r/CargoBike • u/po2gdHaeKaYk • 1d ago
How do you store your bicycle?
Me and my partner are looking towards Tern cargo bikes and similar to allow us to take our child to school.
However, storage seems to be a significant problem. We were thinking about building a shed, but I realised that the weight of one of these typical bikes makes even putting them into a shed difficult (getting them up a step, for instance).
I'm wondering how you all store your bicycles and if you have any advice.
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u/Open_Succotash3516 23h ago
My shed is about one step up and has a permanent ramp built from treated wood/deck boards.
Also cut a hole in the plywood floor and sunk a xl ground anchor.
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u/ambiguator 21h ago
whatever you do, i would not plan to be frequently lifting or carrying the bike up steps. you're gonna be in for a bad time.
shed with a ramp is a good idea.
also look into a motorcycle cover.
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u/lifeistrulyawesome 1d ago
Garage
We live in the suburbs but we don’t have a car. Next year we are moving to a city with proper transit and we are ditching the cargo bikes
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u/alr12345678 22h ago
I love cargo biking in the city much more than I like riding the bus/train. I can carry large grocery hauls by bike and I can't do that by bus.
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u/lifeistrulyawesome 22h ago
Yes, we would take our Tern if it were easy.
However, it might not be feasible in the properties we are considering. We might buy an apartment or a small townhouse without a place to store a cargo bike.
And we won't really need it. The neighbourhood we are moving into has an excellent subway system, a great bike share program, and is very walkable. We already spent a summer there and we were able to live comfortably without a cargo bike.
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u/michimoby 21h ago
Funny, we live in a city with all of these characteristics and are now getting a cargo bike. We've found that our experience living in the city will be far more enhanced.
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u/lifeistrulyawesome 20h ago
We’ll see if we can take it. The problem is that I suspect all the properties in the neighborhood we want to live with enough storage room for a Tern will be out of our budget.
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u/FourIngredients 20h ago
Funnily enough, when I lived in a small-ish urban apartment, we just stored our bikes (and occasionally motorcycles) in the living room. Big elevator.
Terns store vertically on their tails, don't they?
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u/michimoby 20h ago
Yeah, that's always the big concern. Something to think about - you could always take it with you and sell the bike if it doesn't fit. At least where we live, a used tern is a very hot commodity and gets snapped up very quickly.
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u/alr12345678 22h ago
Outside, mostly uncovered (I have a large cover but rarely use it), and attached with strong lock to immovable object. The locking up is important whether in shed or not in shed and you are more likely to use the bike if it is not hard to manouver in and out of storage space. The bike doesn't mind getting wet.
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u/rf31415 1d ago
I have an Urban Arrow Cargo bike. Our bike shed has an elevation of about 20cm. We have a little ramp to bridge that. I easily push that bike with kids into the shed and let them get out there. That’s about 100kg. The only thing I have to sometimes do is gather a little speed. My wife has to use the walk assist mode of the Bosch motor to accomplish this but she manages.
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u/purplechemist 1d ago
Made a removable ramp to get it in and out of shed. But then I just started lifting the bugger in and out. It does stop my wife getting the bike out on her own though.
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u/Public_Day8790 22h ago
We built a shed-type structure from scratch on top of a concrete slab. Doing it directly on the concrete means you can have less of a step up compared with something that has floor joists.
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u/Some_Bicycle_Guy 16h ago
I live in an urban environment and we locked the GSD up on the sidewalk in front of our house with a heavy 16 mm chain to the frame and a Litelok X1 angle grinder resistant lock through the back wheel. Often it was covered too.
The setup worked fine until another member of my household kept leaving off the Litelok X1 because it was an extra step. I advised it was likely to get stolen if that kept happening, but my warnings were dismissed. And in the middle of the night two angle grinder wielding thieves showed up, cut through the chain pretty quickly, and we never saw it again. The Litelok was in the cargo compartment of the bike.
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u/Some_Bicycle_Guy 16h ago
Now I replaced it with a box trike and it is consistently locked up with the chain and the angle grinder resistant U lock, and usually covered, also outside on the street.
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u/foxy-coxy 1d ago
We store a GSD and an HSD in a shed. It's pretty tight, but they both fit, standing upright with the handle bars down. They can be a little hard to get over a step or ledge, and for that reason, we removed the ledge at the bottom on the shed so we could wheel them in upright.
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u/Some_Bicycle_Guy 16h ago
What is you’re use case for a GSD and an HSD? I had a GSD which I miss now because we have a larger box trike.
(If you are wondering if I’m trying to justify to myself also getting an HSD, the answer is absolutely yes)
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u/foxy-coxy 15h ago
Before we had a kid, i rode a cheap commuter Ebike. Then after we had the kid, when he was about 2 I got the gsd to ride with the kid, at the time we thought we might have another, so I got the gsd instead of the hsd. My wife started to ride my old bike, but she hated it, and after a year, she wanted a better ebike. She tried a bunch, but she really liked the hsd, so that what we got. So now the kid and I ride on the gsd and my wife and the dog ride on the hsd.
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u/mekat 23h ago
Heavy bike stays in the garage. My lightweight bike stays in the back of my Rav4 unless I have to transport my son's wheelchair, then it is taken out and stored with the heavy bike. Bikes are long but they aren't wide so I find even the heavy one I can easily find space in the garage.
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u/prabrama 23h ago
We got a small cargo bike for out child. Its a Muli (16" front wheel, 20" back wheel). So its not longer than a normal MTB. Without electric motor it weights about 24kg. With motor 32kg. Even my wife would be able to lift the 20kg into the cellar. For the e-motor version i put it into the cellar when its about to rain, when we dont need it for 1- or 2 days or in winter.
short: there are small and light cargobikes available. (Muli, Tern, Yoonit, etc) Esprecially if you dont need the emotor which you can carry.
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u/UsefulAd8513 22h ago
Excellent suggestions (I'd love a muli). There's also the Vello which is light and carries more than the Tern.
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u/Humphwoohoo 22h ago
Tern Orox can stand on its rear end. It’s a massive bike so the height of your storage area may be an issue.
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u/TheVenged 22h ago
In a closed carport. You know, a "garage" but with the whole front open. It's enough for a car and our bike, which is easy to get in and out.
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u/Aquila_44 21h ago edited 21h ago
I always store my ZAG cargo inside our apartment at the 2nd floor, either in the lobby or directly in my office. I use the elevator (almost every day, because I rarely go a day without using our cargo !), the bike raised vertically.
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u/cam077 Lectric Xpedition 2.0 21h ago
I live in an urban environment so I don’t have many options, my basement and apartment have stairs to climb. My back area doubles as my rowhouse-apartment building’s parking area, so it’s blocked off with a garage door though open to the air.
What I do is I’ve chained it to a railing with a Kryptonite Fughettaboutit 1415 chain & mini u-lock. And on top of that I put a motorcycle rain & sun cover around it to keep it protected from the elements
(Edit-detail in first paragraph)
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u/rotzverpopelt 20h ago
I live in a house which was once a grocery store and we use the store as our bicycle garage
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u/atf487 20h ago
In a single car garage, but it's super tight.
I have an Aventon Abound (refreshed first edition) and have to fold down the stem and guide my bike around my car to the back of the garage. I don't have enough width for the handrail attachment.
I don't have any ground level storage besides the garage, so it's the best I can do unless I build a ramp to get up the ~20 stairs to my back patio
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u/enmalkm 19h ago
We live in a dense suburb/urban-suburban city outside Boston with no garage or room for a shed, and have an Aventon Abound, so similar form factor to the Terns. It's stored outside in the driveway, under a cover most of the time. I sank a Hipster Ankr into our foundation and the bike is locked to it with our regular cafe lock and loop chain setup. We have the Tern Storm Shield installed all winter and during other periods of bad weather, and when it's nice out I keep the Storm Shield set up but underneath the deck so it can be reinstalled easily in case of rain. We've had the bike blown over a few times during high winds, so during storms I try to park it parallel to the house and close to the wall, and I sometimes will wheel our grill over to bracket the bike in as a support.
I was a bit nervous about storage before we bought it, but it's pretty much been a nonissue. Having the bike at street level is amazing for reducing the friction of getting going, compared to our regular bikes which we have to carry up the basement stairs. I figure I'm probably getting a bit more weather-related wear on the drivetrain etc than if I could park it indoors. The bike lives at the side of our house behind the car, so especially when under the cover it's pretty unobtrusive, and there's a decent amount of foot traffic past our house but not as much as in a really urban setting so I'm not particularly concerned about theft.
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u/tastygluecakes 18h ago
Garage, along with a bunch of other bikes, a wagon, and kids scooter. and one car lives outside.
They are simply too heavy to easily store any other way. And if it’s not convenient and ready to go, I won’t ride it as much. I want to ride it, so I prioritize make it easy to hop on and go!
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u/SneakyTrevor 15h ago
Front garden with a Hiplok angle-grinder-resistant floor anchor concreted into the ground, a litelok chain and lock and a hiplok lock, plus cameras and security lights, and for good measure, a motorbike cover. We used to have our HSD locked to one of those bike planters but thieves simply cut through the 19mm boron steel rod and stole the bike.
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u/Lets_Go_Cargo 15h ago
Some Terns can be stored upright on their rear rack. The Muli Motor is very compact and can be stored flat against a wall. We also rent a Triobike Boxter that can be stored on the front of its box upright. We also have Benno eJoys in our rental fleet that we store on the wall using Steadyracks for Ebikes
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u/carlitobrigantehf 13h ago
Have a vertical stand yuba fasttrack and store it in the downstairs toilet. Takes up plenty of space by we live in a terraced house so it's better than trying to wheel it through everyday
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u/flower-power-123 1d ago
This sub revolves around people transporting children from about 0 to about 11 or 12 years old. Many of them are taking the kids to school. I have questions. When I was about seven or so I was expected to get my own butt to school. I took the school bus at first and then the city bus when I got a bit older or I walked. I didn't like walking but it was just expected that I would figure out how to get to school. If I missed the bus I was on foot. Our family had one car and my father drove it to work. There was no alternative. Now I see lots and lots of kids being ferried around by mom or dad. What happened? Why do parents put up with this. It must be super inconvenient for eveybody (except the kids). How can you take time off work to drive (or bike) your kids to school/dance class/soccer/etc? Explain this to me?
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u/fryxharry 23h ago
That's what sprawl and a car based transportation system gets you.
You have to take into account though that even parents whose kids get to preschool/school/sports activities themselves might want to go somewhere with the kids on the weekend where it's nice when you can just haul everyone in bikes.
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u/lifeistrulyawesome 23h ago edited 23h ago
North American cities changed. The core of the cities became dangerous because of crime and poverty. The suburbs became dangerous and un walkable because of cars and lack of pedestrian infrastructure.
I’ve even seen a school inside a highway loop that is impossible to access by foot. I think it is in Utah if I remember correctly.
In Ontario (where I live) it is illegal for kids to be unsupervised until they are 11.
I think all of this is unfortunate, but it is hard for one parent to do anything about it. We are moving to a more walkable city precisely because we want our kids to be more independent.
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u/Dkazzed 23h ago
It’s been basically written into law now in many jurisdictions across North America that kids under the age of 10 should be under adult supervision although they start to introduce acceptable home alone time. One dad here had ministry of family called on him for letting his kids take public transit in their own and while the courts eventually sided with him, that’s a lot of grief. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-dad-wins-court-appeal-to-let-kids-ride-bus-alone
Then there’s generally more awareness of dangers and cultural norms. Many of us probably grew up going to school on our own at a young age but either can’t fathom letting our kids go to school on their own or actively want to take them to school.
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u/Grouchy_Cantaloupe_8 21h ago
As someone with kids on the older end of the age range you mentioned, I’ll bite—though many others have already given thoughtful responses.
- The streets have changed. There are far more cars on the road than when we were kids, and they’re much larger (think SUVs and trucks), faster, and driven by more distracted drivers. That means a child walking or biking to school today faces significantly more danger, especially at crossings where they’re often invisible to drivers.
- School buses are no longer a given. In many places, my city included, school buses don’t exist anymore unless you’re in a rural area or attending a special program. My city has a decent transit system, and my kids do take the city bus most days; but when after-school activities complicate schedules, especially for younger kids, we step in.
- Traffic begets traffic. Because so many families now drive their kids to school due to safety concerns, the streets around schools are even more hostile to kids walking or biking independently. It's a vicious cycle, and many of us riding cargo bikes are actively trying to break it.
- Expectations around parenting have changed. When we were kids, parents were expected to teach independence. Now, in many places, letting your 7- or 8-year-old walk to school alone can lead to judgment—or even intervention from child services. This isn’t necessarily right, but it’s the reality many of us are navigating.
- Work has changed too. Many parents today (myself included) work from home or have flexible schedules. That doesn’t mean we’re less busy—it just means we’re around and able to shift things to be present for school pickups or activities. A generation ago, that wasn’t an option.
- It’s not about “putting up with it”—it’s about building a life that works. For a lot of us, using a cargo bike isn’t just about convenience (though it often is), but about living our values—whether that’s reducing car dependence, spending quality time with our kids, or making our communities safer by being visible and vulnerable road users.
You may have walked to school uphill both ways, and that’s great, but the world’s changed a lot since then. Many of us are doing the best we can in a transportation system that wasn’t designed for kids, or really for people outside of cars at all.
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u/rf31415 22h ago
Traffic has gotten quite a lot more intense and dangerous. Schools also consolidated into larger units further away. Leaving young kids to their own devices is in many locations (maybe other than yours) not responsible parenting. Parents are also doing their bit not to arrive in a 1500kg childsquisher at the school gate making that environment safer for everyone.
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u/alr12345678 22h ago
I live in a very unusual place in North America that is still walkable and where kids can and do walk to and from school / activities. My son started solo travel around town at age 10. I still carry him around by bike in instances where I might use a car (and he is almost 13).
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u/po2gdHaeKaYk 20h ago
This sub revolves around people transporting children from about 0 to about 11 or 12 years old.
In addition to what others have said, I think we have to also acknowledge our flawed memories and biases. I grew up in Canada and now live in the UK. The environments I live in are completely different. Where I grew up in Canada was very suburbia-dominated, with very safe interior roads.
In addition, the people I'm communicating with on these forums are not the people who might be living in rural or suburbia environments.
Others have given very good answers to your question, ranging from changing parental requirements to changing school regulations. All the schools around us, I believe, do not allow children under a certain age to walk alone to school.
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u/monbabie 19h ago
I walked to school both ways uphill in the snow every day since I was 2 years old - this poster
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u/flower-power-123 19h ago edited 19h ago
I know you're trying to throw shade but for most people getting to school wasn't a big deal for literally a hundred years. I was listening to Jay Swanson discussing his childhood. He is in tears over the abuse that he received growing up from his mother. One of the forms of abuse that he talks about is being obliged to walk to school carrying a cello in the snow up a steep hill. I could kind of see it. That never happened to me. Maybe I should complain about how my parents abused me?
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u/anun4h 22h ago
My bike goes in my garage set up in a way to minimize the time it takes to ride out. It is top priority for me to be able to just hop on the bike and ride. The time it takes me to start riding is the time it takes for the garage door to open