Valet Bike Parking
Valet Bike Parking is a great service to the community and advertising tool for community bike shops.
What is it?
Simply put, instead of leaving your bike chaining up a post, you leave it with someone who is going to keep an eye on it.
Liability
Chances are the people that would take the time to sue over a small scratch are not apt to use your service in the first place. Regardless, you should have insurance to begin with, and if the event has really high end bikes showing up, a waiver form never hurts.
Keeping track of bikes
Raffle tickets are a cheap and easy way to do it. Buy a roll of 2,000 from Office Depot for under $8. Give one raffle ticket to the bike owner and wedge the other one inbetween the spokes. When they come back to retrieve their bike make sure the numbers match.
Storing the Bikes
- Build a tall saw horse and hang the bikes by their seats.
- Cycle-Safe has a professional version of a saw horse called the Bike-Check™ Portable Bicycle Parking System.
- Use Bottom Bracket Type Display Stands. NOTE: These will not work with over-sized down tubes.
- Assuming there is no risk of damaging lights or shifters, flip mountain bikes upside down and lean road bikes on their side.