According to the UK Government’s National Travel Survey1 over 47% of us own a bicycle. CyclingUK, a charity supported by Her Majesty The Queen, say that ownership has increased in 2022 due to the pandemic2. This increase has been driven by more leisure time as well as a change in people’s priorities and their work-life balance. Add to this the emergence of new bikes, like electric bikes and gravel bikes, and the UK, along with most of Europe, has seen a massive growth in bike ownership.
That’s an awful lot of bikes and storing them is an on-going issue for most homeowners. People usually keep their bikes in their shed or garage, if they have one. For most families with children there may be 3 or 4 or more bikes to store and they often end up all leant up against each other. That not only means they stand a chance of getting damaged but people can’t get to the BBQ in the shed or park the car in their garage.
So where can you store bikes so that they are out of the way and protected from damage, especially if they are big heavy bikes, like ebikes?
One company claims to have solved this problem by hanging bikes on the wall using specially designed bike wall mounts.
Bike wall mount for 3 road bikes
Luis Prtak, founder of GearHooks explains that “most people keep everything on the floor which means that sheds and garages get full very quickly but people forget about the walls. If you can get stuff hung up, it clears the floor space so you can get into the area. It also stops expensive bikes getting knocked about and makes them easier to get out and ride”.
The company manufacture everything from a single bike hook to a wall bike rack for up to 6 bikes. All of them will take any bike frame size, from a child’s bike to an XL adult bike and even Tandems. The hooks hold the bike by the front wheel and they will accommodate any wheel size from 20” on commuter bikes to 29” on road bikes and mountain bikes.
Bike wall mount for 5 bikes
One of the biggest growth areas is in electric bikes. These allow people who have never cycled before, or who are unfit, to get into cycling without any distance, or hill, anxiety. Seasoned cyclists can just go much further, much quicker on an ebike. However, because of the electric motor and batteries, they are heavy and lifting them onto a hook on the wall can be back breaking.
The GearHooks individual hooks and racks are designed so that bikes can be hung vertically on the wall but you don’t have to lift them. You simple push the bike towards the wall, hold the brakes and step backwards which pulls the bike up onto its back wheel. You then release the brakes and roll the bike forwards until it hits the wall and you can then hook the front wheel.
Wall bike rack for ebikes
Luis explains that “the most popular products are the wall bike racks that take 3 or 5 bikes. They will easily accommodate 5 road bikes or 3 bigger bikes like mountain bikes. If you have more bikes than that then you can mount one rail above the other so that bikes overlap. That arrangement will take 6 bikes but you can mount racks next to each other for even more bikes”.
Each rack consists of a 1 metre long rail, available in a range of funky colours, that fits to the wall with just 3 heavy duty wall bolts. Between 3 and 5 bike wall hooks can then be fitted, and adjusted, with just an Allen key. If you ever need to add or move hooks, you don’t need to drill new holes.
The whole system is designed in North Wales and manufactured entirely in the UK. It is all designed for heavy duty use, indoors or outdoors, and comes with a Lifetime Warranty.
