Storing and accessing a bike from the cellar.

[Maherees]

I may be moving to a new house that has a steep staircase into the cellar. I can enter with a slight bend, however I’m racking my brains in an effort to come with a plan to easily get my bikes in and out.
most grateful for any ideas

 

[vickster]

Take the wheels off?
or just keep the bike upstairs

 

[Moodyman]

I can understand your pain.

I did this for about a year before I got my garage built. It wasn't so bad at the time, but now I've experienced the joy of rolling it into a garage with a level floor, I couldn't possibly go back to the cellar.

 

[Ian H]

We have a cellar with a spiral stairway down. I can shoulder a bike and carry it down, but it is awkward. Two bikes are down there on rollers or a turbo. Rest are in the garage.

 

[MntnMan62]

Just take the front wheel off before bringing it up or down. And store it on a bike stand without the front wheel since you’ll only have to remove it again anyway.

 

[Drago]

Time for a Brompton?

 

[roley poley]

A plank of wood at the side of the steps and wheel it down/up walking next to it ??

 

[MntnMan62]

Another option is buy a different house with a walk out cellar. No stairs to deal with other than maybe some outdoor stairs.

 

[ColinJ]

I may be moving to a new house that has a steep staircase into the cellar. I can enter with a slight bend, however I’m racking my brains in an effort to come with a plan to easily get my bikes in and out.
most grateful for any ideas

This house has the same configuration. When I first moved in I thought I'd try taking one of my bikes down there to see if it were viable. It was very difficult to get round the bend with the bike and then I tripped at the top of the staircase. Fortunately, my landlady had fitted a handrail after I pointed out that the stairs were dangerous without one so I had something to grab as I fell! The bike survived without serious damage, but the incident put me off cellar storage... It also turns out that the cellar is quite damp and metal objects left down there tend to go rusty.

I have now got two bikes leaning against walls in this room, two in my large kitchen (one blocking access to the useless cellar!), and a fifth bike on my turbo trainer upstairs.

I had thought of rigging up some kind of overhead wire/pulley system above the cellar staircase - a bit like those zip wires that people (much braver than me!) like to whizz down.

 

[slowmotion]

Cut a hatch in the floor and let down with an electric hoist. The hatch only needs to be a narrow cross-shaped slot if the bike is suspended from its front wheel.
I'm serious.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

The best solutions to any problems tend to be the simplest ones, of which cutting a hole in your floor and having to rig up a hoist most definitely isn't.
Those of us with multiple bikes will tend to find that one or two of them get used a lot more frequently than the others, for various reasons. The easy option is keep the less used bikes in the cellar out of the way, and have the most used ones upstairs where they are easy to get to. I don't have a cellar but I do have a tight staircase, and I keep a bike in a spare bedroom. When I want to move it, the front wheel is taken off. The bikes I use most often don't even live in the house. One is kept outside with a plastic bag over the saddle, another resides in the back of a van. Easy access, and if they get wet/muddy I'm not dripping muck all over my carpets indoors.

 

[Cycleops]

Cut a hatch in the floor and let down with an electric hoist. The hatch only needs to be a narrow cross-shaped slot if the bike is suspended from its front wheel.
I'm serious.

Well, it worked for Wallace & Grommet

 

[clid61]

A plank of wood at the side of the steps and wheel it down/up walking next to it ??

^^^^This ^^^^^
I had a length of plastic guttering in my last first floor flat.

 

[Drago]

Cut a hatch in the floor and let down with an electric hoist. The hatch only needs to be a narrow cross-shaped slot if the bike is suspended from its front wheel.
I'm serious.

He could rig it up so it plays the Thunderbirds theme as it rises out of his living room floor.

 

[Blue Hills]

Have you thought of living in the cellar and keeping the bikes upstairs on the ground floor?
You know they deserve it.