What do you think of this bike rack design?

Hey folks, I designed this as part of a uni project, just wondering what you think of it?

Would you consider buying it if it went on sale?

I'd imagine it'd be around the £15-20 mark...

no because it will scratch the saddle :P

I'm probably being thick, but how does it work?

'Rack' is misleading; it is to hang your bike off a wall.

Probably not, cos unless you have it right in the corner of a room, your bike's dirty wheels stick right out.

Ah!

I see what you mean. Less confused now.

Have you thought about adding a lock module to it? A simple chain would do I guess. The only reason I'm saying it is because I can't imagine anyone buying it for their house, but I can easily see them being used in a bike storage facility somewhere, e.g. university

^this
If you could lock frame and wheels i'd use it on the street

I'd like to see how it worked with bars with shifters (MTB) and cables (road) and fittings for gps, etc

Good idea, but wouldn't work on quite a few bar designs, such as mine (I reckon).

no because it will scratch the saddle :P

how?? what?

'Rack' is misleading; it is to hang your bike off a wall.

Probably not, cos unless you have it right in the corner of a room, your bike's dirty wheels stick right out.

yeah but it's better than the wheels touching the wall,
it could be used in garages, sheds etc?

Have you thought about adding a lock module to it? A simple chain would do I guess. The only reason I'm saying it is because I can't imagine anyone buying it for their house, but I can easily see them being used in a bike storage facility somewhere, e.g. university

good idea, i will look into it for the mk2

I'd like to see how it worked with bars with shifters (MTB) and cables (road) and fittings for gps, etc

well it's only about 200mm wide, so it would touch either side of the stem, before it gets to the shifters etc, on mtb riser bars, it would probably be touching the rising bit, rather than the flat parts of the bars

Good idea, but wouldn't work on quite a few bar designs, such as mine (I reckon).

haha you're right there, but the majority of people have flat, riser or drop bars, all of which would work :)

Have you actually tried to imagine how someone would get a bike in that position?! I suggest everyone tries it at home. It's quite difficult as you have to be one side or the other of it, or flip it onto the back wheel and sort of shuffle around it. Then to get it into the hook you have to lift it up, but you can't do that easily without grabbing the fork or something to stop the bars flopping.

You won't be able to hold the rear brake so if the bike is balancing on the rear wheel at any point when you stand to the side, it will tend to roll away from you. Also you can not place more than one hanger side by side without a large gap between to do the above shuffling, and to remove the bike.

The design that hooks the front wheel on the wall at head height addresses all of the above, and it's compatible with almost any bike that has a front wheel. It's quite easy to do, even with a bad back or a heavy bike because you remain behind and close to the bike at all times. In contrast this design will fit just a few types of handlebars and will be difficult to use.

What exactly are you trying to improve on with this? Perhaps you should consider a refinement of the front wheel hook system instead?

Also I just remembered - if you lock the back wheel with a toe strap almost any bike will sit against the wall in this position without a hook...

it's not at all hard, i've done it myself:
you hold the downtube and one side of the bars and just lift it on...

it won't just "fit a few types of handlebars," as far as i can tell it will fit every bike apart from ones with rising moustache-type bars.

the reason i designed it like this was because every other rack type thing causes the wheels or pedals to touch and usually mark/damage the wall. it takes up the same amount of space as the front wheel hook design you're talking about except you can use it in any room without the worry of dirtying your walls

I have several bikes. some which would'nt work because of bar shape. I use the wall mount that hooks the front wheel. The problem is that with limited ceiling height. I have to have all the bars in line. Which takes more wall space. Two of those would allow me to alternate between tyres in , and bars in.

I'd add plastic saddle covers though. I have some light coloured saddles.

I think the advantage of not having dirty wheels mark the walls is negated by the fact that the wheels are likely to dirty you every time you walk past, I reckon you'd end up scratching the walls with the handlebars as well, you're not going to be able to offer the bars up perfectly flush every time

I have found with bike hooks that you can have several in a row [as I do] and 'top and tail' your bikes alternating front and back wheels on the hooks which creates a more compact solution, you wouldn't be able to do that with a bar mounted design

not pissing on your chips or owt, just observations

No, I wouldn't buy it.
It's so much easier to use the mount that hooks the front wheel.
It also looks better on the wall as you don't get to look at the dirty wheels and underside of the bike.
It looks ok on your photo - flat bars without any brake, but i guess you'd struggle with anything else than that (drops with levers).
You should photograph it with different types of bikes/handlebars to demonstrate how it works.

It wouldn't work with any of my bikes. 2 technically, and 1 from the type of bike.

On the road bike, the hoods stick up and would push the bars away from the wall.

On the touring/cross bike, the Rohloff shifter would push one side of the bars an inch from the wall. The cables from that may get in the way, but if it did fit then the front wheel would then be at angle and put the whole bike at an angle. Also... that bike is heavy... all the weight is in the hubs so your rack better be strong.

On the mountain bike the side exposed to the room will be the muddy and filthy side. I wouldn't want to display the underside of the BB on the 29er to anyone.

All that said, aesthetically the rack is really nice. And it would work for a lot of bikes (but not all).

A mix of front wheel holding racks and this rack would allow wall mounting of quite a few bikes in a much denser way than is currently possible.

So I think this is a good concept and should be pursued... but mostly in taking an existing wheel mount rack and extending it to offer alternating wheel and bar holders so that you might increase storage density.

Struggling to see how this will hold a bike fitted with cross tops.

thanks for the comments everyone :)
i'm not trying to say it's perfect, i put it on here to get people's opinions so i will take on board what y'all have said.

@ada: it's not as easy as getting photos of it with different bikes. i've had to model the rack and the entire bike in solidworks (3D design software). those aren't photos, they took several days to make haha.

so to improve it: maybe make the hook parts further away from the wall and a bit closer together? that way it would touch very close to the stem to avoid all levers etc, and being a bit further from the wall would stop any protruding bits/levers/mounts from touching the wall?

Ah, we're all critics. I think you're done well to bring a new concept so far.

Could a single hook shaped like a two-pronged fork not do it universally?

@ada: it's not as easy as getting photos of it with different bikes. i've had to model the rack and the entire bike in solidworks (3D design software). those aren't photos, they took several days to make haha.

yeah, i know that these are not 'real' photos
i was thinking that you have produced at least one real model of rack to try it out

try something, as others suggested, that'd be hooking the front wheel
there's definitely a market for a nice looking bike wall mount

Ah, we're all critics. I think you're done well to bring a new concept so far.

Could a single hook shaped like a two-pronged fork not do it universally?

yeah it would do the same, just i thought this would look better, and it's a bit easier to mount a flat plane than to attach separate hooks to the wall

yeah, i know that these are not 'real' photos
i was thinking that you have produced at least one real model of rack to try it out

try something, as others suggested, that'd be hooking the front wheel
there's definitely a market for a nice looking bike wall mount

nah i havent actually produced it at all, this is all still just on a computer. it was a project at university so i thought i'd stick it up on here just to get some different points of view, which i definitely have!

It's shit, next.

um, die?

i've got a few other ideas, i will show y'all at some point to get some more feedback :)

I saw a couple of bikes mounted in a similar way in someone's house in Birmingham either side of their fireplace, looked really nice, although I didn't pay attention to the mounting method.

good idea, and I think with few improvements it could work.
keep it up either way.

Looks pretty cool to me!

Of what material is it made?

Mechanics aside, if you want to charge £15 for it, I think you'll have to make it look a bit nicer. Look at the forms and radii of curves used in modernist and functionalist product design. It's entirely possible to make it look ten times better, whilst still being discreet (it's only a wall hook, after all, not a centrepiece to a room!) and keeping the manufacturing costs the same.