Spacing Ground Bike Storage Racks

The final piece of a good bike storage plan is correctly spacing bike racks.

First and foremost, you need to make sure racks are placed with enough spacing between each rack.

Second, you need to ensure there is proper room for storing the bicycle and an aisle beyond the rack. Otherwise you could the rack could become unusable.

Let's go over spacing recommendations in more detail for the different types of bike storage racks.

When laying out ground bike racks, start by setting the leg of the bike rack back from the wall a recommended  36 inches or minimally, 24 inches. This provides enough room beyond the bike rack, for the frame of the bicycle to rest against the bike rack.

There should also be a recommended  36 inches or minimally 24 inches of clearance on the side of the bike rack. Any less and there will not be enough space to park a bicycle on that side of the rack. Which reduces the number of spots to store bicycles.

Racks should then be 48 inches recommended, 36 inches minimum, from one another. This is enough room for bicycles to maneuver into the bike parking spot, while also allowing a user to lock/unlock their bicycle from the side.

There also needs to be a minimum of 48 inches, 60 inches recommended, of aisle space beyond the tire of a parked bicycle. This would be measured to the tire of another bicycle or a wall, depending on your layout.

One option that can make spacing bike racks easier is to get bike racks on rails. The spacing between racks is already set. Bike racks on rails has an added benefit for high-density bicycle designs. They simply need to be assembled and put in place. This could be a cost savings because it would eliminate labor hours needed to measure spaces between and mount individual bike racks.

Then, all you would need to know is setback from walls and distances for aisles. Which you can usually find in a manufacturer's installation instructions.