What are the architectural constraints for an enthusiast cyclist's house?

Question

Houses built in the 1880s were likely found by 1920 to be unsuitable for ambitious families that wanted to have their own "automobile". (It apparently took just ~4 weeks of wages to buy a Ford Model T using the average income in the US in 1920-1924.)

Now we all know what a house with a garage looks like, but it's seriously lacking for someone with a small collection of bicycles.

It's the 2020s. Suppose we fantasize about a future in which some or all houses are built to accommodate a "cycling garage". What are the main criteria that would be needed for this to work in practice?

Related

• No space inside the house, where do you store / secure bike?
• Enclosed external bicycle storage for house with up to 10 bicycles
• What is the maximum safe storage temperature for a bike?
• Retrofit building with bike lift

Answer 1

It's the 2020s. Suppose we fantasize about a future in which some or all houses are built to accommodate a "cycling garage". What are the main criteria that would be needed for this to work in practice?

I live in a house that's not primarily designed for cycling. If I ever become very rich, I already know what kind of criteria I have for designing a house built for cycling.

The house must have its entrance at ground level. No stairs. This means I can roll any bike inside my house without raising it with my hands. Makes also easier to replace refrigerators and washing machines (provided they are in the ground floor if the house has multiple floors), since you can roll them directly in with a hand truck. However, usually I probably would prefer just working on the bikes in the garage, but it's useful to be able to push the bike in to the main house as well.

The house must have a garage specially designed for cycling. This means the garage has its own ground source heat pump based heating system that heats it to a temperature far lower than the house itself. The garage must also be well insulated. The combination of being well insulated and having a separate ground source heat pump heating system means the heating energy consumption of the garage is very small. The purpose of the heating is to keep it above freezing for the entirety of the year. It's not to keep the temperature comfortably warm like 20C inside the house around the year. Since the temperature in the garage is about 5C or so even in the winter, it means electric scooter and electric bike batteries can be charged there. The garage would be designed so that the house is resellable to a non-cyclist, so it would have enough space for actually parking a car. However, for the cyclist, the car would obviously be parked elsewhere, so the house must have a parking place outdoors with roof over it (the roof prevents ice from forming in the windshield during winter, because it prevents the windshield losing its heat by radiating it into the cold space during non-cloudy nights).

Because opening an entire garage car door for just pushing one bike inside would be ridiculous, the garage should have a side entrance, a normal door with the same key as the house, at ground level, so that bikes can be pushed in through a normal door and don't require opening the garage car door.

I think in the space one car takes, a huge number of bikes can be parked, so the garage doesn't even have to be very big.

Also, for guests that prefer using a bike, there should be places where such bikes can be permanently locked outdoors. These are best made using inverse "U" shaped arches of tubes made from hard steel, that can lock a rear tire into them with a U lock using this locking strategy by Sheldon Brown.

Answer 2

For E-bikes, some ideally fireproof place to charge the batteries. A bricked up box with socket inside or the like.

Answer 3

I'll try.

1. It can't be "just a garage". It has to be a heated (/cooled) room, in which you can spend an hour or two working on your bike(s).
2. It can't have a large garage door that reveals to passerbys your precious bikes.
3. It must be at or near ground level, with at most a mild ramp.
4. It must have a concrete floor, or otherwise something solid to lock bikes to, if/when needed.
5. It must be at the perimeter of the house for easy egress. An ordinary outside door is adequate, and MTBs with larger handlebars can be turned slightly to pass.
6. Lighting must be superb, particularly around the work area.
7. Ideally there would be a large "bike bathtub" and a hose with running water 12 months a year. (What do bike shops use to wash bikes indoors?)
8. You should be able to get a full size cargo bike inside the bike room (including the access to the room). (Credit + thanks, @Renaud)
9. The path from the bike room to the fridge cannot be tortuous (so that you can carry your groceries with little difficulty).
10. A family of, say, 4 people who are all avid cyclists and who each owns 2-4 bikes (because the parents are equitable) would need to think about some clever storage mechanism, perhaps with adequate height to lift bikes off the floor.

Now I just need to go design it and build it.

Answer 4

To me, the architectural constraints for individual houses are no different than a garage, but having a tap and sink is critical for maintenance tasks. Only the arrangement should be different (for example, different door, insulation, more lights indeed,…), but the impact on the building structure and layout is similar.

For condominiums, there are no real solutions unfortunately: shared parkings are good in theory, but bad in practice (not safe for valuable bikes, filled up with abandoned bikes). Larger lifts with easy access should be a solution and a room large enough with a direct access to the entry hall, but here at least, large lifts are discouraged, officially to avoid people to use the lifts when moving. Storing valuable bikes in private rooms in the basement is also not an option, for the lack of supervision. But I would imagine that a real cycling enthusiast with a family of cyclists will exclude an appartement for that reason.