Now there are 2 bike commuters in 1200 employees. Today I had to drive, and when I was headed out to go home saw a Surly LHT in MY spot on the rack!

But he doesn't ride as early as I do, so I can get my spot back tomorrow morning...

Funny, isn't it? We have a large bike rack at work and in the summer months it's usually full... but I feel a little out of sorts if I can't lock up in my usual spot. As if it was any different from any other spot. :-D

I have my "own" spot at certain stores I visit. When I see it taken I'm like that's my spot even though I know it's not. I have back-up spots just for those situations. I rarely park my bike in the bike rack at most stores since many are either filled, hard to lock up my bike, provide no support for my bike, or located in a spot that may make it easier for someone to jack something or jack the bike. I prefer parking my bike by a sign post (not a stop sign) somewhere in the parking lot near the entrance of a store.

Does the spot have your name on it?
Bit possessive aren't you?!

A few summers back I was working a regular kitchen closing shift, which meant that I generally showed up too late to grab a spot at the sole bike rack, so instead I adopted a "No Parking Loading Zone Only" sign as my spot. Then one day I show up and there's a crappy Mike's Hard Lemonade branded, X-mart full suspension POS in my spot. No biggie, except that it turned out to belong to my fellow closing cook, Tim.

I hated Tim, and I am not using that word lightly; so deep had my hate for Tim become during the two months that we worked together, it had undermined my most basic respect for the sanctity of human life. That is, if the societal repercussions for homicide had disappeared, I would've gleefully bludgeoned Tim to death by jamming his fat, lazy head in the door of the walk-in fridge and then slammed the door closed on his moronic melon over and over while screaming "WILL <slam> YOU <slam> READ <slam> YOUR <slam> TICKETS <slam> NOW <slam> MOTHER******?" Or maybe just fed him face first into the mechanical slicer.

Anyway, it turned out that Tim was as much of a wimp as he was incompetent and lazy. After riding the bike that his boyfriend gave him all the way (3 miles) to work, he decided that it hurt his butt too much (this coming from a guy who regularly engaged in anal sex) and called his bf for a ride home. And then left his bike locked up in my spot. For the next two weeks.

Finally the kitchen manager came back from maternity leave and fired Tim for being the useless lump of **** that he was. After he had been gone for a couple of days, I borrowed a set of bolt cutters from a friend and snipped his bike lock, then rolled his bike out of my spot and over to an unoccupied parking meter. It disappeared after two weeks; I don't know whether it was stolen or confiscated by the city, and I didn't care. I had my spot back.

The Canuckistani judge scores this rant...

^^^
Woohoo!

Seriously though, I'd been parking at that sign 5 days a week for several months, and then my most hated co-worker ganked it and abandoned his bike in my spot. I still get a bit steamed when I think about it, and about the entire Tim situation, even though the kid got fired. So much wasted aggravation...

And the Australian Assistant Judge adds a quarter point for making him smile and laugh out loud.

I've got to remember the fridge door slamming next time I've got to get the point across to some numbskull.

My parking spot is in my office. If I came to work and found another bike there, I'd be very concerned. HAhHAhahaa

I keep my Kryptonite locked to my spot on the rack. Woe to the person who takes my spot. However, they would have to be a pretty early riser because I get to work about 7:15 am and most people here don't show up until much later.

That's an awesome rant, you are my Hero of the Day!

Same for me; parking place is right next to my desk. Still, have to give GriddleCakes the award for the Rant of the Day!

Rick / OCRR

If I were still at the job with the outside bike rack, I'd have it all to myself for the next five months. Other riders never got their bikes out until April or May. It was aggravating to see MY spot taken, or crowded, after riding all winter. (The rack is 12 feet long; can you park a foot further away from MY end of the $1*n(# rack!?!)

Now, as soon as the weather clears up, my bike will be comfortably parked in my office!

+1

I'm in the habit of parking my bike in the same spot in the bike cage all the time. Even though this time of year I'm the only one in there, I still park about 5 bike lengths from the door. Even if I didn't leave my lock there permanently I'd probably still keep going back to that spot.

I've got it personalized. By the time I get to school, especially if I've been wearing the respirator, my nose will need a good blowing. So along the fence there are all these round dark spots of dried .... exhaust. Also all the stuff that drips off my bike as it warms up.

At home I park in a packed bike room, making it difficult to get in and out, and usually have to move bikes to the side to fit mine in. Whenever I finally find a good spot that is easy to get into and out of, I get to use it for about 2 weeks before someone new moves in while I am at work, and locks their bike there and never, ever, moves it. Then I'm back to spending 2-3 minutes just trying to lock or unlock my bike to a rack, and it is months before a new good spot opens up.

I want to make a rack just for daily commuters, since there are only 4-5 of us. But I bet people will use it anyway saying "I'm going to commute" and quitting after one day. Ultimately I'll have to lead an effort to eliminate the abandoned bikes like we did 5 years ago.

Mine is the office next to mine. If I see another bike there I'm going to make sure it's not GriddleCakes before I complain.

That would totally warp the fridge door and it won't seal right any more. And yeah, that was a great rant.

An LHT in your spot? This could get serious.

I can't tell you how stoked I'd be if I showed up at work and there was a bike in my spot.
That would double the number of bicycle commuters at my workplace.

I am like a couple of others here and that I leave my 3 Kryptonite U locks and one cable locked to the bike rack where I park my bike so that no one else takes my spot. I am not a big fan of change.

I leave my U-lock on the rack during the week. Even so, I sometimes find a bike parked there. Yes, I do think of it as "my spot," but I don't expect anyone else to know that. If the spot is occupied, I remove my lock and park elsewhere. For me, leaving my lock there isn't a way to claim my spot. It's a way make sure I have a lock when I get there, regardless of which bike I'm on.

This is my M.O. too.* I also park on the far side of the rack from the entrance to the bike cage at work so that there is plenty of room for people to easily get in and out. People with smaller bikes are able to easily park on that side of the rack, but with a large frame, fenders, racks, I can't really get my bike too deep into the rack and it sticks out quite a bit, which is even worse with my tourer and it's long rear triangle. A lot of times I'm the only commuter in the cage, at least on my shift (I work nights) but I still do this because I want it to be as convenient as possible for anyone else who is riding to encourage them to continue to do so!

At home I've converted my car parking space into a bike rack with one of those German military surplus bike racks. I think it's a fiberglass torpedo travel case cut in half. There's about room for two cars in the underneath the apartment building parking for each of the units that have it, but we don't own a car anyway. I tried to get the landlord to knock a little money off our rent and offer it to someone else in the building who parks in the lot out back when we moved in but he wouldn't go for it. I don't think he wanted to deal with the logistics of assigning it to someone else or offering it up to folks in the building, it's a small building but managed by a big company. Lately, as often as not the bike I am riding comes upstairs with me for maintenance or some tinkering as I am still kitting out a new build. There it joins my girlfriends bikes taking up half the living room!

* Although, to tell truth, lately I've given up on taking my lock to and from work even twice a week to have it there. Since I park in a locked bike cage and at most there are less than a half dozen other commuters and often only me, I'm not worried about them stealing either of my 15-20 year old mountain bikes weighed down with all manner of Fred paraphernalia! I don't bother pulling my lights off there either, and often leave my helmet with its lights hanging off the handlebars too. The layout of the cage (it was added as an afterthought to one corner of a parking garage structure) sucks with a sidewalk running through the part of it where you need to maneuver your bike to the racks farther back and there is lots of half abandoned cabinets and construction supplies in the area, but I'm finally starting to warm up to the other conveniences of parking in the cage.

We have a heated, locked bike room at work. During the summer months, I'm the only regular commuter (*every* day is "regular" to me), but there are 4-5 other semi-regulars (oddly all but 1 work in IT with me). There is one prick who rides periodically and is the only other guy who rides in the winter who consistently leaves the door ajar when he takes his bike out or puts it in. I really appreciate it when my bike is the only one in the room and I find the door unlocked from when he left.

He puts up a wanted ad every year or so for an "under $50 bike" and keeps his low end studded tires from bike to bike. He's riding a red/black Triumph at the moment with a chain that makes me cry a little. One of these days when I find the door unlocked I'm going to throw his bike off the edge (5 story car park is part of our building). He also randomly chooses a different position in the room for his bike, which annoys me, but isn't as big of a deal as leaving the door open.

He also rides without lights and arrives before I do (it's dark when I get here in the winter).

I'll loan you a hack saw. Hell, I'll come help you.