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December 21, 2006
Gifts
This entry is all about gifts and giving.
First, as a gift to my mother, this entry will contain no veiled references to my manly parts. No sir-ee. (Which reminds me, Mom, how are the Christmas cookies coming. The boys and I should be down some time next week.)
Second, I have a gift idea for you as many of you have not yet finished your Christmas shopping. Sure, you may think otherwise, and if you do I invite you to ask yourself, "What was it again that I got Delmer?" If you can't recall, or worse, if you've answered "Nothing," well, depending on where you live you've got about three shopping days left.
Should you need to buy a gift for a non-Delmer I have the following suggestion. As you probably know, you can spend about $100 and buy a an expandable bike stand. This baby is spring loaded and resembles a lamp we had back in 1967. Two boys were able to hang off the lamp for about 10 seconds. This bike rack will support two bikes much longer.
For a good deal less than $100.00 you can build the following item. Actually, with the appropriate brother-in-law and the inability to ever throw anything away, you can build it for less than $10.00.
If you look closely you can almost make out two bikes hanging on hooks from a rod that runs floor to ceiling. If you look really close you can see my Jamie Lee Curtis doll.
Back to the do-it-yourself bicycle rack. I went to Lowes and bought an adjustable closet rod; it was just about $8.00. While this was my only expense you may find yours are greater:
1. Without the appropriate-level (greatness-wise) brother-in-law.
and
2. If you have ever believed yourself when you've heard yourself say "I'll never need that, I may as well throw it away," and then you've actually tossed something.
Anyway, the closet rod is attached to a chunk of 2x4 at the bottom (that was left over from a previous project). I drilled a hole in the bottom half of the rod and ran a small bolt through it from one side to the other. An almost useless spring was laid atop the bolt and then the upper rod was inserted into the bottom rod. Due to the almost-uselessness of the spring I had to reposition the bolt/spring assembly a couple of times to get the rod just the right fully-extended height. A screw at the top of the rod helps secure it in place to the ceiling.
The arms that hold the bikes up are 2x4s cut to the length I needed. These, again, were pieces I'd been holding onto just in case. A couple of U-bolts (that I've had for at least a decade) hold the 2x4s to the pole; they were run through each 2x4 so that when the 2x4 is mounted to the pole the U-bolt hits the pole at an angle so there are friction points on the left and right side of the pole. That is, the U-bolt / 2x4 assembly doesn't slide up and down like a ring on a finger, the angle sort of creates a bind to help hold everything up; this keeps you from having to tighten the nuts so much that the pole gets bent (not a veiled reference). A hose clamp (again, at least 10-years old) has been attached beneath the upper arm to help hold things up.
The hooks are like those that you might buy to hang a bicycle from the ceiling. My brother-in-law found a bunch of these on sale at Home Depot or Lowes and bought a boat load (he's very good about buying enough of sale items for the whole family).
There you have it. A tidier garage for a mere eight or nine dollars. (Can you imagine how much worse things would look with two more bikes on the floor?)
The whole thing has been up in my garage for about two months now, so I've decided to call it the Priapism Dual Bicycle Rack (primarily to see how long it will take before I start getting search-engine hits on priapism.)
Third, my gift to you.
Knowing that the workbench in your garage (yea, like I really do any work there) doesn't look like this has got to make your Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa) a little brighter.
By the way, that first picture is probably not spring loaded. I believe that is a tension rod more like a door frame chin-up bar. I couldn't find the picture I needed and used that one instead.
Jamie Lee Curtis in in the second picture, just above the door. It's the Kelly Foster action figure from the movie Virus. I don't know why I have it.
Posted by delmer at December 21, 2006 9:52 PM