Carpentry and Woodworking - bike rack

I'm looking for plans/ideas on building a home-made bike rack out of wood. A rack that would hold six to eight bikes outside a visitor building. Nothing fancy, but practical and fairly simple to build. Came across a few but not many ideas searching on the web. One like this Build your own bike rack - Outdoor - Home Reno & Design - Canadian Home Workshop (http://www.canadianhomeworkshop.com/home-reno-and-design/outdoor/easy-to-build-bike-rack/a/19163) might be okay but I can't really tell by these pictures exactly how it's gonna actually turn out (the pictures look like two different bike racks to me). I would like something along the lines of the top picture, not too excited about the type pictured on the bottom. The rack will be placed on the ground, not on or near a deck or anything like that. It would have to be something that could be picked up and moved/relocated and not a permanent stuck-in-the-ground type thing. Need to build it out of standard size lumber and typically available fasteners or other hardware. I have a power drill to drill any necessary holes and to screw it together, and a Skilsaw to cut up the pieces, not too much more in the way of woodworking tools. It of course needs to be sturdy and durable, and look like a bike rack.

Well, my first thought was that a rack capable of holding six to eight bikes may not be very portable. Having said that, a simple design would be one similar to that top picture. Sort of a picket fence with supports. Could be done with a bunch of p/t 2x2. Cut the "pickets" about 2' long or so and lay them out on the ground far enough apart, and evenly spaced, for a bike wheeel to fit through. Next lay a top and bottom rail. Mark the top and bottom rails for screw holes and pre-drill them. With every thing lined up, use a little exterior wood glue and drive some long deck screws through the top and bottom rails into the end grains of the pickets. For added strength you can reinforce with t-straps. To support it upright add some 2'6 "feet" to either end. You could also add additional horizontal pieces between the ends of the "feet" (crosswise) to provide a "bar" on the ground to prevent the bikes from rolling out from between the pickets. Voila! :coffee:

Viola! :thumbup: Thanks the_tow_guy. I don't see any reason why your suggested design shouldn't work out just fine. Uncomplicated to build and should meet all my other "requirements". It doesn't necesarily have to be all that "portable" as I indicated, I just meant I'd like to be able to pick it up, maybe with another person, and move/carry it to a slightly different spot when/if necessary, or to take away for storage in the off season, etc. If it turns out after laying it out for eight bikes that it seems like it might be too long or something, I can always just build two of them half as long.

If it can be positioned to have bikes on both sides it would probably help. Keep in mind that even though you might space the "pickets" say 4" apart, you wouldn't necessarily be able to park a bike in every slot because of the handlebar width. Also it would be best not to use glue when you put the big support feet on the ends; that way you could still remove them for easier storage.

Keep in mind that even though you might space the "pickets" say 4" apart, you wouldn't necessarily be able to park a bike in every slot because of the handlebar width.

But still should I go ahead and space the pickets evenly apart every 4" (or so) for the entire length, or just have two pickets spaced apart tire-width at each handle bar width interval?