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review
Stands and racks

GearUp OakRak Floor-to-Ceiling 2 to 4-bike rack

8
by John Stevenson
UPDATED Sat, Oct 31, 2015 15:50

First Published Oct 31, 2015

4
£169.99

VERDICT:

8
10
Excellent, well-finished and easy-to-use bike storage
Weight: 
5,500g
Contact: 
www.madison.co.uk

The GearUp OakRak Floor-to-Ceiling Bike Rack is easy to assemble, looks good and is a great way to store up to four bikes inside your house or flat where they're safe and sound.

Made in the USA from American red oak, the OakRak comprises an assembly of interleaving wooden beams that brace between your floor and ceiling. The vertical parts are held together with threaded studs and furniture nuts. Thickly coated steel hooks attach to the sides and you hang your bikes from them.

Assembly is straightforward, with clear instructions. Everything screws together with the supplied 4mm Allen key, except for the top piece for which you'll need a crosshead screwdriver.

Find your nearest dealer here

Buy this online here

You'll also need a tape measure to find out the distance between your room's floor and ceiling. If you're anything like me, that'll mean allowing an extra 10 minutes to find one of the seven scattered round your house somewhere.

Tools located, and not hurrying, it takes about 20 minutes to put the OakRak together.

GearUp OakRak - 5 - top piece against ceiling

You can change the height of the arms so each bike is no higher than it needs to be, and adjust them independently so that bikes with sloping top tubes hang level. The rack comes with Velcro straps to wrap between front wheel and down tube and keep the wheel from flapping around.

GearUp OakRak - 3 - hook mount

I've been using GearUp floor-to-ceiling racks for years. Properly installed, they're stable and let you store up to four bikes against a wall and reasonably out of the way. The basic two-bike setup works really well against a wall, especially with drop-handlebar bikes. If your bike-storage space is a bit more roomy, then you can store three or four bikes with the extra arms that are available separately.

GearUp OakRak - 6 - hook

The more rigid the floor and ceiling between which a GearUp rack braces, the better. Installing the rack in one place I lived was accompanied with an ominous crack as the ceiling lifted away from the cornice. GearUp says you should make sure there's a beam behind the piece of ceiling where you place the OakRak; that's sensible advice.

GearUp OakRak - 4 - extender feet

At £169.99 the OakRak isn't cheap. The conceptually similar Topeak Dual Touch has an RRP of £139.99, and can be found cheaper, but the difference shrinks when you shop around a bit for an OakRak. At typical online prices, it's less unreasonable.

>> Need a stand for working on your bike? Check out our guide here

The OakRak is one of two GearUp floor-to-ceiling racks. There's also an aluminium model with sliding upper and lower sections. This is easier to set up than the OakRak, but a tenner more expensive, and rather industrial-looking. The OakRak definitely looks better in a living room. Importer Madison says it's the more popular, and that's probably why.

What do you mean you don't keep your bikes in your living room? That's neglect, that is.

GearUp OakRak - no bikes

Verdict

Excellent, well-finished and easy-to-use bike storage

If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website

road.cc test report

Make and model: GearUp OakRak Floor-to-Ceiling 2 to 4-bike rack

Size tested: N/A

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

The GearUp OakRak is for the indoor storage of bikes, and is designed to be good-looking enough that it's not out of place in your living room.

GearUp says:

A good looking floor-to-ceiling bike rack that carries two bikes as standard

Can be upgraded to carry four bikes; extra bikes kits are available

Constructed from beautiful furniture grade American red Oak from sustainable sources, with a hand-rubbed oil stain finish to show off the grain of the wood

Minimum ceiling height required is 7 feet / 2.13 metres, and the maximum is 10 feet / 3 metres; assembled width is 14.5 inches / 37 cm, and depth 9.5 inches 24 cm

Vinyl coated arms hold and protect your bike, and are adjusted independently to fit many shapes and sizes of frame

Velcro straps provided to stabilise the front wheel of your bike

Held in place with a tension mounting system, with a maximum recommended weight of 200 lbs / 90 kg

All assembly hardware is included, and some simple DIY is required

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
9/10

The wooden sections are tidily finished and the nuts and bolts look good.

Rate the product for performance:
 
9/10

Properly braced between floor and ceiling, holds bikes well.

Rate the product for durability:
 
9/10
Rate the product for value:
 
5/10

It's nicely made in the USA, and it's oak, not pine or MDF, but there are cheaper ways to do the same thing, so it only gets an average score for value.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

It works really well.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Stability, simplicity, appearance.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your score

The GearUp OakRak looks good and does its job very well. It does need a sturdy ceiling to brace against, but as long as you have that it's a great way to store bikes, especially if you're renting and therefore can't put great big hooks in the walls. I'd give it 9/10 but for the price, which is a bit steep.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 48  Height: 5ft 11in  Weight: 85kg

I usually ride: Scapin Style  My best bike is:

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: commuting, touring, club rides, general fitness riding, mountain biking

GearUp OakRak Floor-to-Ceiling 2 to 4-bike rack
GearUp 2015
GearUp
John Stevenson

Acknowledged by the Telegraph as a leading cycling journalist, John Stevenson has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc editor Tony Farelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013 and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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