Bike Shed

Tenuously connected

Not exactly part of the mechanical work on the bike, but related to it in that it helps me to keep the bikes under cover while freeing up some much-needed space in (i) the garden shed and (ii) the summer house which is Caroline's home office. For the past year I've been jamming the 'Shift in our tiny shed - since the bike's wheelbase is actually longer than the shed is, and we've got an unmovable metal pole right outside the door (long story) this can be infuriatingly awkward, particularly if the bike is loaded, it's dark or tired after a long ride.

I had my eye on a curious corner of land behind both outbuildings, which is part of our garden but has up until now been something of a dump (mostly for crates and other scrap wood). It's a strange rhomboid-type shape, but I figured of roughly the right dimensions that a couple of bikes could more easily fit there, right next to the back gate.

So my project for the last month or so has been some very amateur carpentry to build a little bike shed. I've never done anything like this before so basically have made it up as I've gone along, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. If anything I over-engineered it - using carcassing timber for the frame and 17mm thick boards for the roof, it's actually strong enough to stand on!

There's just about the right amount of room here to keep the bikes dry. The dark line on the wall indicates what was buried in earth until I dug it all out.

By far the hardest part was clearing the old wood and earth that previously filled this area (to a depth of a half meter in places!) and laying the paving slabs - I ended up cutting those with a diamond wheel (on the Dremel, naturally) as attempting to stonemason-them with a hammer and chisel lead to me smashing maybe half a dozen slabs into useless pieces.

Those uprights are just ordinary fence posts, whacked into the ground on metal spikes. Then the structure is built out of carcassing timber - I tried to work out all the angles in advance, which was pretty tricky as there are lots of non-right-angles in this design - screwed together with stainless steel screws.

The roof is made of really thick OSB covered in indestructible EPDM rubber. We actually had a nightmare getting this home, as it wouldn't fit in the car. We ended up strapping it to the roof, though I inadvertently strapped the doors shut and had to crawl in through the boot. What a fool.

Inordinately pleased with this, which makes me feel very middle-aged. Countered by me avoiding messing my back up while constructing it!

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