An Easy Welded Bike Hanger

We have three bicycles and limited space to store them. The gold man's road bike and the blue lady's city bike are both hung from a folding wall hanger from Lowe's. When I went to get another for the black man's road bike, they had a replacement I thought unsuitable. So, I decided to make my own hanger. It does not fold, but I never folded up those I bought earlier, either.

The materials used were:

• A piece of steel fence post
• Two pieces of 1/2 inch concrete reinforcement bar 12 inches long
• Steel rod 1/4 inch in diameter
• Two lag bolts 3 inches long each
• Paint

Tools

• A welder (I used a flux core wire feed welder. I also heated rod for bending with a 230 volt welder and a carbon arc torch, but this could be bent with a good vise and hammer, too.)
• An angle head grinder with a cut-off wheel
• Measuring tape or rule
• Hammer
• Grinder
• Vise
• Drill
• Wrench for driving the lag bolts

The photo shows the end of the steel fence post. Notice the raised portion for hooking the fence wire to the post. I removed the rise and converted it to a hole for one of the lag screws. See the next step.

I used an angle grinder to remove a little more than 1/4 inch of the raised tab.

I had a piece of steel rod about 7/8 inch in diameter. It made a handy anvil against which to pound the tab back down into the opening from which it originally came. By pounding first from one side and then from the other, the steel rod is not really necessary.  Although not shown here, I welded the slits on the sides of the tab. I welded from both sides for a better weld. I ground the weld flat and smooth on the upper surface so the head of a lag screw would fit better. What remains is a hole about 1/4 inch in diameter.

This was one of those projects I should have documented as I did it, but I thought it would not make a good Instructable. After completing my bike hanger and sleeping, I decided to create an Instructable after the fact. The photo replicates the setup for welding the reinforcement bar to the fence post. When I actually did this project, I had already completed the previous step above and I had cut the fence post to a length of about 5 1/2 inches.

I had also rounded the end of the reinforcement bar to fit the contour of the fence post. I welded the end of the reinforcement bar to the fence post. Although there is some paint on the fence post, my flux core welder dug through it. If I had been using a MIG welder, I would have needed to remove paint where I was welding. 

I positioned a second piece of reinforcement bar exactly as the first, but from the other side so the two together make an "X." I welded them together where they cross. A later photo will show that more clearly.

The gold man's bike in the Introduction photo has a level top tube. But, my wife's lady's frame does not. I improvised by cocking the mounting holes on the hanger. One hook on the hanger holds the bike frame where the left seat stay joins the seat tube. The other rests under the top tube on this lady's frame. With my angle finder from a recent Instructable and a short piece of straight lumber, I determined I needed to cock the hanger 11 degrees. I built this angle into the inclination of the hanger arms on my custom bike hanger. See the photo in the next step.

I bent one piece of reinforcement bar downward so that it is about 2 1/2 inches lower at its end than the other bar is. This allows the wheels to be level when the bike is hanging on the wall. The bend is just outward from where the pieces of reinforcement bar cross one another and are welded to each other. 

I also have a 230 volt stick welder with a carbon arc torch I made for it so I can heat metal to bend. 

I bent 1/4 inch rod to fit around a 2 inch pipe. I welded a "C"-shaped piece to the end of one reinforcement bar. I made a tighter "U"-shaped piece to be welded to the end of the lower piece of reinforcement bar. After the hanger was painted, I worked pieces of clear plastic hose 1/4 inch in internal diameter onto the bent rod pieces. This will protect the finish on the bike.

I checked very carefully to be sure I drilled for the lag bolts so that they caught the wood stud in the wall and were not merely hanging on to a sliver at the edge of the stud. 

If the wheels are not quite level, it is not difficult to push one reinforcement bar upward to bend it a little and adjust the relative position of the bars. 

The second photo shows a close-up of the hanger holding my bike. Although the welding to the fence post does not include a piece for triangular bracing, this bike is light in weight and the hanger still supports it very well.