we just went though the bike-hanging conumdrum where i work, and it was painful and scary, but ultimately we came up with a good solution for all of us. we decided to go with a nice steel ladder, probably like what Mark mentioned, and a colapsible fiberglass one. the steel one was expensive. when you step on it, it locks into place. nice rolling wheels for easy movement, and a gaurd rail. really the colapsible fiberglass ladder with a gaurd rail is great too. looks like this :
http://www.wernerladder.com/catalog/results.php?page=2&category_id=1&type_id=86
it's nice because it folds and you can put it away, unlike the big steel ladder that is usually in the way.
this is what the steel one looks like, ol' GSW 2405:
http://www.lkgoodwin.com/more_info/louisville_ladders/louisville_rolling_ladders.shtml

the background is we have 14 ft ceilings, and we were asked to use a 10 ft aluminum pole with two hooks (picture two letter "U"s) welded to the top of a cross bar at one end of the pole. the technique we used was to hold the bike's seat tube, rear wheel pointed up, in one hand, insert the hooks into the rear wheel of the bike (or have someone else do it, usually this was a two person job), and slowly hoist the bike up to the hook. spotter close by, just in case. the problem was that only a few of guys at the shop could do this. if you have anyone working at your place that lacks upper body strength, is short, older, disabled, tired and hungover that day, or whatever, forget about it. the system worked ok for our lightest bikes, but most collectives see their share of heavy bikes.

we also had chained a 2x4 with hooks attached to the ceiling studs. just be positive the chain is attached to a closed loop, not an open hook. probably sounds obvious to do so. ours was not, and it came unhooked while someone was getting a bike down, a very scary near miss.

these links are just quickies i found, may not be exactly what we have at work, but i fcan find out the specifics if needed,
liza




On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 8:51 AM, plan b <nolabikeproject@gmail.com> wrote:
We have very high ceilings in our space and have two lofts made entirely of wood that work just fine. It can be a bit sketchy at times and access to the lofts is (ideally) restricted because of the inherent danger of heights, but it works well for us.

Oh yeah. We have a lot of hooks, too.

-Victor


On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 10:21 AM, Jonathan Morrison <jonathan@slcbikecollective.org> wrote:
We use a combinations of used Bicycle Display Fixtures (http://www.bikecollectives.org/wiki/index.php?title=Bicycle_Display_Fixtures) a ceiling full of hooks for wheels and some bikes (we just took a 8' 2x4 and screwed hooks into them, and then used two chains to screw into joists) and tall saw horses for temporary storage(hang bikes by seats).
 
If our ceiling was higher, we would build a loft.

--
Sincerely,

Jonathan Morrison
Executive Director
Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective
2312 S. West Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
w: 801-328-2453
c: 801-688-0183
f: 801-466-3856
www.slcbikecollective.org

Get Addicted to Crank!
http://www.slcbikecollective.org/crank/
 
On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Mark Rehder <mark@re-cycles.ca> wrote:
Hi all,

I'm sure talk about storing excess bikes has come up, but I haven't
been able find any messages of such using the search function, and
there strangely doesn't seem to be anything on the wiki.

We're about to move our shop into a new space, and with its high
ceiling there's room to build a perimeter mezzanine level for storing
extra bikes and other stuff.  Some of us are a bit nervous about
having one built of wood (resuming building code allows), and are
instead thinking of buying a custom steel set-up(expensive!), or
keeping the bikes on the floor (taking away room for other things) or
outside in a container (not doable at the new location).

I'm still into the mezzanine idea, as is one of the other members.
I'm wondering what other shops have done for their storage needs.

Cheers,

Mark Rehder - Director
http://re-cycles.ca


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--
Liza Mattana
www.pedals2people.org
Spokane, WA