Delta Pivot Rack for Bike Storage Review

By Stan Purdum

Hot!

• Hinged rack works in places where you don’t want the bike fully protruding into the room.
• Keeps bike up and off the floor, no heavy lifting with ramped wheel entry assist
• Easy to rotate in either direction (150-degree total rotation) 
• Holds most bikes with 20″ to 29″ wheels and tire width up to 4.25″
• Vertically adjustable 350mm/13.8 inches total, in 35mm/1.38-inch increments
• Compatible with front fenders with minimum of 12mm clearance between front wheel and fender
• Durable powder coated steel and aluminum with nylon wheel cradle and protective pads protect wheels
• Holds up to 100 lbs
• Folds flat against wall when not in use
• Easy to follow directions for installation
• Rack is easily adjusted to accept bikes of different sizes
• Available in silver, black and silver with minor cosmetic flaws (hence, the price difference)

Not!

• Tends to pivot slightly when sliding bike into place

Price: $74.99-89.99 (lower price is for rack with minor cosmetic flaws)

Available here: Design by Delta

How obtained: Sample from company

RBR Advertiser: No

Like many cyclists, I have more than one bike. In fact, I have three, and storing them so that they are not in the way is helpful. I have a large two-car garage, but one side is filled with a wood shop bench and power tools and the other side is occupied by a staircase to a storage loft, with boxes of seasonal items stored beneath the stairs. Along the back wall, I have a bike shop area and storage for yard tools and other items. So I really don’t have much free wall space left.

I have one bike hanging from the ceiling using a Delta Ceiling Hoist Rack, and the bike I ride most often leaning against the wall directly below it, so those two are out of the way when I’m not using them, but my third bike didn’t have a parking place of its own, and I was often moving it from one place to another while working on projects in the garage.

The Delta Pivot Rack, with its hinged operation, solved that problem. I needed to maintain access to the stored items beneath the stairs, but there is a post next to the stairs that would accept the pivot rack and keep the bike in the “closed door” position against the stairs and thus not protrude into the car parking space of the garage. But when I want to get to the boxes under the stairs, I just swing the bike on the pivot rack to the “open door” position.

The front wheel of the bike pivots with the rack itself and the back wheel rotates in a bracket (Delta calls it a “tray”) also attached to the mounting surface.

The directions for installing the rack are very clear and it took me less than 30 minutes to complete it. The wall studs in my garage are exposed, but if your wall space is covered drywall, you’ll likely spend a few minutes more locating a stud to attach the rack to, using the provided lag screws. With the combined weight of the rack and bike, you definitely need a strong support on which to mount it. See an installation video here.

The part you screw to the wall is called a mounting plate, and it has a series of “teeth” in it. Once that is in place, you simply slide the pivot rack onto the plate, clicking it into the set of teeth that gives you the height to match the length of your bike. If you later switch to a bike of a different length, it takes only a minute to move the pivot rack higher or lower on the mounting plate.

The Delta Pivot Rack is a good and versatile solution for your bike storage needs, and if you have sufficient wall space, you can put a series of the racks along the wall to accommodate all the bikes used by your family.

By the way, the rack Delta sent me was one of those with a minor cosmetic flaw. Frankly, the rack is solid and looks good, and I couldn’t see whatever flaw in the finish there was.

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Stan Purdum has ridden several long-distance bike trips, including an across-America ride recounted in his book Roll Around Heaven All Day, and a trek on U.S. 62, from Niagara Falls, New York, to El Paso, Texas, the subject of his book Playing in Traffic. Stan, a freelance writer and editor, lives in Ohio. See more at www.StanPurdum.com.

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