Vertical bike racks remain one of the most popular options for indoor bike parking. Their balance of parking density, configurability, ease of use along with favorable pricing makes them a great choice for home storage and large commercial bike rooms alike.
But as bikes have become more diverse in terms of tire and frame sizes and shapes, we found our original Bike Tracs struggling to accommodate the full range of bicycles being ridden today. So, we put our in-house design team to work to upgrade a product that has been a staple of our lineup for over two decades to create a premier indoor bike rack.
The first change they made was to accommodate the ever-expanding tires on bikes today. This new Trac can fit a 5” wide fat bike tire without having to use a fat tire specific Trac. This was achieved while maintaining the ability for even the narrowest road wheels to still rest effortlessly on the same hook.
To further expand the range of bikes accommodated, the length of the tracs has been increased to fully support bikes with longer wheelbases. This can help provide a 2nd point of contact for greater stability as well as protect backing walls from tire scuffing when these are used in the wall mounted configuration.
The most noticeable feature added to our new Bike Tracs is the articulating lock bar. Our previous iteration and most other similar racks on the market use a solid loop to lock the bike. While this has been adequate in the past, there are some drawbacks to this design. A stationary bar is not always positioned in a way such that certain bikes shapes or smaller U locks are able to be properly locked. The ability to adjust our new bar puts the bar in the ideal locking location for whatever bike finds its way onto the rack to minimize theft risk. It also allows the locking bar to fold out of the way when not in use for a less cluttered system.
The new lock bar design further ups theft deterrence with its unique shape. One of the most common tools used for bike thefts is a pipe cutter but these only work on round tubing, commonly used on these types of bike racks. With its heavy duty, flat shape design, our lock bar renders pipe cutters useless.
Improvements were made on the frames of our floor mounted units as well. Not only were these made more robust, but we also expanded their configurability. Rather than having fixed locations to mount the Tracs on the frame as we did previously, the tracs can mount at any point, accommodating spacing intervals as low as 15” all the way up to 24”. With multiple sized frames with both single and double sided options, these can be arranged to maximize parking in just about any bike storage space.
By improving the usability and features of the tried-and-true Vertical Bike Rack, Saris continues to provide a best in class bike storage racks for cyclists and the diverse range of bikes they ride.
