Ever since I moved out, I’ve been keeping my two-bike fleet, Hyro and Bino, inside the living room of my house. While it’s a very safe location for the fleet, it’s also eaten into some interior space, no matter how narrow they are. It’s space my wife feels could be put to better use.
The house has a pretty secure service area where I wash laundry and hang it out to air-dry. It has high walls all around, but save for a couple of alcoves, most of it has no roof. I’ve tried storing my bikes there, with rain covers in case of downpours.
This has been, quite literally, a mixed bag.
While the rain covers do protect the bikes from the rain from above, they don’t do anything for moisture coming from below that pitter-patters upward as the raindrops hit the concrete floor. On Bino, especially, this has resulted in the development of some surface rust on the chain, as the drivetrain sits much lower on a small-wheeled bike. This rust is easily removed, but my point is the rain cover route isn’t as great a storage idea as it first sounds, as the bikes are still pretty exposed to the elements this way. The rain covers have since developed rips and tears, too, rendering them useless.
After adding a few new clotheslines, the service area seemed like viable bike storage again. Initially, my wife thought of hanging the bikes on something like the Minoura Bike Tower 10 that Steve of the Hands On Bike blog uses.
Steve’s Minoura Bike Tower 10 with two of his bikes hung from its cradles. Photo from handsonbike.blogspot.com.
As nifty as this is, it’s not quite going to work for our house. As a road/cross bike, Hyro is a bit too long; when hung like this, his length will partially impede the doorway when swung open.
This display of kids’ bikes at Gran Trail Cycles in Makati has the Velo Hinge set perpendicular to the wall, like a normal wall hook.
I thought – why not hang the bikes vertically from the wall, by their wheels? That seemed to make more sense. Hyro’s length is less of a problem when applied vertically.
Then I remembered that I’ve already seen a bike hook that could help maximize wall space: Feedback Sports’ Velo Hinge.
The premise of the Velo Hinge is instead of hanging bikes vertically along a wall so that they’re permanently perpendicular, the entire hook assembly can pivot, so it’s possible to lean the hung bikes over closer to the wall and flatten their profile. Ingenious.
Surprisingly enough, it’s locally available – and it’s not too bad at PhP1,100 apiece. I got mine from Gran Trail Cycles’ new location at 830 Arnaiz Avenue in Makati.
Velo Hinge all closed up.
Velo Hinge opened; it actually takes a bit of effort to do so. You can see the wheel bumper and hook inside.
You can test the mechanism for yourself on the shop floor. Feedback Sports used very minimal packaging and left the hook and hinge mechanisms for all to see and play with. In my hands, the hook is fairly free-moving, resting on the hinged front wheel panel for stability when deployed. The hinge assembly is reassuringly solid and takes a fair bit of effort to open and close. It does feel up to the job of supporting and swinging a bike hanging from it.
Each Velo Hinge is rated to carry one bike weighing up to 22.7 kg (50 lb), and Feedback Sports says it can be reconfigured to swing in either direction. My guess is this requires changing the position of the hook itself. It’ll be interesting to see how this works out in practice, although so far it’s been well-reviewed.
As of this writing, I haven’t mounted the Velo Hinge to my wall just yet. It comes with wood screws; if you plan on mounting it on a concrete wall, you’ll need masonry screws. I’m also taking my sweet time in finalizing just where I want it affixed, and how I want its pivoting action to work for my house. Once mounted, and after a few weeks of use, I’ll revisit this.
the accidental randonneur 