Where do you keep your bike?
 

My work provides some space for bike parking. There's a few of us who ride, on a good day maybe 5 or 6 bikes out of a 300 person office. The bike parking is a parking space in the garage which is shared with the rest of the building, and is restricted access. No public parking allowed.

I was recently lucky enough to get a nice new carbon framed road bike. Not cheap... but a real pleasure to ride. Anyway, I'd love to ride it to work, but... I don't see it being locked in the garage for more than a few months before getting nicked. So I'm still riding my old steel framed beater to work every day...

So what I'm wondering is-
Does your work provide a safe place to keep bikes?
Have you had any issues with garage bike parking?
What alternatives have you found if no safe place is provided?

i work in a paper mill, the company supplies us with a bike rack out side, but i prefer to walk my bike into the mill and stash it under a steel staircase about 30' away from my work area. its never out of my sight and it would be very difficult for it to be hit or damaged where it is.
rob

My employer lets me keep my bike inside the workplace, so there's no need to worry about locking it up. If my bike does get nicked or scratched at work so be it, and as of now my bike has no noticeable scratches, nicks or dings.

I park mine on the bike rack at the Charbucks across from my work.

I ride a frankenbike Xtracycle, though, so I'm not particularly worried about nicks and scratches.

My employer lets me keep it in the breakroom. No one messes with it, and it is secure in the building.

I keep my bike locked up in a cage for county workers only. There's about 5 to 8 bikes in the cage depending on the day. The cage is also next to CSI building and also a block away from the Sheriffs department. The only way into the cage is with a pass. It's a high foot traffic area also. Bad thing is I've heard of people getting there bike stolen from inside the cage. That means they have to brake into the cage and then brake into the locked bike just to get a bike.

There's also about 8 box containers where you can put your bike into and then just lock the door from the outside. No one can see how your bike looks like but there all taken.

Next to the swimming pool and the hot tub. Not joking.

Mine leans against the wall about 6 feet away from me. It's in our operations room which is a secure are only accessible to the few of us that work in this room. The company premises are also high security (no public access) with cameras monitoring all entry/exists and the main corridors, all being recorded 24/7.

Of the 8 people that have access to my area 3 of us commute by bike, and the other 5 know that its a seriously bad idea to even think about messing with our bikes.

At my last job it was right outside my office door, just a few feet from my desk.
I now work at a bike shop and keep it in one of the display spaces on the showroom floor. :D

I used to keep it in the cube next to mine, but that got filled, so now it sits in the back of our receiving area. Suprisingly no one messes with it (we do a lot of pranks here) except for one guy who just rides around the office with it now and again, which I have no issues with.

I work on a college campus so bikes are stored, left, abandoned everywhere. They took away the bike racks last fall (moved them) to do some repairs and never put them back.

Now I just lean my bike against the wall right outside the front door in a high traffic area. Only someone 6'3" or taller could even get on my bike so the U-lock seems to be working...

We have bike racks here at work, but because my office has no windows and I can't see them, I asked my employer to let me keep it in my office. They were nice enough to say yes, so long as I made sure to clean up any mud or stuff I bring in.
I've kept my end of the bargin, they kept theirs:)

Bike rack in front of the security desk. Security guys know who I am, and that the bike is mine. Cameras are pointed to that location 24hrs/day.

I have a door from my office to the deck outside...so my bike gets parked on the deck, right outside the door.

I was lucky to find a bike rack on the first floor of an underground garage just down the street from my office. So it is out of the weather and doesn't seem to be disturbed. The only problem is that as gas gets more expensive and the weather gets better the rack fills up completely if you arrive late. I'm just beginning to explore possible storage options in the garage of our building. There are at least 3 bike commuters in the building (and its a small building) so it would have beneficial effects for a decent percentage of people.

Not wanting to park mine on the rack with 40 bikes tiny bikes at the K-8 school where I teach, I set it against a wall in a classroom that's only used afterschool. Kids have access to it for about 45 min before I leave but they are supervised and if they did mess with it this is a Catholic school so I can always get a nun to beat them :D

I work in the heart of Old Town, Alexandria, VA. Alexandria is a city of 170,000 people and about 5 minutes outside of downtown Washington. Fairly large. I work in a 6 floor building where my employer owns the building, and we have about 8 "tennants" that rent space from us. Total people in the building probably around 150, about 100 of which are employees of my company. The bike rack is in the garage in the basement of the building. It is secure, and closed to the public. You must posess a kastle keycard to get into the garage. Its pretty small, only about 25-35 parking spaces, one level. Im pretty much the only one who uses the bike rack there. Theres one other bike on it, but ive never seen it moved. I highly doubt anything would ever get stolen in there, nor my bike knicked. Its out of the way, and under a security camera too.

Sturdy bike rack in a (mostly) keycard accessible garage with cameras all over the place. I still use a U-lock and a cable lock. The U-lock lives on the rack.

I put my bike in the back of the equipment shop. It's out of the way and anyone hardly goes back there to get anything. I'm still debating with myself whether I should lock it up or not just to keep honest people honest. ;)

Mine currently sits in a utility room (houses some power panels and our building UPS) on the first floor. I'm one of about three people with keycard access.

Mine sits in a little-used section of our warehouse. I was offered to let it stay in my office, but I didn't like the clutter. After speaking with our warehouse manager and several of the employees down there, we found a nice, secure spot for it that's out of the way. If they need to move it, they do without worrying about me caring. I just appreciate them sharing their workplace with my bike.

I count myself lucky, it's nice to be able to keep the bike inside.

We have two bike racks in the parking garage of our building. Sometimes it gets a little tight with all the cars parked in front of the racks, but I manage to get by. DC requires all office buildings with car parking to provide bicycle parking as well.

My bike has a vacant cubicle to itself. Well, it shares the cube w/ the big birthing ball that the IT guy sits on when his back is acting up.

Mine's parked outdoors on the wheelchair ramp and locked to the steel handrail.

I know that's not cool from an accessibility standpoint, but the ramp is wide enough for a chair to get past without a problem. Nobody's complained yet. If the issue arises, I'll ask for a bike rack or to bring it inside.

I have a bike box in the city garage adjacent to my building. Costs me $5 a month, which is a bargain. Allows me the piece of mind to bring any of my babies.

Does your work provide a safe place to keep bikes?

new work place does not. the neighbor is not too good.

Have you had any issues with garage bike parking?

old work place had great parking in the garage near the attendant. no thefts on level 1

What alternatives have you found if no safe place is provided?

anymore, would bring into office.

There are city-provided bike ring things outside on the pavement, which have been reported as not-so-safe in the press (posted here too, I believe) - even though my bike is a cheapo thing, it's my only ride and I'd rather not risk leaving it outside all day - especially with the bike theft rate in this city. When I have no choice, I will use those rings.. better than nothing I figure.

I used to lock up under the back stairwell, but now I bring it upstairs into the office, and keep it in between my desk and an unused desk - the office manager warned me that it may have to go back outside if that space is needed, or if our department moves office, but for now I like the arrangement - especially during the colder months, it at least allowed the moisture/snow/ice to dry and not rust up so badly with all the road salt - plus it gives my legs that final push when I double-step the bike up the steps :) My co-workers are not the type to mess with my ride, I think they respect the personal property boundary there, and with me spending most of my time behind my desk anyway, I'm no more than a few feet away and in direct view behind my screens. Doing this also saves me the hassle of having to lock/unlock too, not a huge deal but convenience is handy.

We have plenty of spaces in our bike racks and they are in a covered part of the parking garage where there is no pedestrian traffic. People leave their lights, jackets, panniers, helmets, etc, attached to their bikes when they lock it up (no one even locks the front wheels up). That being said the guys who have the nice bikes take them up to their offices/cubicles or lock them to stairwell railings on the stair landings. If I am lazy I will bring my bike up into the cubicle with me rather than drag my lock out.

If you have a free wall in your office or cube area you could try hanging wall-mounted bike rack. This is what I did when I worked in a shared office.

We have access to the storage closets around here so I could stick my bike in there as well.

I found that I could fit a whole bike under my desk (it was a 50cm frame) if I took off both wheels and the seat post.

When I did have to lock it up outside I locked it up in front of my window so I could keep an eye on it. Took the front wheel in with me. Also wrapped the top tube with pipe insulation and hockey tape (or you could buy a fancy top tube protector) to avoid dings.

When I was at the local Schwinn office before they moved away, they had bikes up on the cubicle walls on display. Must have mounted wheel holders on the tops of the cube walls and/or had wire hooks attached to the ceilings. Can't remember the details but it looked real cool.

No bikes allowed in our building, and I couldn't get mine to fit in my shared office anyway. We have a shaded bike parking area that is supposedly monitored by campus police. They've reported catching two would-be bike theives in the act, so I guess it works. I haven't had any problems in a year of parking out there.

The funny thing is all the Magna, Next, comfort, and mountain bikes are locked up in the "official" bike parking area. We also have one motorized scooter and a recumbent bike that are locked up out there. The dorky commuters follow the rules. All the cool kids who ride the fixies and SS have to be rule-breakers and lock their bikes to the rails in the breezeway under the building.

Being the office manager, I can park my bike wherever I want. :D Seriously though, we have the clinic on one floor of an office building, and cubicle space for the clinical staff in the floor above. Right now, I keep my bike upstairs, as there's lots of little corners and nooks that work. I could keep my bike downstairs where I spend most of my day, but we let our clients bring theirs upstairs, as bike theft is a huge issue here. No one wants their bikes stolen, but our clients really can't afford to lose theirs, so I reserve the clinic space for them. I've got a lot of freedom within the agency structure to run the office the way I wish to, and so I can make it a bike friendly place, at least for parking. :)

We are in the midst of converting our client charts to electronic records. Once that happens, I am going to have lots of space to work with. I have plans for a "bike parking area" for staff and clients on the clinic floor. Our landlord seems to have no problem with bikes in the lobby and elevators. It's a 12 floor office builidng, and I see quite a few bikes coming and going throughout the day.