Public Bike Stands

Lumen wrote: »

Plain old sheffield stands are the best. There's a long article on it somewhere.

The curvy stand idiocy is not isolated to Ireland. I was in Budapest last week and they were all over the place.

But could sheffield stands be improved at all? After all their only function is that their a sturdy object to lock a bike to, other than that they do nothing to protect the bike or to enhance the security any further.

Lumen wrote: »

Only by installing more of them.



Protect the bike how? The main concern with other stands is that they damage the bike, don't allow secure locking, or are space inefficient. Doing nothing bad is a positive. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

I'm not talking about fixing it, I want to think of ways ot improve it. Obviously the intention of doing so would involve maintaining as far as possible the features of sheffield stands that you list but does that mean they're perfect?

Think of all the bikes you see locked to stands with battered wheels (I used to think this was just vandalism but read a post today saying it's a tactic of theives to buy time to come back and steal the bike).

I'm also thinking about a means to secure the bike and wheels with only one lock. Obviously people who use two locks aren't going to ditch one of them but it would improve security for the majority of people who only carry one.

dave.obrien wrote: »

I think you might have a better project if you focus on bike locking in a slightly more general way than the rack itself. As you've just discovered, cyclists have a type of rack they like; the sheffield stand. Iterations of that have included placing a horizontal bar to prevent poorly locked bike from falling over, al la

http://www.baileystreetscene.co.uk/product-stainless-steel-sheffield-cycle-stand-with-mid-rail-814.html


Even look at David Byrne's versions of them, which are no more than pictures really, but follow the same rules as the sheffield stand; material stronger than the locks, not compromising whole single side access to the bike, not requiring any sort of male/female engagement (like the "toast rack" design) and with a closed loop. These are obvious criteria for anyone who cycles, but often designers think that new "features" can make a rack better, like the wheel supports of the toast-rack design.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/new-bike-racks-courtesy-of-david-byrne/

The biggest problems with racks are their quantity and location; these are issues that designers on an urban level are constantly seeking to improve, but it can be met with resistance. Why not try to identify the criteria for successful locations and the volume of bikes a location is capable of carrying and develop a number of bike locking areas from there?

Thanks Dave, the Sheffield stands do seem to have plenty of support on here! But my course is to design a product and I’ve chosen bike stands so I think I’ll have to see to see it through. Whether the end design is an improvement on Sheffield stands or not will be open to debate but at the end of the day the course is really about the process of the design rather than its chances of success. From that end of things the comments from here are much appreciated and very useful so many thanks to everyone for those and please keep them coming if anyone has anything to add!

As for the design I am thinking of some way that the rear wheel could be fixed in position so that it couldn’t be removed and also trying to think of a way that the front wheel and frame can be locked to the stand and minimise any space or slack between the lock and the elements it’s locked to as this seems to be one of the main weaknesses that thieves can exploit. As I’ve said, this doesn’t really improve security for most of the people on here who are well aware of the best practices and are willing to spend more money on the best locks but as you all know there’s plenty people out there who aren’t either of those things and its with those people in mind that I’m designing.

It helps to get the opinions of the experts though!