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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.
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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
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
The wooden sections are tidily finished and the nuts and bolts look good.
Properly braced between floor and ceiling, holds bikes well.
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.
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
Our official grumpy Northerner, John has been riding bikes for over 30 years since discovering as an uncoordinated teen that a sport could be fun if it didn't require you to catch a ball or get in the way of a hulking prop forward.
Road touring was followed by mountain biking and a career racing in the mud that was as brief as it was unsuccessful.
Somewhere along the line came the discovery that he could string a few words together, followed by the even more remarkable discovery that people were mug enough to pay for this rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work. He's pretty certain he's worked for even more bike publications than Mat Brett.
The inevitable 30-something MAMIL transition saw him shift to skinny tyres and these days he lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
4 comments
I like the quality but wonder if there's much space saved here? The bottom bike surely would be just as good an inch or two lower, on the ground, and the top one would use up an extra 6 inches if just back to back at ground level? Good for hallway use perhaps, I can see that, but in livingroom it's a bit like that Jack Nicholson western where they have the chairs hanging on the walls surely?
I've had the freestanding Oakrak for years and find it a better option that the floor to ceiling option - no faffing about measuring the height of the room and very stable too. The quality of the wood is very good and almost looks like a piece of furniture (with no veneer in 'ere either!). A great product to store your best bikes indoors.
It makes it easier to hoover under them, and in the hall it means you can store shoes under them. Back to back is ok, but it's easy to scratch bikes with their pedals, especially if one of the bikes is a mountain bike with flat pedals, and as you say, in a hall every inch of extra space taken up is a nuisance
Nice but my ceiling in 3.6m high