In Dutch, it's called a "Garage"

[JZH]

Coincidence, or what?!?

 

So, I'm buying a ~275 year-old, three-story "canal house" in the Netherlands with a ground floor which is destined to be my new garage.  Not an American-sized garage by any stretch of the imagination, but if I can manage the space well it should be big enough to meet my current needs.  The total garage area is about 40m2--with 3.5m ceilings.  The challenge is that if I want to be able to use the space as a workshop (and I do), I've got to find some place to store 9-10 motorcycles... (No, selling them is not an option!)

 

My tentative solution is to use the garage's height in a creative way, such that I will build a heavy duty shelf 2m off the ground on the three side walls and lift the bikes up and down using an electric "pallet stacker".  The shelves will be constructed from 41x41 Unistrut, with 1m-spaced verticals attaching at the floor and the ceiling (as well as to the walls).  I'll use a 45-degree shelf support bracket made of welded rectangular tube attached to the horizontal and vertical struts.  The bikes will sit on metal "sleds" I will design and build, which may be based on the Baxley-type wheel chocks I have 6 of now, or maybe on an ABBA stand-type design.  The stacker can lift 1000kg 3.5m (it was either that or install some sort of winch/gantry system to the ceiling--this is simpler!)

 

I'm not a structural engineer, but I've read a bit about the Unistrut system, which is quite versatile and very strong.  I won't need to weld anything to the Unistrut (which is good, because it is galvanized steel...), but I can build the 45-degree brackets and the "sleds" from mild steel tubing and plate.  I should have enough room for six bikes, even if I only use the side walls.  I can only ride one at a time, so as long as they are accessible (and the floor area remains free of obstruction), I should be able to retrieve them whenever I want to worn on them or ride them.  It should look something like this:

 

 

The front wall will have 4x folding doors with windows above, plus there are french doors at the back and a small office.  I should get plenty of light.

 

Thoughts...?  (Especially re the crazy shelf idea!)

 

Cheers,

 

JZH

[St. Stephen]

Now that's a worthy project! Captain 80's has lots of Hondas up on a high shelf, although my memory of his shop pics is that they are lighter, smaller displacement. Just because it might be crazy doesn't mean it won't work.

 

I'm sure I'm stating the obvious when I add that when working with a building pushing 300 y.o. you want to make sure the overall structure can handle it also.

 

I have a friend in Portland OR, skilled at reviving old BMW's (bikes that is), who completely renovated a barn and made the upstairs his workshop. He went the pallet/cable/winch route you mention and ended up with a great mostly wooden elevator! He did have more space to work with however.

 

 

[rc24dk]

A private collector here has his collection display. Here you see a few bikes on a shelf: 

https://www.haaningcollection.dk/galleri?itemId=swsc1cguukqiw1gwoj1ptasif2b7mv

If worries about the cantilever shelf, consider adding a wire suspension from a beam above.

[Lorne]

5 hours ago, JZH said:

Thoughts...?  (Especially re the crazy shelf idea!)

If nothing else it'll be a hell of a lot less work/$$$ than Colin Furze's underground lair.

I'm guessing your benches/toolboxes will sit underneath the bikes, right? Castors will let you rearrange them easily to suite your needs. Please snap a few pics of the build to show your progress.

[JZH]

21 hours ago, Lorne said:

If nothing else it'll be a hell of a lot less work/$$$ than Colin Furze's underground lair.

I'm guessing your benches/toolboxes will sit underneath the bikes, right? Castors will let you rearrange them easily to suite your needs. Please snap a few pics of the build to show your progress.

 

If I tried to dig a basement in South Holland, I'd have a swimming pool!

 

Yes, the reason for the cantilevered shelves is mainly to avoid interference with the workbenches and machine tools underneath.  I could, of course, run at least some front verticals, but I've seen other workshops where they're using pallet racks for both storage and workbenches, and the extra vertical supports always seem to be "in the way".  I'm trying to avoid that.

 

I'm also trying to avoid supporting anything from the ceiling (which is also the bottom floor of our house).  They built these houses very sturdily, but I don't want to chance doing anything which could compromise the structure of the house itself.

 

I will try to post my progress here.  I don't actually have the keys, yet, but that day is almost here!  Then I've got to move fairly quickly to avoid having everything in the UK delivered to the same space in which I'm trying to build all this stuff... 

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

 

 

[mello dude]

Throwing this up there for the halibut, may or may not be useful. We use this stuff all over the manufacturing plants. 

I have thought about building a trailer with it. Strong as all get out. ....No welding required... 

https://parco-inc.com/tslot-aluminum-extrusions/

 

----------

Curious, your option, what does a 275 year old Netherlands house look like? Photo? 

[squirrelman]

kool deal there.  please invite noraly over to see things, and try to get her drunk.  😍

[Sweeper]

What about a cheap hitch hauler that you could strap the bike to and then lift and mount to the Unistrut?

[JZH]

On 6/28/2025 at 1:00 AM, mello dude said:

Throwing this up there for the halibut, may or may not be useful. We use this stuff all over the manufacturing plants. 

I have thought about building a trailer with it. Strong as all get out. ....No welding required... 

https://parco-inc.com/tslot-aluminum-extrusions/

 

----------

Curious, your option, what does a 275 year old Netherlands house look like? Photo? 

 

I bought some of that stuff to build an enclosure for my 3D printer (not yet assembled...).  Very cute--compared with the brute utility of Unistrut!  Generally, however, aluminum anything is a lot more expensive than steel, plus I'd not really know where to start with calculating the loads and sizes required.  I've seen unistrut used in countless (sometimes dangerous) situations, so I'm fairly comfortable using it for the shelving structure.  I've ordered some test pieces and brackets, so I will have a better idea soon enough.

 

Yeah, I don't think I want to put a pic of my actual house on t'internet, but it looks something like the house on the left:

 

 

Mine's not red, not directly on a canal, and is a little taller, but it's a traditional house in a traditional row of Dutch houses like this.  Most such houses have had their ground floors converted into modern living areas (from whatever they were originally, such as a retail shop or workshop).  

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[JZH]

On 6/28/2025 at 2:35 AM, squirrelman said:

kool deal there.  please invite noraly over to see things, and try to get her drunk.  😍

 

The last place she probably wants to go is the Netherlands!

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[JZH]

On 6/28/2025 at 3:36 PM, Sweeper said:

What about a cheap hitch hauler that you could strap the bike to and then lift and mount to the Unistrut?

 

Not sure what you mean?  However, there is some question about whether I will be able to get my van (and its hitch) into the garage at all at this point...but there is no question that I would NOT have enough room to maneuver it around inside if I did!  

 

I will have some Unistrut to play with in a few days, so I will decide what to do after that.  This is an electric "pallet stacker", btw:

 

 

What makes it different than a "forklift" is that it requires support underneath the load, so I will need to be able to slide the front wheels of this thing underneath anything sitting on the floor of my garage below the bike shelves.  So that means everything there needs to be on legs or wheels or a platform.  No problem with workbenches and tool cabinets, but more of a challenge with machine tools such as my bandsaw, drill press, welding cart, future plasma table, lathe, mill, etc.  Fortunately, I like planning; unfortunately, more than doing!

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[Sweeper]

The forklift could easily lift this assembly like a pallet. If you put casters under it, you could push it around the garage easily. The 2" hitch would give you an easy way to attach it to your wall assembly.

[JZH]

Okay, I see what you mean now.  Yes, I plan to make some sort of "sled" to allow the bikes to be lifted up using a fork.  The frames don't need to be very heavy duty (i.e., heavy), but I do need at least six of them, so I'm pretty sure I'll be welding them myself.  Because the shelves will not go all the way to the wall (because the verticals will be in the way), I was thinking about having each sled extend over the front and rear of the shelf with a kind of 30-40mm "tongue" to keep the sled effectively locked in place until lifted straight up with the fork (lift). 

 

Fortunately, I have something like 6-7 of these Baxley Wheel Chock knock-offs already, which is a wheel chock design I like because it pinches and holds the front wheel very securely:

The clever bit of this design is the articulated wheel clamp, which would be fairly difficult for me to duplicate, but I could probably create a lightweight, fork lift-compatible frame which simply includes a horizontal bracket with angled pivots like that, thus allowing me to use the parts from the stands I've already got.  Another thing to CAD...

 

My Unistrut parts arrived, so I mocked one up to get the scale into my head.  That bracket is 2m above the floor, which is where the top of the shelf would be.  Yikes, that's up there!  I'm not sure how deep the shelves should be, but the minimum would be 600mm, and maximum probably 1m.  IIRC, the 5th gen in the background measures ~770mm bar-end to bar-end, but in theory the shelf could be narrower than that.  The workbenches below will be a standard 600mm deep, but 41mm from the wall.  

 

 

 

They make these pre-welded "cantilever arms" for Unistrut in all kinds of sizes, up to 1m long, and they're silly cheap (like £8 each), so I will probably use them for the main shelf supports.

I'd then only have to cut, drill and weld the 45-degree brackets supporting them, using 30mm mild steel box section and 40mm x 8mm flat bar.

 

Another fun fact is that because my ceiling is 3.5m high, I'll have to buy the 6m lengths of strut and cut them down if I don't want to couple two of them (and I don't!).  Fortunately, they will still fit in the van--so long as I cut them first.

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[St. Stephen]

I'm enjoying this thread, looking forward to all the other things you will figure out, and the final result.

 

Are the elevated motorcycle "shelves" really just for display, or do you intend to walk downstairs one morning, decide which bike is perfect for a ride that day, bring it down and zoom off?

[RC1237V]

It looks like there are good resources for "Beam Loads" and "Column Loads" for Unistrut  at given spans online. The only worry I would have is it pulling out of the wall, or bending just below the 45 degree brace. If they are much taller than the bikes, you can run a piece of Unistrut or metal/wood beams across form side to side to prevent collapsing in on itself, and use those to hang your lighting. Although you are extremely thorough in everything I have ever seen you do, so you probably already have a way better plan than my quick brainstorm... 

 

Do post pics as you're building it, we need a good project here to keep us dreaming about our own work spaces!

 

Is it too wet there for painted or epoxy floors?

[Terry]

What a fun project.

 

From an engineering perspective, the closer you sit the bike to the vertical supports, the lower the bending moment on the cantilever will be.

 

I do occasionally drive a counterbalance fork lift (I have a licence and everything!) and I can tell you that putting 1 tonne loads onto the third level of pallet racking takes some hand-eye coordination and a little nerve. You shouldn't have too many problems with your nifty lift truck as I expect the visibility will be much better. You will need to make sure the floor under your shelves is really smooth as the wheels look quite small. 

[YoshiHNS]

As an engineer. No. Just....no.

Do not put that much moment on your walls. They're not designed for that.
Unistrut isn't really meant for doing what you want to do. That angle bracket especially. Its great for easy adjustments and quick builds. Not to hold motorcycles.

 

Figure out how you want to 'tray' the bikes. Make suitable 4 post rack. Use unistrut if you want, but use pallet rack would be easier. Can still anchor it to the wall for safety. Figure your real loading is more like 4x. 2x is considered 'sudden loading' for objects already in contact with each other.

[JZH]

On 7/3/2025 at 3:47 AM, RC1237V said:

It looks like there are good resources for "Beam Loads" and "Column Loads" for Unistrut  at given spans online. The only worry I would have is it pulling out of the wall, or bending just below the 45 degree brace. If they are much taller than the bikes, you can run a piece of Unistrut or metal/wood beams across form side to side to prevent collapsing in on itself, and use those to hang your lighting. Although you are extremely thorough in everything I have ever seen you do, so you probably already have a way better plan than my quick brainstorm... 

 

Do post pics as you're building it, we need a good project here to keep us dreaming about our own work spaces!

 

Is it too wet there for painted or epoxy floors?

 

I've been thinking about the same thing: running horizontal struts side to side along the house's wooden beams in addition to anchoring the verticals into them at the top.  That's a 4.3m span...  But, it also could be a great way to suspend lighting, air lines, etc.  

 

(I'm not sure what kind of floors I have at this point.  There's actually wood flooring in there now.  Not sure what's under it--more wood?  That's not a great for a garage!)

 

Given my space limitations and bike collection, I kinda have to do this, but how it will be done remains an open question.  I will definitely photograph my progress/downfall as I go!

 

Cheers,

 

JZH

[JZH]

On 7/2/2025 at 11:46 PM, St. Stephen said:

I'm enjoying this thread, looking forward to all the other things you will figure out, and the final result.

 

Are the elevated motorcycle "shelves" really just for display, or do you intend to walk downstairs one morning, decide which bike is perfect for a ride that day, bring it down and zoom off?

 

It shouldn't take too much time to take a bike "off the shelf", but I don't know if I will ever have the luxury of choice like that.  I was thinking more about being able to take one down, prep and maybe do some work on it--as well as ride it for a while--before moving on to another one.

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[JZH]

On 7/3/2025 at 4:31 AM, Terry said:

What a fun project.

 

From an engineering perspective, the closer you sit the bike to the vertical supports, the lower the bending moment on the cantilever will be.

 

I do occasionally drive a counterbalance fork lift (I have a licence and everything!) and I can tell you that putting 1 tonne loads onto the third level of pallet racking takes some hand-eye coordination and a little nerve. You shouldn't have too many problems with your nifty lift truck as I expect the visibility will be much better. You will need to make sure the floor under your shelves is really smooth as the wheels look quite small. 

 

Let's hope it stays a "fun" project!  Floor smoothness requirement noted--thanks.

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[JZH]

On 7/4/2025 at 4:33 AM, YoshiHNS said:

As an engineer. No. Just....no.

Do not put that much moment on your walls. They're not designed for that.
Unistrut isn't really meant for doing what you want to do. That angle bracket especially. Its great for easy adjustments and quick builds. Not to hold motorcycles.

 

Figure out how you want to 'tray' the bikes. Make suitable 4 post rack. Use unistrut if you want, but use pallet rack would be easier. Can still anchor it to the wall for safety. Figure your real loading is more like 4x. 2x is considered 'sudden loading' for objects already in contact with each other.

 

'No' is not really what I wanted to hear, but reading on it sounds more like a 'maybe' to me!  One option I have considered (but hoped to avoid) was to convert the cantilevered shelves into a 4-post rack.  Unistrut is also available in deeper channels (61mm and 81mm), but that gets expensive real quick.  'Back-to-back' 41mm channels are also available.  But using any of them for the verticals forces the workbenches away from the wall--and I don't know if just using those struts would solve the 'moment' issue in any case.

 

A 4-post rack may be the least-worst solution.  I'd still have to work out the number of posts-per-bike, but that should be a fairly straightforward load (4x) calculation--and that could still allow me to position large equipment underneath (such as a lathe) if it were located "between bikes", so to speak.

 

* * *

 

Okay, so I've now looked at commercial pallet racks and I think that may actually be the way to go.  They are available here in a number of configurations, but most critically in 800mm deep versions with spans up to 3.6m!  I have 7m of wall, so I could fit a six-post pallet rack with two 3.3m spans, each of which is designed to support 1,100kg.  A fully laden VFR800 (the largest bike I would be racking) weighs less than 300kg, so I could store three of them with no issue--and only have one vertical post "in the way" down below.

 

 

Something like this, but with the horizontal carriers moved all the way to the top.  (I've read that the loading and stability of "one-level" pallet racks are much reduced, so I'd have to brace it to the walls, at least.)  I'd also have to think about the shelf covering (if any)...

 

Thanks for your insight--critical comments are in many ways more valuable than encouraging ones!

 

Ciao,

 

JZH

[Thumbs]

If they’re rated for 1000kg as pallet shelves then you need to remove the point loads from the tyres, as the design is for a UDL

[Terry]

You were going to make a motorcycle pallet anyway; just make it so that it bridges the beams with some leeway. According to a local supplier, 3.2m span and 140mm deep beams has a load rating of 2746kg. That's plenty. But can you fit two bikes end-to-end in that bay? My gut feel is that you need more like 2m of shelf length. Maybe three x 2m bays would be best.

[Mohawk]

Well it's a great idea, I like it. As far as strength goes for steel shelving just remember how small the centre stands are on your bikes, it can support the full weight of the bike with a rider to boot. 
 

So it doesn't take much steel to take the weight. And diagonal braces will redirect the load into the wall affixed verticals, so no need of front support legs. 
 

Re the lifter legs, each bike should have one lift position, so you only need leg space equidistant from the balance point of each pallet/sled, so place your tools to suit!

 

 

 

[vfrcapn]

If you only had a little more height...

 

What about going 2x3 high (3x2?) on one side to leave the full wall open on the other side?