Yeah I have to say no to the grid/wheel bender type. They are all over A&M and there are always damaged bikes in them. From what I have noticed though is that the wave racks that the campus ha no body knows how to uses them and they get over filled to where you have a cable lock running a whole 4-6ft loop to just tie it to the rack in some places. Yet they put to notices on bikes when they don't have enough racks.

I really wish they had those sheffield stands, inverted U or the one mentioned above where a bar goes above the bike and has drop down supports.

These hoops have all the functionality of the Scheffield type and they're a little more interesting.
My BAC recommended similar, simpler hoops to the City and there are quite a few around now.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...oprack-480.jpg

I work for a small outfit, and would not think of asking my employer to shell out for a rack when the flagpole out front works just fine. I work in a fairly low-crime suburb, and my "keep 'em honest" security sysem is sufficient.

My fav is the car-shaped one posted above..... :D

We have a lot of inverted U around here, i feel very confident locking my bikes to them.
Never have used sheffield stands, never seen one, but they look good.
I love art racks, we have one here at the post office of a cyclist and a few more around town.

I don't like waves, too sloppy, and people rarely lock up to them correctly.
Don't like the grid system, well i do and i don't, usually i tend to see junkier bikes in those racks because they find it easier to park into, so they leave the better and proper racks free.

The bike shop i go to has a grid rack outside, but in all reality it is a small area and it works for what it is. But i just wheel my bike right into the shop anyways and lean it on the counter hahaha

like everybody has said... grid SUCKS

wave is fine, but they could make it better by having taller waves and having the bottom wave closer to the ground

my personal favorite is just a street sign post. it's the simplest and allows lots of freedom on how to position your bike

I absolutely hate these racks, almost as much as Grids.
The loops are too high up to lock with Sheldon technique (rear wheel and frame thru U lock).
And if your bike has cargo racks you can't even back it into those slots anyway.
Which leaves you with the 2 end columns to use; but they're angled which limits things.

Don't forget to consider the "lollipop shaped" bike hitch; single post with a ring and "t" cross bar.
Dero Bike Hitch is a good examples. These work well and can be placed in just about any spot, easy
to create bike parking if there is not much open area.

Grid style is horrible. If you have fenders and the sides are already taken you can't ulock your frame, or at least I haven't established a way to.

Wave style is the way to go. Plus it really ought to be cheap. How expensive can curves steel pipe be? The racks also require that you cement them down. Most grid bike racks I see are either:
* Not bolted down and never have been
* Were bolted down until the bolts rusted through.

Also, I often see grid racks in sizes that won't fit a 700c wheel. These are obviously intended for childrens bikes but are often installed to the exclusion of racks to fit adult bikes. When you see bikes at them they're usually adult bikes locked up in some odd way.

With the exception of some of the bollard styles, some of the U shaped styles and some of the styles in the pics people have posted here I have yet to find a bike rack my recumbent can easily be locked to.

My favorite rack is anything that gives me a horizontal bar, slightly higher than handlebars. I lift my front wheel and put my shifters over the bar (this is a road bike I'm talking about). Then I lock it up with a cable lock (I don't make any U-lock necessary visits -- lucky me).

This way I don't have to lean my nice bike against any vulgar, paint-scraping steel.

That being said, I still think the art racks are the way to go. A college campus is a reasonable hip community (even the land-grant ag schools). They'll figure it out, or word will get out. You can't keep a secret on a college campus!

Grid style is OK by me. It's what I grew up with. Its great virtue is that it can hold a lot of bikes in a small space. We visit Ocracoke Island during the summer. There are a lot of bikes there, and no rental cars. If businesses had the modern style racks, there would not be enough bike parking.

Locking is fine if you don't have a quick release. As for the alleged wheelbending, it hasn't happened to me in 50 years of cycling

Paul

The two bikes we had stolen (GF & I) were nowhere near high-end. Hers was a single speed, beach cruiser, and mine was an old Scwinn, hybrid that weighted at least 40 lbs. Hers was locked, mine was not.

Here are the City of Portland's bicycle parking guidelines:
http://www.portlandonline.com/transp...=58409&c=34813

Grid racks are horrible! Whatever you do, don't go with grid racks! They are easily disassembled or even hauled away with the bikes still locked to it! They only allow for the front wheel to be locked so you can kiss the frame and back wheel of your bike "bye-bye"! Grid racks need to be done away. Period. :twitchy:

Go with the inverted "U" racks or Wave racks properly spaced and placed near entrances of buildings. :thumb:

Good news everyone.

I relayed all your excellent information to my boss and he has presented it also in his Admin. meetings as well. I'm pushing for either the upsidedown U design or the Sheffield rack, and we're pricing steel pipe to have our own machine shop do the building. As it's happened, I have a direct say in the eventual design that we'll end up with. Even if the material and labor costs are the same, we're going to have our own shop build them, so that they can be more easily altered to size, length, color and future preference. There are a couple of things that differ between the majority of suggestions and what they are willing to do, but the general ideas are moving forward.

-I should clarify that we're NOT replacing any existing 'grid' or 'low oval' racks at this point, just adding
new racks.

-Also, rather than cementing the racks down, they want to weld them to rails in 10 bike (5 hoop) sections so that they can be moved around in the future. Perhaps bolted down in a few spots for security.

-We'll most likely powder coat them black.

-30 in. between hoops, to allow for two bikes per hoop to be easily parked.

-Hoops will be 36 in. tall.

Right now the options that we're looking at are as follows:

- 12 inch radius 2" pipe 180 degree "U" welded to vertical pipe for a rack that stands 36" tall and 24
inches from pole to pole.

OR

- 6 inch radius corners with a 5 inch tangent on the top side (requiring an additional weld at the top,
making for a more square look and an overall length a bit shorter at 22 inches from pole to pole, and
also 36" tall.


Since the hoops are going to be sitting on rails, the narrower design (22") with a straight 10 in. section on top may be easier to straddle with the wheelbase. I don't like the idea of having to park either too far forward or too far back in order for your wheels not to be sitting up on the ~1 inch rail. Is 22" from vertical pole to pole enough to adequately lock most bikes???

Any other suggestions would be appreciated, as long as it follows our preliminary design and and the abilities of our quite capable machine shop. Thanks again.

-Jeremy

I like this style. Best of the wave and hoop design. Compact and secure.

http://www.madrax.com/Default.aspx?t...=a&ProductID=2
http://www.madrax.com/Portals/0/images/circa2.jpg

Trani
 

The rack in the pic caused a huge stir in Trani (Italy) because of ruining the aesthetics of the cathedral and was finally removed. Here in southern Italy people still prefer to lock bikes to traffic signs or fences or trees, or everywhere you can put an eye on while doing your businesses.

I hadn't the chance to try it (it was removed too quicly) so i can't tell if it was lock-wise functional, but I kind of liked the design.

Thing is that in Italy we can't really mess with the religious authorities, if they want the rack removed...

Hey Folks!

I'm happy to report back to you that after reviewing all of your feedback and talking to our machine shop we decided on an in-house built standard upside-down "U" design welded to two 10 ft. lengths of channel. Once we got the material (Rigid electrical conduit and elbows) the welders were able to toss them together within a day or so and we hauled the new rack off to the powder-coater for a nice green finish. The final product looks great (I think) and as you can see in the picture on it's first full day of service, it was quite popular. 3 mopeds were cabled to the ends of it, and a few bikes in between.

Again, I want to thank all of you for your helpful advice and suggestions. I'm hopeful that the administration will approve of this design and it will actually become the new standard across campus. Time will tell.

-Jeremy

Here's a picture:

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2..._1411small.jpg

Can you estimate the cost for the construction?

On a side note, while it is not official yet, if it ever does become such you want to bury it under concrete.

Not sure what the labor charge will come to, but the material was a couple hundred, the powder-coating turned out to run 250 (uhg), I'd guess total with labor around $800. The welder whipped it out in very little time, and next time will be even quicker.

We had found a place in CA that was willing to build a similar rack for around 650/700 but it was being sold unpainted, so the added expense of this one was all in the powder-coating which was really necessary. Plus, there likely would have been significant shipping charges involved to get rack from that shop up in the SF area.

As far as burying it in concrete, unfortunately it was all I could do to convince them that it was necessary to bolt it down. With the amount of changes we go through on campus, they're wary of permanent anything. In the picture the rack isn't even bolted yet, and likely won't be for another week or two while they decide if this is an appropriate place for it to be used. It weighs around 200 lbs though, and would be difficult to walk off with dragging 3 mopeds in tow. You have to realize that even just sitting there with a few bolts holding it down it will be the most secure bike parking on campus, and although we do occasionally have theft problems, it doesn't seem to be huge problem.

-Jeremy

Oh I am very aware that thing is not going to walk off, I was more recommending it for aesthetics. I forgot to complement you by the way.

My university managed aesthetics by moving them a few feet off the concrete and letting the dirt and grass manage. However, since they where not connected to a good foundation several of them are now leaning.

speaking of concrete...
Here's a crazy idea, what if those tubular conduits were pumped full of concrete? That would make them pretty much impossible to cut through right? The concrete would destroy any blade that grinds thorough the metal layer.

Just thinking about this seeing as how I've seen a rack that had been cut to steal a bike from it apparantly...

I hate the grid racks. Luckily my college has woken up and decided to replace them with a style that seems much more workable. I don't know what they are called, but they kind of look like a row of fat coat hangers welded onto an outer frame. You can get the bikes right underneath that outside frame and U-lock at several angles, and the racks are being bolted down into concrete.

They're also repositioning the racks so they are in higher foot-traffic areas and I think that should deter theives. Not that we seem to have too much of a problem - there's a Jamis Coda with a cheapie cable lock (that half the time only goes through the front wheel!) that's still around. I know this because I like to park next to it :)

I don't do the full front-wheel-off lockup as my bikes both have old and crappy wheels and brakes that are a pain in the neck to release/put back (and the Raleigh doesn't have QR skewers, it has an oddball metric size nut!). I'm more concerned about the frames. But yeah, that Coda makes me shake my head.

This! This is the new rack design on my campus. Someone mentioned not liking the style with the big rings because it's too hard to lock the rear wheel, but the triangles seem to take care of that problem. They are wide enough at the base that they reach from fork to midway between seatstay and rear hub.

the rack i use at work has a row of upside down U's all welded to a base. seems like that would be convienient cause you wouldnt be able to take it apart but you can still move it around if you need to.
i guess someone with a big pickup truck could come and take the whole thing.
i've seen these newer style racks that look like an elogated Pi symbol, its hard to explain but i guess they are designed so you can set the frame in a little cradle, covered in rubber to prevent scratches, and then easily be able to lock the frame and either front or back wheel with one U-lock. its funny though because every store and restaurant in the area has them but nobody rides there.

http://schlicken.blogsome.com/images...illusion_1.jpg

OK, I know this set up is supposed to look like something cool when seen from the side. But what? I assume it is a bicycle? Got a link that shows the optical illusion?

I see wheels, rear triangle, front fork, seat and handlebars, but what is the far triangle on the right supposed to be, top tube?

I'm fortunate enough where I work to have bike lockers (such as shown below). I'm sure it's not in the budget, but they're great. Very safe and shield your bike from the elements.

http://www.ameribike.com/catalog/bik...-photo-sml.jpg