On Fri, 06 Aug 2004 10:28:17 -0400, Frank Krygowski
<
[email protected]> wrote:
>Bob Newman wrote:
>
>> We are trying to free up a little room in the house and I want to get the
>> bikes better organized. I've seen these racks that stack two bikes
>> vertically but I'm not sure I'm up to lifting the top one on & off
>> regularly. How are these hooks that let you hang the bikes on the wall by
>> the wheel. To us untrained people it seems like a lot of strain on the
>> wheel. Can they cause any damage to the bike?
>
>We have had six bikes hanging that way since about 1980. No problems.
>
>In fact: One evening my brother brought his two kids over. They were
>about 10 or 12, I'd say. We were upstairs, the boys were bored playing
>in the basement, and I heard one say "Nick, you'd better cut it out!"
>
>I went downstairs to find Nick using one of the bikes as a swing!
>_Still_ no problems.
When I was at Cambridge, the University installed some meat-hook style
bikeracks near the History Faculty building. This was meant to
address the chronic shortage of bike parking spaces.
Many of us in the History department began lobbying aggressively for
their removal and replacement with more conventional Sheffield stands,
citing the difficulty (and mess) of having to hang up your bike,
potentially dripping with rain and muck and whatnot (it is Cambridge
after all. It rains. a lot.) onto a meathook. That, and a lot of
people--not least the dons themselves--still use majestically heavy
bicycles to get around, and hoisting 20-some kg of bicycle over your
head is no fun when you're running to a lecture.
So the Faculty began petitioning the university authorities. "Bike
racks, not meat hooks!" went the slogan. As far as I'm aware, the
campaign failed, and the meathooks are still there, in the passage
between the Seeley and the new Divinity building. And as far as I'm
aware, they're always full.
-Luigi