DJH8098

Hello everyone, we are in the process of finding a new location here in Austin for our US headquarters. We are looking to make the new space fun and inviting, most of us will have the ability to commute by bike. That being said we are trying to drum up ideas of bike parking and possibly locker room facilities. I know I have seen threads here in the past, but I cannot seem to locate them. If someone knows the thread off hand that would be great, or if you would like to show off the awesome set up that is currently being used at your job that would be awesome too!

texbiker

These folks may help you. https://bikeaustin.org/

RubeRad

Do this and I might move to Austin to work for you: https://www.bikeforums.net/commuting...e-parking.html

(What does your company do?)

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fietsbob

Eugene Down town Campus, had a Vertical hang the bike individually locked one Chain link fence materials,,

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ ... lockable door on either side,,

robertorolfo

That looks pretty amazing, especially the mention of an available bike wash. I'd be staying late after work many nights just to get a good wash on my bikes.

Question, though: how do people feel about those vertical bike hangers? Does anyone thing it's less than ideal for the wheel (scratching, stress) and possible the headset bearings? Or am I just being paranoid?

caloso

I hang all my bikes by their wheels at home, including carbon rims. You put a heck of a lot more stress on a wheel riding it than you ever will hanging the bike. Scratching should be a non-issue if the hooks are properly coated. The biggest issue I've had is accidentally damaging the valve stem, but that was 100% user error.

CliffordK

How big of an office? Number of people, etc?

I could imagine a climate controlled room with ground floor access. And, perhaps hanging racks or other systems for space saving if necessary.

Logged Key Card access for employees, plus security cameras in the room as well as at room access points.

Lockers for gear, and even office clothes?

Easy to clean floors?

Power & "boot driers"? Places to hang and dry wet stuff? Perhaps it never rains in Texas. Sweat?

Guests could be escorted into the room, or have some secure covered facilities for guests too. Cages? Our local hospital has a row of individual cages in their parking garage.

RubeRad

How about combine those ideas, have bike lockers: individuals are each assigned a narrow closet that hangs a bike vertically inside, and also has a few shelves for clothes and stuff. Locked with electronic access using standard corporate RFID badge.

Non-cycling employees (run to work? come to work early to use onsite gym and then shower?) could get assigned smaller lockers, not big for a bike.

A subset of lockers would be day-use, anybody could throw stuff in a vacant one, lock it with their badge, and then unlock it with their badge.

Really though, card access to lockers with the same badge you work with, sounds great. Same size lockers for all, and nearby bicycle storage.

RubeRad

Outlets for e-bike charging

If the facility has any other call for laundry, free fresh towels (also in the gym)

How about a vending machine for $1 single-use rain ponchos (like you might buy at an amusement park) in case you get caught by surprise by mid-day rain? Or spending money on a vending machine would probably not be worth it; just have a basket with, say, 50 single-use ponchos, see how it goes.

More useful maybe, vending machine for spare tubes, patch kits, CO2 cartridges, energy bars, gels, ...

caloso

Ground floor, key card access plus lockable racks, adjacent to locker/shower room. Those would tick my boxes.

CliffordK

If the office has < 100 employees, and say 20 or 30 avid cyclists, I don't think one would need individual lockers. Just shared racks, secure enough to protect the bikes from falling over/bumping/scratching/etc. Wheel racks tend to be less damaging than frame secured. If one has video surveillance... and still can't trust one's co-workers, then would one really want to work there?

Plus, private lockers would be nice, but not every bike commuters will ride every day. So, small lockers for personal stuff that might get left at work, and shared space for bikes.

Power for E-Bikes is a good idea, and might encourage more cyclists... of sorts.

You might extend that and have power for bike accessories. It would be an interesting design, but add an electrical outlet into the top back of every locker so one can recharge lights, bike computers, etc.

If one locks one's bikes, one could keep locks in the lockers. Or, provide a lock rack for leaving a spare lock.

Easy access to wash facilities, bathroom facilities, changing facilities, shower facilities, etc would be nice. Is this a "black tie" office? Irons?

RubeRad

Or wall outlets every 5ft or so, up at more like 4ft height instead of down near the ground, and each outlet with 4 USB charging ports, and a small shelf right there to hold devices while they charge. Or a 1-2-USB-port charging station inside every locker, maybe that wouldn't cost too much if you include it in the design from the beginning. I bet there are companies that make prefab locker systems that include that sort of thing.

If the lockers are keycard-activated, they're already electrified...

robertorolfo

Well yes, you put more stress on parts while riding, but those are stresses in the intended and designed for directions. I'm not saying it's the end of the world, just not my preference. Perhaps I have been overly influenced by the bike racks on the local ferries; those things have bikes hanging by their front wheels on a bare metal peg, and regularly swinging side to side with some force, with all of the stress eventually going through the peg where it meets the wheel rim, and onward through the bike...

Darth Lefty 

DJH8098

Thanks everyone for your feedback and ideas. We are a small cycling company, about 15 total employees in the US and about 25 in Europe. Everyone would like to ride in, at the moment about a third are willing to do so at our current office. This number will probably move closer to two thirds, with the ones not willing to commute wanting to mountain bike at lunch. I believe the plan is to get an office space with about 5-6000 sqft. About half of this will be testing and warehouse space for our products, the other half will be office space with some open concept type of seating available.

We do have quite a few people requesting a shower/locker room even those that may not be commuting in as we are trying to move close to some of the local trails. So we may be checking that box. Our test fleet of bikes is about 10-15 depending on the time of year, so the thread mentioned by @RubeRad is looking like a real possibility. The majority of these are also e-bikes so we will have a ton of charging stations if not in the warehouse in the main office area. If anyone thinks of more suggestions please let me know! We are still looking for the location, but once we have everything finalized I'll be sure to add photos of the space. Then when things are built out I'll add after photos!

CliffordK

I'm not sure the density of safe hanging racks, but perhaps you could get 20 bikes or so hanging in a rather small room (10x10?)

An option might be to devise a method for most of the bike commuters to use company owned bicycles which might alter the way bike security is viewed.

If the bikes are heavy, then I'd look at devising a way to use hoists as part of your system. Alternate front/rear wheels (mark on the racks?)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...g-bicycle-lift
https://parkis.eu/shop/

I'd be less concerned about thefts with a tiny company (and use video cameras if you wish). But, simple coat racks, hangers, shelves and plugs, and etc should be sufficient. Primarily just needing to secure the room from the general public.

caloso

I say this as a Northern Californian, but if your office bike parking is swinging side to side, you have bigger problems. Get under desk and away from the windows.

robertorolfo

Not saying this in a snotty way, but I did say local "ferries." And you know how boats can be...

Not that the bike racks offered by my apartment building are any better, as you are sure to have your bike bumped into and jostled around from time to time, and again the metal hangers they use are completely unprotected.

DJH8098

We are closing in on a location that has potential to be set up the way @CliffordK is describing. It looks like we will use vertical racks for all of our testing bikes (heavier e-bikes) with a few additional vertical racks for commuters and mountain bikers. The lower racks will be for the ebikes and the lighter bikes will go on the higher racks. The original location we were looking at was an empty warehouse, this new location is fully built out already. So we will be saving a lot of money going this route, hopefully that means a small locker room/shower area so we will see how that goes.

We are excited as most people are not able to bike into work as things stand in our current location. There is already a lot of interest in using the rail system to get to the new location as it is closer to downtown Austin. This hopefully means more butts on bikes and less cars on the road!

alan s 

RubeRad

Hey, why not throw in free bikes! Everybody gets a $10,000/yr N+1 budget!

DJH8098

So we have free tune ups (most of us were bike mechanics so that knocks out three items), coffee and breakfast bar have been discussed, fresh towels and showers have been discussed, as well as possible e-bike purchase. So we are checking most of the boxes . We are hoping they pick the location near all of the breweries as well by near I mean about 10 breweries in a 4 mile radius.