Space-saving UpLift Bicycle Racks are featured at the Griffin School in Austin, Texas
A prestigious private high school in Texas recently installed The Park and Facilities Catalog's new, space-saving Uplift bicycle racks.
The Griffin School is a popular and fully accredited private high school in Austin, Texas with a unique approach to learning.
In an open letter, one of the founders and school director Adam Wilson outlined the school's philosophy, "Griffin School provides students with a high school program that values individuality, creativity, and community. We recognize that for many gifted and creative students, the structures inherent in traditional high schools can limit and impede the development of academic, social and emotional growth,
"Our school enables students to succeed through interactive classes capped at 15 students and academic programming that fosters artistic expression, critical thinking, and genuine involvement in the school and Austin community."
The school hosts grades 9-12, with approximately 110 students. And they manage to keep the average class size down to about 12-15 pupils, which is a great teacher-student ratio for learning.
The UpLift bicycle racks were installed at the school for students who can bicycle to class.
"They're great," said Adam, "We've had other bicycle racks in the past. But the UpLift has a great design. It really keeps the bikes organized."
UpLift bicycle racks designed to save space
Chris Luyet, co-inventor of the UpLift bike parking rack
The UpLift bike parking dock was recently co-invented by Chris Luyet, Vice President and General Manager of The Park and Facilities Catalog.
The unique design was created to save space and maximize the number of bikes that could be parked in a given area. To achieve this goal, there are a couple of features that make the UpLift different than traditional bicycle parking racks.
For example, the bike dock features two wheel troughs at the base. A bicycle wheel is placed in the trough and keeps the bicycles upright. Then conveniently located the top of the stem for easy access, there are two sturdy locking arms that connect the bike frame and front wheel to the rack with a U-lock. This keeps the bikes from falling or becoming disorganized.
The locking arms also provide three points of locking contact. This is the optimal way to secure a bicycle and highly recommended by organizations such as the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals.
Another benefit of this new bike parking invention is the small footprint of land required to install the UpLift. With its 15.5-inch width and 18-inch length, these bicycle racks take up much less space than traditional bike parking racks. This helps maximize the number of bicycles that can be parked per square foot.
Wheel throughs are also staggered in height, so two bicycles can be parked close together without any handlebar to handlebar conflict.
The UpLift was designed for areas where space is at a premium, such as universities, schools, and urban areas. As you can imagine, on a college campus, where thousands of students bicycle to class, an efficient method of parking a large number of bicycles is necessary.
To protect the bicycles from wear or scratching, the bicycle racks are coated with a proprietary SealGuard finish that won't scratch the bikes, and protects against harsh weather, rust, corrosion and harmful UV rays.
"We're proud to have our newly-invented UpLift bicycle racks installed at the Griffin School," said Luyet. "The installation of this innovative type of bike parking rack coincides with the forward thinking that exemplifies the Griffin School."