Bicycle Valet

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Explained

We can be sure of this: People would love to ride a bike to your event.

Unfortunately we’re all familiar with the risk of locking up bicycles in public areas: They’re an easy target for thieves, especially if there are no dedicated bike racks available.

Phoenix Spokes People are happy to offer a solution to this: Why not include a bike valet at your next event?

It works just like ‘car valet’, attendees drop their bikes with us, and:

  • We will take their bike, store it on a portable rack, and tag it with a claim check.
  • Each claim check has a unique number, and a portion for your attendee to keep.
  • When they leave the event they’ll exchange it for their bike. Easy!

bike valet claim checks

Our asks

We offer this service free of charge, but we’ll need your help with a few things:

  1. Be sure to advertise the bike valet , we want people to know they can park their bikes!
  2. We’ll need a secure area. Fences are perfect, but we can work around walls (e.g. in a parking lot).
  3. Any perks you can offer (e.g. tickets) would be much appreciated by our volunteers!

parking lot with bike valet

Logistics

Our volunteers will arrive during set up time on the day of your event with portable bike racks, we’ll set up the racks, table, and signage.

We will stay until all the bikes are claimed, or it’s obvious that someone has forgotten to claim theirs (see below).

With regard to where to put the valet and how much space is required:

  • The portable racks we use are approx. 5 feet long, and each one holds approx. 8 bikes.
  • We can scale up and down depending on available space.
  • In the photo above you can see a 6 rack setup we did for Film Bar, that took up two parking spaces and allowed us to park approx. 50 bikes (at a squeeze).
  • In the photo below you can our biggest valet to date, which we set up at Lost Lake Festival, with ample space and fencing we had over 300 bikes valeted at any one time.

field full of parked bikes

FAQ

  1. What happens to left over bikes?

    Very occasionally we’ve had bikes left unclaimed when it’s time for our volunteers to pack up. If this does happen, then we’ll relocate them to The Rusty Spoke, we’ve never had a case where a bike hasn’t been claimed the next day.

  2. What happens if someone loses their claim check?

    Our volunteers always ask people to take a photo of their claim check when they drop off a bike, just in case.

  3. How much space do we need?

    Two regular car parking spaces (and room for a table) is the minimum size for it to be practical. We’ve found that (with sufficient advertising) we reach capacity more often than not, so the more space the better!

  4. Why do you and your volunteers do this?

    Making contact with people who ride bikes is crucial to our goal of making Phoenix a friendlier, more welcoming place to ride a bike. We’ll set up our table with additional information, and our volunteers are always eager to answer any questions people might have about riding a bike in Phoenix.