Bike Parking

Riding your bike around London is usually a brilliant way to get around, but there’s always the problem of what to do when you get there? You need somewhere safe and secure to leave the bike, or even just somewhere at all.

Liverpool Street Station have introduced new double-decker bike racks recently to try to and increase the capacity for bike parking and encourage more people to ride, but this doesn’t really come close to an innovation that the Guardian picked up in Japan. This machine safely stores and dispenses bikes making the best use possible of space. It seems exciting, although I don’t know how I’d feel about watching my two wheeled companion disappear into the depths of the machine. I’d be worried that something would be damaged or lost, or that I’d get back a different bike from the one I inserted. Still, I’m sure they’ve covered those issues, and I’m just displaying a Luddite fear of machinery.

From the possibly sublime to the definitely ridiculous, another common bike parking problem has been invented, and solved. Bike Brake have a glorified elastic band to wrap around the brake lever, holding the brake on and stopping your bike rolling away if you lean it up against something on a slope. So that’s an elastic band then, for the price of an entire packet. Brilliant. “Bike Brake will ensure your bike stays upright and in place”, although I thought it was the wall that was keeping it upright?

Someone who might be in the market for anything to stop a bike falling over is the person who bought Lance Armstrong’s Damien Hurst butterfly bike for half a million dollars. You’d be a bit annoyed if you scraped any of the butterfly wings off as the bike slid down a wall and onto the pavement, I imagine.

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