, Tires, Handle bars and Cranksets take up so much room around my place that I have run out of space to store them. My spring parts order just showed up and I have no choice but to start over on my parts storage system ( a never ending battle ). If I spent the amount of time that I do cleaning and organizing my shop on building bikes I would be all caught up by now.

Glenn

Like bikes and bike wheels, handlebars have an annoying high volume-to-displacement ratio.

Indeed. The next few days by mail will be delivered a Paramount, Raleigh International, Peugeot Comp frameset from Thrifty Bill, Bianchi Trofeo frameset from Robbietunes, and picking up a Voyageur tomorrow. Outbound are two frames. N+3

+1. If you group 5 or so bars or similar size and then (this is the key) tie them together, they seem much less unwieldy, at least in my experience. Lift the whole group, untie, grab the one you need, put bundle back on hook/shelf.

I was thinking about Running a wire or conduit across the shop ceiling and hooking the bars on the wire, overlapping each other. I figure this way it would take up much less space. I'm going to try it later, I'll post back with pictures if it works.

Got plumbing?



Bar storage is what I use the sprinkler system pipes in my storeroom at work for. Not sure if the fire marshal would approve, but you know bars ain't all that heavy.

It's actually on the second floor, but I imagine many basement shops have exposed plumbing just overhead. (In this pic, it's not a low ceiling, those two bikes are sitting up on a 4-foot high shelf.)

I have no handlebars.

@Lascauxcaveman that's basically what I was thinking, only more like this - there's 7 pairs of bars here taking up less than the width of two bars, there's even a rando drop hiding in there happy as a clam. I think something like this will work, maybe with a closet rod or 1x2 spaced 2-3" off a wall? I just need to fine-tune, I've got the scrap lumber for it.

Unfortunately, I'm below grade in the basement shop - I suspect a lot of us are subjected to the basement - so I can't necessarily run around drilling holes in foundation walls all over the place. Gonna hafta find some wooden wall space. Maybe over the shop bench.

I was thinking wine corks and hook eyes driven into them or old bar end caps with hooks. Held on a wire via shackles.

My workshop is in the basement so I hang them on the overhead joist braces. *I'm not tall enough to hit my head on them. *

I'll be honest, my sense of spatial imagination is total crap. I've got a huge vat of wine corks over here, but I'm having a hell of a time trying to picture what you mean.

Are you saying to toss hooks into corks, insert the cork into the bar end, then hang the bar up on a chain or wire using the hook?

This is probably another option - I have I-beam joists overhead. I could cut a 2x4 or 2x2 that would fit between the lips on the I beams, then hang 3-4 pairs per I-beam. I'd need a stepladder to reach them though, 9' ceilings in my basement.

Yes, try googling wine cork hookeyes

Got it. I use those eye hook things to hang the lights in my grow racks.

I thought you meant something open-ended like this or maybe with a beefier shaft to hold the weight of the bar like this.

I think you need closed hooks and schackles as the handlebars aren't hanging straight down when suspended from a single point.