Reading station cycle hub racks have design fault says commuter

My Local Asda only has a few of these rubbish Butterfly stands. Car parking for hundreds of stands, but they see fit that these crappy worthless things are good for bikes. This is South East London- Put any bike of value on these and you'll come back to just a front wheel! Ridiculous that they think these are acceptable.

They should have used security nuts that shear off at a predetermined torque.  Anything that needs a tool means the thieves will find a tool.

Are there any security problems with the Sheffield Stand concreted in the pavement?

Ok, you can only attach 2 or 3 bikes to each one, but I have never had a problem with one yet.

As for the ones that only grip one wheel. Surely they are next to useless?

The other thing you  - sorry manufacturer / supplier / fitter  - can do is hammer a ball bearing into the hex hole.

Noted that these racks at Euston also had missing nuts  and this one at Croydon was only secure because the shelter roof got in the way when rollers fell out the back.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1700/24647137464_fc940d020b_z.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5766/24028364301_36990e1c53_m.jpg

Many tin bashing companies leapt on the bandwagon to make look-alike units with thinner steel, minimal galvanising, fewer and cheaper rollers & bearings.

One notorious maker who supplied Southeastern at Orpington & Sevenoaks to my knowledge, plus Milton Keynes Central and Glasgow Caledonian University has now gone out of business - by far the worst made, and worst assembled units I've ever seen where the lack of a detent meant that is one rack got rolling a whole domino effect could bring the upper tier crashing down (twice at Sevenoaks hitting a user on the head and requiring hospital treatment) As they say buy cheap - buy twice.

The 2-tier design was originally by Jan Kuipers, who still make one of the better designs, and the Orion units (German) are a defining standard, but their cost cannot compete against the corner cutting designs - even Falco has had to offer a 'budget' model ,  to a substantially lower spec than their regular units, to win contracts awarded on price rather than to meet a basic quality standard.

It is also worth noting that many installations skimp further by reducing the space to load the racks properly,  you need at least 4 metres from back of the rack to the nearest obstruction in front. By reducing the loading space the parking capacity can be made to appear more impressive.  Its also worth noting that the 2-level overlapping basic stands, widely used in NL, Germany, Italy  etc offer a parking density close to that for 2 tiers at a muct lower cost with no moving parts... 

I don't believe Falco, the manufacturer. Cambridge cycle point has the same racks with exactly the same fault: the lock bracket can be unscrewed with a screwdriver bit available for £1.79. We have complained to the Falco rep, and since then we believe some of the racks were fixed. I took this picture in February: https://www.cyclestreets.net/users/chrisbrown/photos/#&gid=1&pid=2 Why they don't just weld the lock brackets to the stands in the first place I have no idea.

Lots of the new double decker bike rack appearing at stations are completely not fit for purpose. No way to lock the frame!?

And when people don't use these racks the public will complain of money being wasted on cyclists.

Sounds like a right f#*k up! How hard can it be to design a bike rack that's fit for purpose? Are there any photos / could any Reading based road.cc readers go and take some? Curious to see just how bad the design is.

I suspect neither the council not the rack manufacturers are going to be in a hurry to admit there's a problem...

Condolences to Mr Ralph; when he says that his bike was stolen "still locked to part of the cycle rack" and that "three [racks] have been dismantled in the same way", does that mean that there are missing components to bring to the attention of council and equipment provider?