I have a 70lb ebike that I love, but it’s been difficult and dangerous to get it up and down the stairs to my apartment’s basement bike storage room. The HOA refuses to install (or allow me to install) a bike ramp to make it easier. Any tricks or anything I can buy to accomplish this?
The HOA refuses to install (or allow me to install) a bike ramp to make it easier.
Get friendly with the other members, take over the HOA and change the rules.
A rope or strap from the head tube to the seat tube, as recommended to me from this very community for my 95 lbs (43 kg) ebike:
Not so much squatting the bike from below, a strap from the seat tube to the headstock would give you good height adjustment to get it high enough to make getting it up the stairs easier but not so high your lifting it needlessly high
Mine have handles near the center and it helps a ton, I imagine a strap could make a big difference if the bike lacks one!
I’m having trouble picturing this. Does it basically add a strap that you put over your shoulder to assist with lifting?
Essentially, yes. The strap would ideally be the correct length so that when you’re climbing stairs, the bike is hovering just above the stairs, with your shoulder roughly above the bike’s center of gravity so it won’t pitch up or down. A wider strap like on luggage bags would be optimal, to distribute the weight on your shoulder. Meanwhile, you’d use your arms to stabilize the bike left/right so it doesn’t hit the stairwell walls. You’d also rotate the cranks so they’re out of your way whilst climbing the stairs.
Best scenario is that the strap can just be left attached to the bike, so that you’re already ready to lift it up some stairs or onto buses or over any obstructions in the road.
That sounds like it would work for me. Any idea where to get such a strap?
I’m not aware of something that’s ready-made for exactly this purpose, but my first port of call might be to look at tie-down straps or luggage straps. The former are available at all manner of home improvement or auto parts stores, but have the drawback of being somewhat narrow (ie it’ll press into your shoulder more) and have a metal buckle that can scratch up your bike if it flails around.
The latter might also work, provided that they actually have a weight rating of some description, and often a wide webbing with a wide plastic buckle, but you’ll have to figure out how to wrap this onto your bike, probably as a loop that circles the head tube and circles the seat tube.
In either configuration, a 6-8 ft (2-2.4 m) length should suffice, I would think.
Thanks, I’ll give it a shot!
All of my bikes have a walking mode, great for stairs
Sheer grit and determination.
Also, I got a place with ramps now so it’s a lot better!
I’ve used walk mode to help, but mostly it’s just you gotta muscle it up the stairs. Try to keep it close to your center of gravity, avoid lifting with your back, take advantage of the brakes when you need to pause, and if that’s not feasible, consider a regular bicycle or folding bike/ebike that doesn’t weigh a ton.
Can you post a pic of your setup and do you have a window big enough to get your bike through? Maybe a hoist or temporary ramp could be options?
Sure, I’ll grab some pics after work. Someone above mentioned a shoulder strap and I think that might work. As it stands, I’ve just been deadlifting it with one hand and carrying it, but it’s difficult because I’m so short.
Honestly, I just goose the throttle whenever I need to carry it up stairs.
Shouldn’t there be ADA accommodations? Regardless, I never trust community bike storage unless each unit is individual. I keep my city ebike in my apartment behind the front door.
“Installing” a ramp can be as easy as dropping a plank of wood on the stairs just long enough to move the bike and then removing it. Is that not an option?
I don’t know what kind of bike you’ve got but I’ve always found that anything with normal (19"+) sized wheels should be able to roll right up or down stairs, optionally in your case under its own power. If you have something with little 12" rims or if you have landings and turns to contend with that’s when it becomes a headache.
The stairs are pretty steep so a plank of wood would just slide down. I’ve been considering engineering something that can loop around the doorway to prevent it from sliding, but I lack tools or expertise to build it.
I’ve got a Lectric XP 1.0 with fat tires, and it doesn’t roll up the stairs - I have to lift it each step. Combined with the weight and my short stature, I’ve been close to tripping several times.
A plank that’s long enough to reach from the top step to the ground and with a miter cut into it the same angle as the slope of the stairs should stay in place fairly well. If you really want to keep it in place without having to attach it to anything, cut a triangle (or two) that fits in the gap between your plank and one of the steps, with the angle on it the same as the slope of the stairs, and screw it to the underside of your plank.
Your load will be bone by whatever step this rests on and it will have to slide quite far, the depth of an entire stair tread, before it can fall off and slide down the stairs. When you’re done with this contraption you can just pick it up and stash it somewhere.
If you haven’t got a circular saw you’ll have to borrow one from somebody or rope someone in to helping you with this, but you should be able to do it with just three cuts. You can make it all out of the same length of 2x10, or whatever it is you wind up using.
Note that the taller the stairs are the longer and more unwieldy this will have to be…
Can the bikes walk-mode assist you with going up the stairs?
Good idea, but I haven’t been able to get it to work safely. The stairs have a lip on them which the tires get stuck on. Getting down has also been very difficult as the bike tends to try to run away from me. If I were taller or stronger I think I could do it.
Going up the stairs push the bike along with the walk assist. When going down stairs just use brakes to slow the descent.
Slowly. I only have to get it up and down the porch, few steps, but even that is pretty hard. I think down is worse than up, honestly, less effort but it does weigh enough to take me down with it so I have to be careful.
I used a non-ebike until I didn’t have a flight of stairs to deal with. If I moved into a place where I needed to use stairs, I’d sell it and find something lighter.
If the ceiling can support it, I guess you could try to see if they’d install something like an electric pulley system that might be able to assist?
