Creating The Perfect Place To Store And Repair Your Bikes
If you want a space to be able to store and work on your bikes
, no matter what kind, why not convert your own garage into a special shop for them, complete with all the necessities? It doesn't take too long, and you can have the perfect area in no time.
You may want to begin by installing some simple lockers to store all of your things. There are many accessories which come with biking, and it is important to keep them safe and organized.
There may not be a more superior system for storing your bike-wear than lockers. Places sell reproduction lockers for a fortune, but you can probably pick up a used locker at a salvage yard for less than $100.
If it is painted a color you do not like, you can strip the paint off with a belt sander. It might be a lot of work, but the bare metal will look very cool and retro.
A three-bay locker is actually pretty huge, with hooks to hang stinky stuff on so that it airs out (thanks to the locker's vents), with shelves for stacking jerseys. Unless you have a closet in your garage or want to shell out for an expensive storage system, this is the perfect setup.
For your flooring, try going with some simple, polished concrete. It is relatively cost-effective, you can put radiant heat right into the floor, and you can dye the concrete mix a dark color so the grease you spill will not show up.
The best thing about polished concrete is that it brooms off easily because of the smooth texture, and if you drop a screw or washer it won't wander into a crack between floorboards. Use an ecologically neutral sealant, like hard oil.
The advantage is super quick off-gassing, that is non-toxic and lead-free. Often even "green" waxes and sealants are full of drying agents that are incredibly noxious.
It is not so much fun to breathe that stuff in during application, and especially in the months that follow, when you are wrenching in this space. Make sure that you have plenty of air flow, to keep things well ventilated and safe.
You will need to produce a sink which can help you when you are repairing things. Just a beat up cast-iron one will do just find.
You need a slop sink. You are going to want to wash the junk, grease, and oil off of your hands after working on grimy chains. However, there is no sense buying a fancy or even not-so-fancy new sink.
Go used instead. You can pick one up at a simple yard sale for about ten dollars, plain and simple.
Nothing special, a few chips in it, but when you soak a chain in a dish of some diluted chemicals, you do not have to worry about keeping the sink pristine. Just worry about getting your work done!
When it comes to lights, obviously you want to spend as little as you can "decorating" your shop. However, you need to see what you are doing, too, which means broad-coverage lighting.
Simple shop fixtures that use tube florescent bulbs bug work, or perhaps instead try used industrial fixtures and plugged in compact florescent bulbs to save energy. The cleanup of the fixtures was a chore, but the result is something that looks really cool.
If you want curtains, try going the cheap route, and order curtains online. You can wash them if they get splattered with grease, because they are just cotton canvas.
To string them, buy some heavy-gauge wire from the hardware store, which you can pull taut between closed steam pipe fittings. The whole setup is pretty simple.
Get pipe floor flanges from the hardware store and screw them to the wall. Thread T-shaped sections of pipe to these so that the ends of the T face sideways.
Plug steam fittings into the T-pipes because they act as reducers for the ends of the cable. The hardware store will have ferrules that clamp to the ends of the cables to keep them from fraying; slot the cable ends through the steam fittings and then clamp the ends with the ferrules.
Attach the curtain to the cable using shower curtain rings, which are also inexpensive. There you have it-you now have the perfect place to get your bikes ready for your next trip or race.
by: Tommy Greene
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