Storing your bike, or family bikes, is impossibly hard for some people and a doddle for others (until a thief calls!) depending where and how you live, and what bikes you have. We want to hear your experiences, ideas or handy hints – anything related to domestic bike storage. Our competitions always bring a wide range of ideas, which we can use to help other people. Plus .. you could win a great prize and some modest fame!
Whether it’s a storage challenge you’ve overcome, an experience you’d rather forget, or something you’d not recommend – if it’s about storing your bike(s) at home, we want to hear from you!! You may live in a flat, bedsit, terraced house, student accommodation or a mansion – but you’ve got to store your bike(s) somewhere!
Your entry needn’t be about equipment, though it could be. It might be an amusing incident, or how your much-loved bike was stolen whilst you slept, or how having children suddenly brought new storage dilemmas, or how the arrival of Bike Hangars changed your life, or how swapping car for bikes gave you more storage space – or just a simple handy hint.
click pics for full size
Factors in judging may include how useful your idea is, or how interesting or unusual your experience. Words alone are fine, even just one superb sentence, but a picture, diagram etc often adds value to an entry.
It’s easy to enter – but please carefully read the full rules below. As with all our recent competitions, entries will appear on our website (anonymous except for prizewinners) and hopefully will help other people look after their bikes safely.
Most years at least half of all entrants get either a prize or a runner-up buff!!
Super prizes (Including 10 runner-up prizes) !!
- ScotRail Return ticket for 2 adults & up to 4 kids between any 2 ScotRail stations
- Spokes £1000 voucher* towards purchase of a cargo-bike
- Spokes £200 voucher* towards purchase of an e-bike
- Spokes Full set of 4 Spokes maps plus 2 buffs**
- Hippodrome – 2 tickets at Scotland’s oldest purpose-built cinema (in Bo’ness)
- Lanterne Rouge (cyclists’ favourite cafe, in Gifford) £10 voucher
- Dowerhouse Cafe Two £25 vouchers [one per prizewinner]
- Edinburgh BikeCoop £50 voucher
- Edinburgh Festival of Cycling One day free hire of the EdFoC Urban Arrow cargobike
- Laidback Bikes Electric or manual recumbent tour, solo or guided to Cramond OR one day free hire of a cargo bike
- Hart’s Cyclery One-week hire of an e-bike
- Camera Obscura & World of Illusions – Family ticket
- Sustrans online shop £20 voucher
- Spokes 10 runners-up will each win 1 map or buff**
* This voucher may only be used for the purpose stated above. It may only be used by the winner and is not transferable. It must be used at an Edinburgh or Lothians independent bike shop which is not one of the major national chains. We will pay the shop direct.
** Your buff will show a section of either our Edinburgh or our Midlothian map (your choice)
Competition rules
- Closing date – midnight Sunday 3 September
- Your entry can be text (prose or verse) with or without photos, or photos alone, or a video, with the following conditions…
- Text (prose or verse) – 600 word limit
- Photos – max 4 photos and please try to keep each photo under 1MB
- Video – can be very short but definitely no longer than 2 minutes. You must give a link to your video (e.g. on youtube), do not attach it
- If your entry refers to or pictures a place, it must be in Edinburgh or the Lothians
- Email your entry to competition@spokes.org.uk
- In your email, include your name, phone, email, and which town or area you live in
- Each person can submit 1 or 2 entries (not more)
- Entries can only be submitted electronically, not on paper
- Spokes may use your entry on our website, in our Bulletin or in other ways. By entering the competition you give Spokes permission to use your entry material in our ongoing campaigning and promotional work in any way. We may credit your name, unless you specifically ask us not to
- Our competition is primarily for residents of Edinburgh and Lothian. Although anyone else can enter, note that most of the prizes only apply in Edinburgh/Lothian
- The top prize winner gets first choice of prizes, and so on till all prizes allocated
- The competition will be judged by members of Resources Group together with an outside judge; all of whom will be ineligible for prizes
Please help publicise the competition by passing on the link to this article, retweeting our tweet or liking our facebook post.
Resources
Here are some existing resources that may help if you are having bike storage problems…
- Tenements and flats – Spokes factsheet
- Garden sheds – info from Spokes
- On-street Bike Hangars – book a space or suggest a location
