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If you own a bike, you’ve probably had to give some thought to storage. Bikes take up a big amount of space and can be awkward to put away. And while keeping your bike outside might feel like the easiest solution, there are a lot of benefits to storing it indoors. Keeping your bike locked up outside (and uncovered) in the sun, rain, and wind can lead to rusty components — not to mention the dirt and grime that naturally collects over time. If you don’t have a garage, you’re going to need a bike rack. Simply leaning a bike against a wall can crowd your space, lead to scuff marks, and cause other interior-design frustrations. Luckily, there are plenty of options to streamline your bike storage — many of them both inexpensive and drill free. That’s right: You don’t have to touch that drywall if you don’t want to. To find the best mounted bike racks, tension poles, and floor stands, I tested stands at home and asked nine experts — including avid cyclists, bike mechanics, and bike-store employees — about the ones they recommend for every type of indoor space. I also combed through our cycling archives to surface any standouts we’ve written about before.
What we’re looking for
Wall-mounted versus freestanding
According to Andrew Crooks of NYC Velo (a bike shop that has been operating in the East Village since 2005), the best bike racks are one of three kinds: wall mounts, floor stands, or tension poles that reach from floor to ceiling, with the two latter styles requiring no wall drilling to install and better suiting those who move a lot or like to change up their décor. We’ve included expert recommendations for all three types, including minimalist and maximalist options — because while some may wish to make their vintage Schwinn a living-room focal point, others may wish to simply save as much space as possible between rides. We included options that hang bikes by both their wheels and their frames.
If you think you want to store your bike on a hook or wall mount, all of our experts remind us that the higher you put it, the more effort it will take to hang up your bike and take it down. So if your bike is superheavy, it may be better to position the hook or mount lower. Crooks adds that any mount or hook designed to hold a bike is only “as safe as the wall you’re mounting it to,” so it’s worth double-checking that your walls have studs, beams, or something stronger than drywall as an anchor.
Single versus multiple bikes
If you’ve got multiple bikes in the house or just a burgeoning collection of your own, it makes sense to invest in a storage solution that will accommodate at least two sets of wheels. We looked for wall mounts and floor stands for single and multiple bikes, including a surprisingly sleek six-bike option.
Scratch protection
The process of storing your bike on a daily basis can be a little arduous for both you and the bike — particularly its frame and spokes. Because bumps and bangs can lead to damage or just annoying little paint scratches, we’re recommending wall mounts and floor stands that protect your precious rims with materials like rubber, vinyl, and foam padding.
Best bike mount overall
Storage type: Wall mount (front wheel) | Bike accommodation: Single bike | Scratch protection: Vinyl coating
While floor stands are easier to install (we’ve got plenty of them further down on this list), a majority of our experts — five to be precise — told us that Park Tool’s inexpensive, minimalist seven-millimeter steel hooks are the best way to store a bike. “Sometimes the best choice is the simplest solution,” explains cyclist and outdoors writer Morgan Tilton, who uses the one of these hooks to vertically hang her 29-pound Specialized bike by the front wheel in the corner of her bathroom (because the hooks are coated in vinyl, she doesn’t worry about the rims getting scratched). Using two hooks, she says, you could hang a bike by both wheels from the ceiling. The brand says the hooks can be installed into ceiling joists, wall studs, or any piece of wood that can support the weight of a bicycle. Vincent Cabrera, the service manager at Tuned in Brooklyn, prefers the wall. “It’s the best option, especially if you put the hooks into a two-by-four and then mount that piece of wood onto your wall,” Cabrera says.
Ben Sawyer, a mechanic at Maine’s CycleMania bike shop, agrees that they do the job for storing almost any type of bike. Thomas Dunn, the founder and owner of the Hilltop Bicycles stores in New York and New Jersey, calls them “the cheapest and simplest” way to store a bike.
Best adjustable bike mount
Storage type: Wall mount (front wheel) | Bike accommodation: Single bike | Scratch protection: Rubber coating
For a little more customization, here’s an only slightly more expensive wall-mounted bike-storage solution. The Delta brand came up numerous times in our reporting, with two of our experts recommending this hinged wall rack that allows you to swing your bike inward or outward on the wall once it’s hung. The vertical mount is secure, minimal, and safe, according to Thomas Dunn of Hilltop Bicycles, with NYC Velo’s Andrew Crooks adding that the ability to shift your bike a little makes it a really good option especially for people maneuvering around small apartments. For that reason, he says it’s the bike mount his shop recommends the most. Like the Park Tool hook, this has a rubber coating to protect your bike’s finish.
Best rack for two or more bikes
Storage type: Wall mount (front or rear wheel) | Bike accommodation: Two or more bikes | Scratch protection: Rubber coating
Rubbermaid’s FastTrack storage system is a solid option for cyclists who want to hang multiple bikes and want the ability to customize their storage. (Rubbermaid makes a 15-piece storage system that comes with four rails and 11 hooks.) Christopher Ick, a cyclist and CRCA athlete based in Brooklyn owns multiple bikes and says that this is the way to store the most bikes in the smallest amount of space, because the system allows you to alternate the way you hang each bike on the hooks by fitting the back wheels of one bike next to the handlebars of another. The FastTrack system requires drilling into wall studs — drywall anchors alone likely won’t hold the weight of multiple bikes. “It’s definitely a more involved installation,” Ick says, “but that stacking combo saves on tons of space.”
Best floor stand
Storage type: Freestanding (top tube) | Bike accommodation: Two bikes | Scratch protection: Adjustable padded hooks, rubber bottoms
If you rent your home or aren’t the DIY type, it’s totally possible to find floor stands that (aside from their assembly) require little to no installation yet are visually almost indistinguishable from the trickier mounted racks. Delta Cycles makes three versions of the Michelangelo rack: the Rugged version, featured above on the left, which can hold up to 100 pounds; the standard Michelangelo, which has an 80-pound weight capacity; and the single-pole Michelangelo, featured above on the right, which has a 60-pound weight capacity. The racks come with adjustable hooks with rubber sleeves, and got nods from our experts — including cyclist Alexa Lampasona, a happy owner who calls hers a “stout, leaning wall rack that allows you to mount two bicycles in a narrow space.” She adds that the rack’s arms adjust, so you can mount bikes with many different geometries from flat to sloping top tubes. Dunn of Hilltop Bicycles recommends it, explaining that gravity racks like this are designed so that the weight of the bikes keeps the rack firmly in place. Cabrera of Tuned says this is the bike rack he recommends to his shop customers. “You just lean the Michelangelo against the wall, and you can store two bikes easily,” he says.
I’ve used the Rugged Michelangelo to store my two bikes in various apartments for the past three years. I like that it’s a painless and drill-free solution to indoor storage as well as how easy it is to set up and put away. There have been a few times when my roommate and I rearranged the layout of our apartment, which meant I had to collapse this rack when I wasn’t using it. It only uses four screws, and the poles take up minimal space in the closet or under the couch. I’ve stood this rack up in apartment-building hallways, on wood floors, and on kitchen tiles, and haven’t had any issues with slippage because the bottoms of each pole have thick rubber coatings (which also prevent scuff marks). Sometimes the hooks move when I take my bikes on and off the rack, but since they’re not drilled in and meant to swing side to side, they’re easy to readjust.
Best vertical floor stand
Storage type: Freestanding (back wheel) | Bike accommodation: Single bike | Scratch protection: Stabilizing Velcro strap
When former Strategist senior editor Anthony Rotunno was looking for a bike stand, he wanted a space-saving solution (like a wall mount) but one that wouldn’t require him or his husband to lift a bike up and down every day. “A floor stand that mimicked the effect of hanging a bike vertically” is how Rotunno described his ideal storage, which he found in the Bike Nook. According to Rotunno, this stand is easy to set up, holds bikes securely enough (thicker tires are a better fit for its one-size-fits-all design), and allows those bikes to be presented more like sculptures thanks to the way it props them up on their hind wheels just so. To keep things as secure and scratch free as possible, this stand is designed with a stabilizing Velcro strap.
Best family floor stand
Storage type: Freestanding (front wheel) | Bike accommodation: Up to six bikes | Scratch protection: Powder-coated steel
If you’re looking for a floor stand the whole family (or all the roommates) can use, Ben Sawyer of CycleMania recommends this “great industrial-style one” that can hold up to six bikes. However, because it doesn’t store them on top of one another like the Michelangelo rack, he cautions that it will require more floor space. The stand is fairly bare bones: There’s no rubber, vinyl, or padding to protect your spokes — but its utilitarianism can’t be beat for larger households. The Mighty Mite also has multiple bars on the rack for securing locks if you’re going to be storing it in a covered, public space, like a building’s parking garage or an apartment common area.
Best for small spaces
Storage type: Wall mount (front and rear wheels) | Bike accommodation: Single bike | Scratch protection: Powder-coated steel
If you plan to store your bikes in a narrow hallway or any area where bike storage might be a tight squeeze, angling your bikes can help maximize overhead space. These mounts from Gootus come recommended by cyclist and CRCA athlete Christopher Ick, who uses them for his three bikes in the hallway of his Brooklyn apartment. “I like angled wall brackets because they let me make use of my slightly higher ceilings and are a nice display of my bikes,” he says. The Gootus rack is a three-piece system in which the center point hooks onto the bike’s pedal and the two trays support the wheels. Instead of hanging your bike flat against the wall (like the Michaelangelo rack above), the Gootus hangs your bike at an angle, so that your seat post and handlebars lean toward you, away from the wall. This feature allows you to fill some negative space and stack multiple bikes, much like the Rubbermaid system above.
Best tension pole
Storage type: Tension pole (top tube) | Bike accommodation: Two bikes | Scratch protection: Rubber hooks
For ease of installation, tension poles fall somewhere between floor stands and wall mounts; they don’t require drilling holes into walls or ceilings, but you may need to do a little more work to get one in place. They often cost more than stands and mounts, but NYC Velo’s Andrew Crooks and Dunn of Hilltop Bicycles say that may be money well spent if you think you’ll move a lot and want bike storage that can easily move with you, no matter the size of the home. Or, tension poles are worth considering if you redecorate a lot. “Say you buy a new chest of drawers — you can redesign the whole apartment without having to work around that bike mount you screwed into the wall already,” Crooks explains. Made of aluminum with rubber-coated hooks for mounting each bike’s top tube, this model recommended by Dunn has a sleek black finish. The brand also makes a freestanding floor rack, the Velo Cache, which doesn’t require a wall to lean on, and the brand makes an expansion kit for the Velo Cache which allows you to store more than two bikes.
Best floor stand for stationary cycling
Storage type: Freestanding (both wheels) | Bike accommodation: Single bike | Scratch protection: Dual-lock mechanism
Cyclists have long told us about the virtues of trainer stands, which not only serve as a place to store a bike indoors but allow you to get in a full ride when outside conditions aren’t suitable for hitting the streets. This particular trainer stand comes recommended by contributor Kelsey Mulvey, who described it as an “affordable alternative to Peloton” and credits it for saving her fitness and her sanity during lockdown. Like most of the other floor stands on this list, this one keeps bikes upright horizontally, so you will sacrifice more floor space — but that may be worth giving up if it means you can store your bike and have a workout at the same time.
Some Strategist-approved bikes to add to your rack
Our experts
• Vincent Cabrera, service manager at Tuned
• Andrew Crooks, founder, NYC Velo
• Thomas Dunn, founder, Hilltop Bicycles
• Christopher Ick, cyclist and CRCA athlete
• Alexa Lampasona, cyclist and outdoors writer
• Kelsey Mulvey, Strategist contributor
• Anthony Rotunno, former Strategist senior editor
• Ben Sawyer, mechanic, CycleMania
• Morgan Tilton, cyclist and outdoors writer
With additional reporting by Katherine Gillespie.
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