There was quite a discussion about bike racks in general, and UW's "duckbill" racks specifically, whilst I was out of the office last week. Here's a bit more information interspersed with my personal and professional opinions matter.
UW's duckbill racks are not perfect in that they do not work for every bike out there (indeed, they don't work well for two of my own bikes with front racks), but they work very well for the majority of bikes out there. They meet two of Transportation Services' most important criteria - support the bike in two places, and accommodate locking front wheel and frame with most U locks - about as good as any alternative I have ever seen, and in fewer square feet and for half the cost of pretty much everything else. The Saris "City" Rack, which is made locally and very similar to the Dero "Campus" rack Robbie mentioned, is ~21% wider than the UW duckbill rack, so it takes up significantly more space to park the same number of bikes. The Madrax "Sentry" rack, which is very similar to the Creative Pipe Lightning Bolt Robbie mentioned, is only about 5" wider than the duckbill, but it only holds 5 bikes when single-sided, and 9 bikes when double-sided (vs 6 bikes on a UW duckbill single-sided rack or 11 bikes on a double-sided duck). Either way, reduction of more than 20% of the nearly 10,000 bike parking stalls on our campus would be a calamity since we are not yet meeting even current demand for bike parking. Mike Rewey's objections to them, point by point: I think the arguments that they bend easily are a bit overblown. Yes, they tend to crumple when hit with UW's very large snow plows at the speed those vehicles are too often driven. I doubt that the racks in front of the Madison Municipal Building and City County Building would fare much better if actually subjected to the same forces. The solution to this problem lies with the behavior, skill, and attitudes of the snow plow drivers, not with making a bike rack that will withstand a one-ton dump truck with a plow blade on the full load of sand traveling faster than they arguably should. They do actually fit the majority of bikes, even most of those with fenders. I have tested "29ers" (i.e. bikes with very wide 700c tires) with fenders on them without a problem. If you have a bike with bigger tires/fenders than that (and they do exist - http://fatbikealaska.blogspot.com/) then locking it at a rack is perhaps not your biggest challenge. Front racks are a different story; most any front rack will preclude using the duckbill the way it was intended. Indeed, the two bikes I ride most often have front racks, so I either use a different rack (such as one of the many inverted U racks on campus) or lock up to the outside of the end of a duckbill rack when that space is available. But while front fenders are becoming more vogue (and have always been useful), they still aren't nearly as common as, say, bike racks that don't support the bike in two places. I suppose Mike has a point that the duckbill racks are potential wheel benders, but that's just as true of the Sentry/Lightning Bolt racks. And racks that show you where to put your front wheel help avoid a significant problem with other designs (such as inverted Us) - if you lock the front wheel to the near post of an inverted U, then your bike generally is encroaching upon the access aisle, which often serves as a pedestrian way (aka "sidewalk"), blocking peds, and also those pesky snow plows. If everyone knew how to use each kind of rack, that would be great, but they don't, and I personally don't have time to teach 6000 new kids every August. A rack that is intuitive tends to keep the bikes more orderly. There are grids of inverted U racks all over campus with bikes locked to them that have fallen down, or are extending out into the access aisles, or otherwise aren't really serving their purpose well. Inverted U racks do work well for parking very large cargo bikes, or bikes with large front racks. Debris is not that hard to clean out of a duckbill by a human being with a broom, which is how it's often done on campus (the staffer who swept under the duckbills I reconfigured and re-installed on the SE corner of the Memorial Union last spring told me he thought the new configuration was a big improvement as he was sweeping). Perhaps the city should buy more brooms and fewer gasoline powered leaf blowers that are so loud their operators need ear protection (but what about everybody else on the street? It's illegal for me to even wear headphones while riding down State Street, let alone something designed to protect my hearing. The SE corner of the Memorial Union is unfortunately now a big hole in the ground. They are very difficult to clear of snow. We deal with that by siting as many racks as we can under shelter where they won't need to be cleared of snow much. And demand for bike parking on campus after a big snow, while certainly not nil, drops enough that I can usually find a rack somewhere near my destination on campus that is at least clear enough to use. I can't always say the same for the Dero-Campus/Saris-City racks on State Street. In summary, no rack I've seen works for every single bike. We use duckbills mostly to retrofit existing buildings/racks. And our architects like to spec inverted U racks for new construction, which works out ok since our machine shop probably couldn't produce enough duckbills to meet the needs of new construction anyway. Indeed, we just went to an outside vendor to produce duckbills for a UW Housing project, they cost more from the outside vendor than they do from our machine shop, but we got them in four weeks. And the price was still a lot less than inverted U racks. Let me be clear that we are open to alternatives, but IMO, none of the racks discussed in this thread is worth twice as much money and 20% more space on the ground than our own duckbills. Chuck Strawser Pedestrian & Bike Coordinator Commuter Solutions Transportation Services UW-Madison Room 124 WARF 610 Walnut St Madison WI 53726 608-263-2969 www.wisc.edu/trans ________________________________ From: Michael Rewey Unfortunately I am not a real fan of the duckbill racks, there is better stuff out there. * Like some of you have mentioned they bend easily. * They don't fit all bikes - especially some with fenders. * They are potential wheel rim benders. * They are debris collectors that are hard to clean out. * They are next to impossible to be cleared of snow in winter. I don't recall if the spacing is good. The new city ordinance will require a minimum of 2-foot spacing between spaces. Sorry. My 2 cents. Mike Rewey ________________________________ From: Robbie Webber Sorry, hit send before I was done. A decent rack will have the following properties: * Supports the bike frame in two places, so that the bike can be leaned against the rack. NO FENCE RACKS, that only support the wheel. These can bend the wheel if the bike is jostled. Also fence racks don't allow: * Accommodates a U-lock, and allows the bike frame and wheel to be locked to the rack. * Bike parking spaces are a minimum of 2 feet in width, six feet in length, with a five foot access aisle (what would be a drive aisle in a parking lot.) Racks should be placed no closer than 2 feet from a vertical surface, so that the front wheel doesn't hit the wall/planter/curb when you park at the rack. Some good racks: Dero Racks - Swerve, Bike Hitch, Campus Rack, Hoop Rack, Bike Bike Rack, and some custom racks http://www.dero.com/commercial_racks.html Madraxx (local company) - most of the inverted-U-type racks, Advocate Rack, Keyrac (not sure about this one), Sentry http://www.madrax.com/Default.aspx?tabid=61&List=0&CategoryID=0&Level=a&SortF ield=ProductName,ProductName Saris (also local and very nice people) unfortunately still has a limited number of good racks. Inverted-U and post-n-ring http://www.saris.com/commercial-parking/commercial-racks.html [Saris also makes the "city" rack (called "hanging rack" on some of their web pages), which is equivalent to Dero's Campus rack - chuck] Creative Pipe - Lightning Bolt http://www.creativepipe.com/lightning_bolt_LR_series_racks.htm [Madrax "Sentry" is a locally made equivalent to this rack - chuck] Note: Common in Madison, but not good are "wave" racks - like the ones linked below, and almost every company above has a similar style. http://www.bikerackshops.com/SARWAVERACK.html Wave racks do not support the frame well, so the bike falls over, unless you park parallel to the rack and take up multiple "spaces." Also, the upright bars are often too close together for mtb handlebars to fit through. Various other problems with these type of racks, but they are still better than the old "elementary school-type" fence racks. Hope this helps. Tell your landlord to stop being so, cheap. Oh, and if the building is newer than 1988, he is required by zoning code to provide bike racks that meet city code. Older buildings, it's just the right thing to do for your tenants, and to preserve the trees. Robbie
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