Cycling Tech: A Two

The Delta Two Bike Gravity Stand with bikes

What's the right number of bikes to own? The answer is a truism among cyclists. It's N+1. Of course no one needs to keep buying bikes but the temptation is always there. When you succumb and the bikes accumulate, finding a place to put them becomes a problem. If you live with another cyclist as I do, the problem only gets worse. Even if there's only one bike in the household, you need a place keep it indoors if you’re not willing to leave it outside where theft is always a possibility. That's where storage racks come into play.

We use an app (Rouvy is our favorite) with a smart trainer (Cycleops Hammer) during the winter and with two bikes sharing time on the trainer most days, taking the back wheels off and on to store the bikes in floor stands gets to be a pain in the butt. A vertical two-bike rack is an ideal solution because it opens up floor space and we can leave the wheels off when we hang the bikes. We’ve tried numerous storage devices over the years and recently found one that's easily the best we’ve used thus far.

Delta's Two Bike Gravity Stand (sometimes called the Michelangelo) has a sleek, minimalist design that looks like it will never work. It's basically a framework of 1 ¼" steel tubing that leans up against the wall. It looks flimsy and unstable, but this is a case where looks are very deceiving. The rack is rock solid and the more weight you put on it, the more stable it gets.

The stand's long vertical tubes end in 20" legs that angle away from the wall. When you hang a bike, the weight pulls the center of gravity of the bike-plus-rack down toward the floor and in toward the wall. The downward pull anchors the rack vertically while the inward pull does the same horizontally. It's simple physics and brilliant design.

The Delta Two Bike Gravity Stand without bikes

The stand doesn't need to be attached to the wall but it has a strap you can use to do so if you wish. It comes with padded arms for holding two bikes. The arms can be adjusted independently to accommodate bikes with angled top tubes. They’re easy to attach and remove but keep a solid grip on the stand's frame when they’re in place. Assembling the stand involves screwing in six screws.

The stated dimensions for the stand are 84" high, 20" wide and 16" deep. However, with the feet angled out (the recommended configuration), our stand measures 24" wide. We have it set up with the feet touching the floor 24" from the wall. It's not going anywhere with the bikes on board unless someone goes out of their way to pull it down.

The stand comes in a regular version rated to hold 80 lbs and a rugged version with a max weight of 100 lbs. It can be bought directly from Delta or from online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Rei, and Home Depot.

Technology doesn't have to be complicated to be useful. The Delta Two Bike Gravity Stand is simple, elegant, beautifully designed and well-engineered. It's the best solution we’ve found for storing two bikes inside.