Jonathan Maus pointed out the bicycle amenities added to a condo conversion in Portland, OR that advertises "Central Bicycle Storage Room with Direct Outside Access."
That reminded me of The Bicycle Apartments in Bloomington, Indiana that I mentioned a couple of years ago. They still seem to market themselves as "a new kind of apartment concept" with units that are "specially designed to accommodate those people who do not own a motorized vehicle. Bicycles will be provided at the request of any adult resident."
I pay extra for a garage that I use as a storage unit and parking for the (currently) 11 bikes in my family (that number includes two review units, my son's old bike that I need to sell or give away, and my broken Centurion).
If you live in an apartment or other smaller development, what kind of bike storage and access features do you have?
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I have a garage for my bikes, currently 5 bikes in the garage and a ton of stuff stored in bins.
ReplyDeleteI live in a bachelor apartment and my bikes are kept in my apartment on a free standing rack.
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ReplyDeleteAn outside closet is what I have to store my commuter while I wait for my DC area condo to sell so I can buy a real home in the Greensboro, NC area. The rest of the stable is chained together under tarps on the patio.
Um, mine is locked outside, to a poll. My apartment is too small and my landlord too mean to park it in my building's back yard. But it'll do.
ReplyDeleteHa! My apartment is my bike storage. I have to haul the bike up a narrow and winding flight of stairs every time.
ReplyDeleteI live in a very small house...and the shed is full of bikes and lawn gear, so I have various strategically-placed tarps around the backyard under which a variety of bikes live.
ReplyDeleteOh, and there's one in the kitchen. My wife is none too happy about that.
Regrettably my apartment complex has no bike storage facilities, not even a rack. While I labor to carry my two bikes up and down the stairs to the second floor, my 70-year-old neighbor says she would like to ride but can't lift her bike.
ReplyDeleteMy contract entitles me to one covered parking space. I've thought of parking my car on the street and putting a bike locker like those at Caltrain in my space. Unfortunately the additional bikes I covet (say a Surly Big Dummy or a Bachetta sport recumbent) probably wouldn't fit in a locker anyway. Maybe some kind of heavy locking cage?
My building is attached to a multi-level parking garage, so I can ride in / ride out at my convenience. When feeling lazy, there's also an elevator that opens nearly directly onto street level. Since I live by myself, nobody complains about my two bikes in the living room and the storage closet full of bicycle gear. I don't have a workspace, though, which would be nice. Maybe I should get a utility rug and a work stand for the second bedroom...
ReplyDeleteBetween my gf and I, we have one bike in the bedroom (a new schwinn madison fixie), one in the dining room (my Raleigh retro-grouch bike with mustache bars and a brooks), two cruisers on the back patio (Amsterdams), two Dahon folders in the shed and two road bikes under a tarp, next to the shed. It's like a bike commune.
ReplyDeleteI park my bikes in my living room. My building has storage space in the garage, but someone stole one of my bikes out of it.
ReplyDelete...i pay for a small but very cool apartment in a old ' 20's house where i've lived for many years...
ReplyDelete...my landlord, who is also a friend, allows me to store several bikes in the basement & my road bike & cylo-cross bike accommodate me by letting me habitat w/ them in the apartment...
...i'm appreciative all 'round...
Sadly, our apartment doesn't have anything built in (but at least the door is on the ground floor). We have two Xtracycles stacked vertically with a free-standing rack in our living room, right behind the front door. We have three more road bikes in our storage unit in the common basement area. But we didn't just want to pile them into the unit--we wanted them to be accessible for riding. So to do that (and make more room in the storage unit) I installed some Thule fork mounts on one of the cross-beams. So the bikes are stored nearly vertically, with rear wheel on the ground and fork up in the air. Easy in and out.
ReplyDeleteMatt, that seems pretty clever. Any photos of your setup?
ReplyDeleteI often roll a bike inside just for overnight convenience, but my wife would never allow me to keep a bike stored indoors!
My son and I (the most frequent riders in the family) used to keep the bikes outside under a stairwell, but then the manager started enforcing the rule about personal items in common areas -- and to be honest, a lot of people were abusing the privilege and making the place start to look like a dump.
@Alison: I've thought about asking to have a bike storage box of some kind in my (rarely used) assigned parking spot!
I drag my 40-pound bicycles up to my third-floor apartment and moved the couch over to make space. My fiance keeps his bike in the kitchen for the winter because he doesn't use it much. He'd've brought it over to his parents' house but we don't have a car so he still needs it sometimes.
ReplyDeleteWe'd keep them locked up on the bike rack provided by the landlord, but we live in campus party central so they tend to get messed with on the rack.
Our building is made up of 2 flats and a studio. The flats share the garage that takes up (almost) the entire ground floor. The couple in the other flat live on their bikes, so between the two flats we currently have 15!!!!!! bikes- hanging from hooks on the wall, hanging from pulley systems in the ceiling, littering the floor... we have all agreed to keep the huge garage a bike only zone and thus have storage and work space. I am very aware of my great good fortune.
ReplyDeleteThankfully I live in the midwest where the cost of living is relatively low. My roommate and I share the upper of a 3 bdr duplex and the smallest bedroom is full of bicycles, computers, and some other junk. If I add to my stable, I will probably get some sort of vertical wall racks (freestanding so I don't lose my security deposit) just for ease of access.
ReplyDeleteI don't want my bicycles outside even under a tarp and will always try and compensate for 'bicycle space' inside when looking for a place to live.
I kinda wish I had a garage tho so I could get some larger bikes like tandems, trikes, and xtracycles.. but I would NOT want to carry those sorts of bikes up stairs and thru the doorways.
Two bedroom apartment in Redondo Beach, CA, my roommate's bike is on the tiny patio and gets pretty dusty. My two are inside leaning against the wall for easy access. I'd love to get fancy with some wall mounts, but the landlord might not like that. Also my mountain bike is sitting in the first floor parking garage waiting to be sold (unfortunately things tend to get stolen from down there if left unattended for too long).
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