Sometimes a combination of bike storage methods works best. Little ones can use kickstands, and everyone else can use off-floor or shed storage.
The best bike storage ideas:
- kickstand
- horizontal and vertical floor stand
- wall mount
- wall hook, ceiling hook, and slatwall hook
- manual and motorized ceiling pulley
- manual and motorized ceiling platform
- outdoor bike cover
- bike shed
Kickstands and floor stands are best for smaller kids. If your bikes have fenders, disc brakes, or fat tires, you’ll need to compare floor stand and wall mount measurements before buying. The best bike storage combination might be a combination of these methods.
The Best Bicycle Kickstands
All bike kickstands should be easy install, be made of tough material, and have a non-slip end. Adjustable bike stands should be easy to adjust, yet allow you to lock them at any height you want.
Use the wheel diameter imprinted on the tire sidewall to find the kickstand size (see picture).It will say something like 16 x 2.4. The “16” is the size kickstand you want. It corresponds approximately to the wheel diameter. The 2.4 is the tire width.
The Best Kickstand for Kids’ Bikes
Kickstands are relatively cheap, so you can buy one each time you upgrade the kids’ bicycles. However, if you want longevity, get an adjustable kickstand that grows with the bikes.
I like the Seisso child bicycle stand, which is not adjustable, so measure what you need before buying. It is available in 12, 14, 16, and 18 in. sizes. To install, remove the back wheel bolt, slip the kickstand on so that the slot sits on the bolt, and tighten the lock nut around to hold the kickstand against the bike.
This kickstand has an anti-slip rubber tip and is made of tough carbon steel. This kickstand holds the back steady in the garage and on uneven ground. Check out the Seisso kid’s bike kickstand on Amazon.
The Best Kickstand for Adults’ Bikes
The best kickstand for adult bikes is the BV Adjustable Kickstand with concealed spring-loaded latch. This kickstand fits bikes from 24 to 29 inches, and adjusts in length without tools. It has a non-slip foot for better stability on uneven ground, and comes with substantial installation hardware.
BV warns that there should be 2.75 in. clearance from the center of the tire to the pedal, and 1.9 in. clearance from the center of the bike to the kickstand installation spot. Because bikes vary so much, not all top picks will work for all bikes. That’s why I chose BV brand, because they have a good reputation for solid kickstands. If this one doesn’t work, they’ll have a quality bike kickstand that does on their page. Check out the BV Kickstand or their Kickstand Page on Amazon.
The Best Bike Storage Floor Stands
Some bike floor stands are kid-friendly, but most are not. Horizontal stands hold the bike upright with both tires on the ground, unless they hold the bike upright with both tires in the air. Vertical stands always require that you pivot the bike so one tire is in the air. A little kid will be comfortable with a simple horizontal floor stand, which keeps both tires on the ground. After that, these parking devices are for bigger kids and adults.
Even within the horizontal floor stand space, kids will be comfortable with some designs and not others. A little kid might not be able to push a front bike tire into a locking floor stand slot. However, most kids should be able to position their front tires into simple static slots.
Pay attention to stand measurements if your bikes have fat tires, fenders or disc brakes. These can interfere with positioning the bike securely into the allotted space.
The Best Bike Floor Stand for Little Kids
CyclingDeal (a brand of the well-loved Bikehand Company) offers a simple slotted rack for upright bike parking. The Floor Parking Rack holds up to six bikes (three on each side) of many sizes, including road bikes, kids’ and mountain bikes. It supports bike tires just short of 2.4 inches (2.36 in. tires will barely squeeze in). The smallest kids should be able to maneuver their front tires into this rack. Check out the CyclingDeal Parking Rack on Amazon.
The Best Horizontal Bike Floor Stand
I love the Bikehand Parking Rack for bike tires up to and including 2.4 in. wide. A smaller kid will be better off with a kickstand, but everyone else will love this spring loaded parking stand. You roll the front or back tire into the slot to lock the bike in an upright position. There’s no need to lift the bike to park. The Bikehand supports very heavy bikes. It will probably handle disc brakes, but not fat tires or fenders. Check out the Bikehand Parking Rack on Amazon. Bikehand sells multi-bike version of this beautiful rack on their Amazon page.
The Best Vertical Bike Floor Stand
I don’t know of any vertical floor bike stands worth recommending. Customers almost universally rate them as “meh” when commenting on installation instructions and material quality. Vertical stands don’t depend on the wall for stability (as wall mounts do), and they’re usually lighter weight than the bikes they’re holding. If you buy one to avoid putting holes in the wall, check the tire widths to ensure your bike will fit.
The Best Freestanding Bike Floor Stand
Therefore, you want to store more than one bike off the floor but you don’t want to bolt a mounting rack into the wall. The freestanding bike stand is here to save the day. Mostly used indoors, you can put these in the garage or a shed if you like. RaxGo makes my favorite freestanding bike stand, because this puppy is strong, stable, and holds a variety of types of bicycles.
The RaxGo is made of an alloy steel and covered in a scratch-resistant coating. It holds up to 90 lb. for both bikes combined. RaxGo thoughtfully put adjustable feet on the legs so you can adjust the stand for an uneven floor (a common garage problem). You can store any fender, brake or tire size on this rack because it holds the bike from the frame. Assembly is simple and the reviews remark that it’s an outstanding bike storage solution. Check out the RaxGo Bike Stand on Amazon.
The Best Bicycle Wall Mount
StoreYourBoard is sometimes the only vendor worth buying in the bike storage space. I’m thinking specifically of their pulley system, when StoreYourBoard was the only one even worth considering. While there are many competitors in the bike wall mount space, you can always depend on StoreYourBoard quality, so that’s our choice for the Best Bicycle Wall Mount.
The StoreYourBoard 5-Bike Wall Rack (also known as the Omni) is a strong and elegantly simple solution for storing your family’s bikes, so long as you’re not storing fat tire bikes. For fat tires, get the StoreYourBoard BLAT model for hanging two fat tire bikes and up to 100 lb.
The 5-Bike Rack holds up to 100 lb. It hooks adjust to the left or right to give wider bikes more room. Mount into the wall studs for a quick and secure storage solution that gets the bikes off the floor and out of the way. Check out the StoreYourBoard 5-Bike Wall Rack on Amazon. Check out the StoreYourBoard BLAT Fat Tire Bike Rack on Amazon.
The Best Wall, Ceiling, and Slatwall Bicycle Hook
A slatwall is an organization system you mount to wall studs that accepts proprietary hooks and baskets. Once installed, you can use the wall for storage without worrying about nails or screws. The hooks lock onto and unlock from the slatwall with ease. This means you can quickly move items anywhere along the track or panel.
Gladiator is our favorite garage slatwall, with Proslat being a close second. They’re both excellent systems and both come with bike storage solutions. The Gladiator bike hook is a superior bike hanging solution that happens to work with or without the Gladiator slatwall. You can install this hook directly into the wall or use the organization slatwall to hang the hook.
Two features the bike wall hook must have are a strong rubber coating and a solid, unbending forged metal hardware. The most common complaints about bike (and ladder) hooks are the rubber coming loose and the hardware bending under pressure.
Another solution meets the criteria of hanging a bike on the wall. This hook is made of tough plastic. It installs in wall studs, ceiling joists, or in the Gladiator storage system. It’s the Gladiator Bike Claw, whose 3 in. wide maw can handle fat tire bikes, disc brakes, fenders, and every kind of bicycle.
The Gladiator Advanced Bike Claw firmly wraps itself around the bike rim. The superior feature of the Bike Claw is that it encompasses the wheel in a 360 deg. grasp. There’s no open end of the hook from which the bike can fall to the ground.
Normally sold as part of the Gladiator garage organization system, the Claw accepts screws, so you can mount it to the wall studs or ceiling joists.
There’s a hook on one side, and open air on the other. It doesn’t matter if you can perfectly land that rim onto the hook every time; a hook is just inherently less secure than using a device that clamps completely around the tire. When the Claw clamps around the tire, the two hooks completely overlap each other, creating a solid perimeter around the rim, with no place for the bike to fall out. Push the bike tire into the toggle lever again to open the grip and retrieve the bike.
The Advanced Bike Claw holds bikes up to 50 lb. and is easy to open and close. Check out the Gladiator Advanced Bike Claw on Amazon. Read more about the Gladiator GearTrack and GearPanel wall organization systems in our article: The Best Garage Slatwall System.
The Best Bike Ceiling Storage
The Best Bike Storage Manual Ceiling Pulley
While there are several pulley systems sold to bike owners, few have good reputations for safety and quality materials. There’s nothing that will ruin your day more than a bike falling from the garage ceiling onto you, those you love, or your car. So if you go this route, get the absolute best pulley, and test that your bolts are tight.
The best bike storage pulley is the Floaterhoist BA1, a favorite for its sturdy reliability. It often goes out of stock but then is available again; click the link to check for yourself.
The Floaterhoist is well engineered and solid. You install it into a ceiling joist and the rope hangs up to 10 ft. below that. It works like a window blind, pulling down lifts the bike up, and letting go lets the bike down. The bike sits parallel to the ceiling so that when it lays flat against the ceiling when you lock the rope into place.
Check out the Floaterhoist BA1 bike lift on Amazon.
The Best Bike Storage Motorized Ceiling Pulley
While not marketed as “a bike storage solution,” the Partsam Winch is a solid motorized pulley that can easily hold a bike at the ceiling. The Partsam is the only winch I found in a study of over 20 units that consistently had strong materials and a good reputation.
To make things stable, I would have the winch grab a bar, and then put hook the bike to the bar in at least two places. This balance out the load so that the bike does not swing up and down. The winch locks in place to keep the bike at the ceiling. It comes standard with a quick stop in case something hangs along the way.
You can get the lightest weight model to pick up a bike, or buy a heavier duty winch and use it for other storage tasks in your garage. The smallest model lifts 400 lb. and the largest lifts 2200 lb. Check out all the Partsam winch models on Amazon.
The Best Manual/Motorized Bike Storage Ceiling Platform
Just be aware of one important fact if you go the platform route. Whether you get a manual or a motorized ceiling platform, it’s rare to find one with base bigger than a bicycle. Most platforms I’ve found are 4 ft. W x 4 ft. D., and most adult bicycles are over 5 ft. long. If you can make it work, then a ceiling platform might be your bike storage solution.
The Fleximounts Overhead Garage Storage Lift is one of the best garage platform lifts you can buy. It carries up to 300 lb. and rises 9 ft. from the starting point. You can use the included hand crank to lift the platform, or attach your own power drill to power the lift. The 4 ft. x 4 ft. platform rides on steel cables. The locked platform stays securely in place. Check out the Fleximounts Garage Platform on Amazon.
The Best Bike Sheds
All decent bike sheds provide UV, rain and snow protection.
A soft sided bike cover is more waterproof than a generic tarp. A cover shapes itself to the bike, and naturally covers the bike where a tarp would just fall downward. Tarps can collect huge amounts of water where they’re not pulled taut.
A soft-sided “garage” provides roomy coverage without shaping itself to the bicycle. What you give up in coverage, you gain in storage room. Security in a soft garage is similar to security under a bike cover. You need to find something stable outside the cover where you can attach your chain.
Soft-sided solutions do not have floors, so bicycles are always touching the ground,no matter how cold or moist. A hard shed is more waterproof than a soft-sided cover or shed. A shed with a floor offers 360 degree protection so that moisture does not ruin the bike from underneath. Ventilation is crucial to making this work.
The Most Waterproof Soft Cover for One Adult Bike
While there are a few very good covers for bikes, only one I’ve found does a good job at surrounding the bike underneath. This is where weather can get in, but the FifthStart Rip stop Bike Cover uses both elastic and locking straps to close the gap. This is the bike protector covering all but a sliver of tire that sits on the ground. It acts as an almost-closed bag for your standing bicycle. Louver lock channels reduce the bike’s exposure to the air, and breathing valves allow air in and moisture out. The lock channels allow even a large chain through, and you can lock both the front and the back wheels separately. It covers any type of bike, even with fat tires or wide handlebars.
I noticed some people were disappointed when using it as a transportation cover, and well they should be as the FifthStart is not designed travel at 65 MPH. It’s a great cover for stationary storage in the yard. Check out the FifthStart cover for one bicycle on Amazon.
The Most Waterproof Soft Cover for Two Adult Bikes
Soft-sided sheds are cost-effective compared to hard resin, but hard-side shed security is hard to beat. Hard-sided sheds are tough and lockable, but definitely cost more.
The YardStash IV is the best soft-side bike shed for two adult bikes. It includes a patented system to encourage snow to fall off the roof. Assembly is tool-free and takes about ten minutes. The exterior frame does a beautiful job keeping the fabric taut and crisp. A mesh vent allows oxygen in and moisture out. You can use only a small cable lock with this shed, but that is true of all soft-sided sheds I’ve studied. Since the floor protects bikes from weather and creatures, this design is preferable to the pop-up garages that do not come with their own floors. Check out the YardStash IV soft-side bike shed on Amazon.
The Best Hard Bike Shed for Kids’ Bikes
The most cost-effective hard-sided and lockable bike shed is the Rubbermaid 5 x 6 Storage Shed. Rubbermaid makes the most attractive and sturdiest sheds that I’ve found. This is the smallest one that will hold kids’ bikes. At 6 ft. long, it very well might not contain an adult bike, so measure before buying. The door accepts a hasp lock (sold separately) and the impact-resistant floor keeps the bikes fully secured inside a tough, double-wall box. I can’t stress this enough that the initial construction is key to making a Rubbermaid shed work over time. If you put it together correctly up front, this shed will last many years. Check out the Rubbermaid 5 x 6 Shed on Amazon.
The Best Hard Shed for Adults’ Bikes
I am a fan of the Suncast 8 ft. W x 10 ft. D x 8 ft. H Tremont Shed that comes with a solid 10-year warranty. The width, depth and height all provide plenty of room for any adult bike dimensions. The doors lock with your padlock, and the blow-moulded resin is tougher than the wind or snow. Vented panels allow for air and moisture exchange, and the floor protects bikes from cold and moisture underneath. The Tremont has six skylights embedded in its steel-reinforced roof. As with the Rubbermaid shed, your happiness with the Tremont depends on a thorough installation in the first place. If you put this shed together correctly, it will last for many years. Check out my favorite shed on Amazon.
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