BikeStow Original – One review

BikeStow’s range of CNC’d plywood bike stands, for use at home and in your vehicle, includes this smart, narrow one-bike BikeStow Original – One rack, designed for cars and vans where space is at a premium.

It sits alongside two, three and four-bike options, as well as a number of house/garage stands.

BikeStow’s range is all UK-built from CNC’d plywood and hand-finished, with metal fixings.

This Original – One is designed to sit either diagonally across your van, or slotted into the space where a single rear car (MPV most likely) seat has been removed.

Having used the rack with both mountain bikes and gravel bikes, I’ve come away impressed by its stable performance.

BikeStow Original – One details

The Original – One sits in your vehicle as an A-frame structure, with V-slots, into which your front or rear wheel fit.

A guided aluminium slider, held in place with a thumb screw, slides down, stabilising the wheel, with it being held at three points.

The base of the rack has four independently adjustable feet, enabling you to extend them to best suit the space you have available. The rearward feet extend a little less than the front feet.

It’s possible to remove one of the rear feet and reverse fit the other, giving a more centralised tripod setup, if that best suits your needs.

The rack is then held in place with a pair of (included) straps, looped around any suitable mounting point in the floor.

For storage, the rack can be removed easily, with the central ‘dog-bone’ that spans between the two uprights, folding up.

Magnets hold the rack together when in storage, while they’re also used to ensure the central dog-bone doesn’t pop open during use, ensuring the unit stays solid.

The rack weighs just over 6kg.

The front feet extend 37-56cm and the rear 31-50cm. When in place, the rack measures 74cm from front to back .

It’ll take up to 2.6in tyres with a 29er wheel – or 3in tyres with 26in or 650b wheels.

BikeStow Original – One performance

I’ve used the rack for both my mountain bikes and gravel bikes, in the back of a Volkswagen Caddy Maxi. Tyre sizes ranged from 45c to 2.5in and didn't cause any issues with the aluminium slider’s capacity.

It's necessary to use the straps to keep the rack stable. While I didn’t struggle to find a suitable fixing point, I found it best if the two straps were roughly equidistant from the rack itself, to ensure it stayed where I wanted it.

With a bike in place and the two straps tight, the rack doesn’t move while driving, providing a very secure hold on your bike.

It was certainly an upgrade over lying the bike on its side on top of my general in-van detritus and it’s quicker and more secure than securing the bike to the side of the van with bungees.

Even when my bike was dirty, less mud was deposited over the contents of the van and the bike was protected from getting scratched.

The ability to move the feet independently was useful to locate the rack over the various seat mounting points and tie-downs on my van’s floor.

Getting the bike in and out of the rack is simple enough.

The wheel needs a bit of a shove to roll over the lower plate of the rack into its slot – a foam sheet laid at the base (that I usually use to protect bikes when I’m carrying several) helps ease the wheel over the top.

The aluminium slider moves down, securing the wheel. During transit, I tended not to tighten the thumb screw to hold the slider in place – the bike remained stable even without securing the thumb screw.

When removing the bike, the slider needs to be pulled all the way up – at this point, I did secure it, to prevent it sliding down as I removed the bike.

During transit, even on long rides and rough roads, I’ve noticed no damage to the tyre from the aluminium slider.

My gravel bike has a rear mudguard that doesn’t interfere with the slider. However, if yours does, BikeStow suggests the front wheel is used, rather than the rear.

BikeStow Original – One bottom line

While many of us are happy chucking our bikes in the back of a van, there’s no doubt a secure and stable internal rack makes life a little easier and reduces the risk of damage or getting other items covered in muck, post-ride.

The Original – One bike rack is stable, secure and easy to use. Its price means it’s probably not going to appeal to all, but if you transport your bikes a lot, have limited space in your vehicle and want to ensure your bike is kept in the best condition, this rack will do so with confidence.