With two new touring bikes recently added to our collection, our little apartment was getting crowded. Time for some clever bike storage.

We hunted around the internet for ideas. First we found this but on closer inspection we realised we’d need to screw the post to the floor, and we didn’t want to ruin our wood floors.

This DIY bike stand also caught our eye. Very stylish, with steel cabling, but still too many screws…

Finally, we found this Broder Bike Rack (named after the IKEA range that the parts come from). It only required putting 2 screws in the ceiling, and the total price was under €40. Perfect.

Off we went to IKEA, pausing only briefly by the entrance to be amazed by the cool cargo bikes. Just imagine how much stuff you could pedal home with in one of these! And only €5 an hour to rent. Bargain! Wouldn’t want to try it against a headwind though.

An hour or so later and we were out the other side of the IKEA maze, with everything we needed to make our rack: one post, one extension piece, two brackets and four hooks. Andrew tied it all on the bike and we headed home…

After spending quite some time scrubbing all the annoying stickers and their tacky residue off the metal components, we were ready for assembly. It was easy: slot the poles together, screw the top bracket into the ceiling and put the brackets together. Andrew also glued some bits of inner tube on the inside of the hooks, so they wouldn’t scratch the bike frames.

And here’s the finished rack. Voila!

It really is straight… not so slanted as it looks in the photo!