After doing a little research, it turns out that Seattle first tested the “Bike Circle” rack in 2005. Thanks to them running the rack through its paces, the refinements it needed have already been made. The company who makes the rack is Creative Metalworks, based in Seattle. It’s worth checking out their site, because they’ve done all kinds of crazy custom bike racks for various companies and organizations. The “Bike Circle” (pictured here) is part of their line of Production Racks, and it’s still my front-runner for the next generation of bike racks in Oakland.

If you want to get an idea of what other bike rack companies are making, visit the websites of Cora Bike Racks, Urban Accessories, and Park-a-Bike. After seeing the sites of all four companies, I still think that the Bike Circle is the way to go for Oakland. The rack is simple, inexpensive, and easy to install, which means that the time frame from purchase to use seems like it would be relatively short.

As far as the coolest thing for home bike racks/storage I came across in researching this post, it’s the bike hoist style of ceiling-hung storage (which you can see if you click through). I always figured that a system like that was out there, and now I know.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.