hang by the front or rear wheel

[nickwm21]

ive got to hang my bike by either the front or rear wheel due to storage issues. The hook will be placed on the wall so both tires will be in contact with the wall.
Ive heard that hanging a bike by the front wheel messes with your suspension fork. Well..... wouldn't hanging by the rear mess with the rear suspension?

which way should i hang?

[Z]

rear. will be much easier to get up and down.

[Danno]

forget about easy, is there a mechanical reason not to do one or the other? My bikes are all on hooks, alternating between rear and front for easy hanging, but I'm curious as to whether I should be making sure that the mt bike is going on direction or the other.

[Jethro]

After my bike has hung for a while front wheel up, I sometimes need to pump up my front brake. Probably just needs a bleeding.

[toast2266]

hanging by the front makes the oil in your fork sit at the top. This does two things:
1) if you have shitty seals, it means oil will dribble out from around the top caps
2) when you initially start riding, the oil will have to cycle back down into the damping mechanism. You might notice that the fork tops out really bad at first. This should go away after pumping the fork a little bit

Neither is a particularly big deal. I alternate up and down, and even on my forks with shitty seals, the oil dribble is small enough that I don't worry about it - I maybe top them off once or twice a season.

On rear shocks the oil is in more of a closed system, so you generally don't have to worry about oil dribbling or getting caught away from the dampers. Hanging the bike one way or the other won't affect anything.

[shirk]

Hang by the front wheel. The lubricating oil in your fork will keep the seals moist thus lasting longer.

If you fork dribbles fix it. Needs new seals.

[XXX-er]

one of my forks leaks (x-vert super)from the top cap so I hang the bikes with front suspension from the rear which is I figure the same as not hanging a bike at all

[SkiingBear]

Hang by the front wheel. The lubricating oil in your fork will keep the seals moist thus lasting longer.

If you fork dribbles fix it. Needs new seals.

x2

I saw something on the Fox tech site that you should store your bike so the oil in the fork is in contact with the seals...supporting shirk's comment.

I personally find it easier to hang the bike front wheel up. That said, I make sure to hang heavier bikes rear wheel up figuring it's less stress on the fork, and the fork on my SS leaks, so it goes rear wheel up (plus, being a hardtail, there's definitely no chance of damage that way.

[Capatain]

a related aside: does vertical hanging do any damage to hydraulic brakes? a tech at one of my lbs's said hanging the bike verticaly would necessitate brake bleeding??

[nickwm21]

since you guys cant come to a decision i am just going to rotate which way I hang

[toast2266]

a related aside: does vertical hanging do any damage to hydraulic brakes? a tech at one of my lbs's said hanging the bike verticaly would necessitate brake bleeding??

it shouldn't matter, but if you've got a bad bleed to begin with, hanging the bike can cause any air bubbles to move. The air may have originally been lodged somewhere where it wouldn't affect brake performance too much, but hanging it might make the bubbles move to somewhere where you do notice it. Basically, if hanging your bike screws with your hydraulic brakes, the brakes needed to be bled anyways.

[karpiel]

a related aside: does vertical hanging do any damage to hydraulic brakes? a tech at one of my lbs's said hanging the bike verticaly would necessitate brake bleeding??

He is a bad tech.

[Jethro]

it shouldn't matter, but if you've got a bad bleed to begin with, hanging the bike can cause any air bubbles to move. The air may have originally been lodged somewhere where it wouldn't affect brake performance too much, but hanging it might make the bubbles move to somewhere where you do notice it. Basically, if hanging your bike screws with your hydraulic brakes, the brakes needed to be bled anyways.

An air bubble anywhere in the system will lead to the same spongyness or brake failure. From piston to caliper, any bubble or air will essentially be a point of compression in the incompressable fluid. By moving the bubble to one end or the other, you can get a better,quicker bleed.

[Yukonrider]

He is a bad tech.

On juicys if you have the resivoirs pointing down, they will seem like they need a new bleed. But really thats just the way they work. return to normal, give it some pumps, and its back to good.

[Danno]

Good to know that hanging by either wheel isn't a problem. I rarely/never ride straight from home, so the bike is always upright for a while before I ride it.

[tigerstripe40]

My concern, though not a very big one, with hanging a bike by the wheels would be with throwing the wheels out of true. Sure, when I ride it, there is more weight on the wheel, but the weight is distributed differently than when its hanging on a hook.

Otherwise, I would actually think that hanging the bike is GOOD for the seals in the fork as the lubricating oil would keep them from drying out...

[Lonnie]

Rear. Don't stress your headset by hanging....

[XXX-er]

throwing the wheels out of true ,stressing the headset ,these are mtn bikes ,they get abused ... are you guys serious ?

[Lonnie]

throwing the wheels out of true ,stressing the headset ,these are mtn bikes ,they get abused ... are you guys serious ?

Yes. Mountain bikes are heavy (I would be less worried about a sub 17lb road bike....) It's the direction the stresses are applied. The ball bearings in a headset are there for continuous rotation, not load-bearing in a vertical plane (compression forces are normal, these are shear forces). The real way to hang a bike is by the frame.

[pechelman]

Yes. Mountain bikes are heavy. It's the direction the stresses are applied. The ball bearings in a headset are there for continuous rotation, not load-bearing in a vertical plane. The real way to hang a bike is by the frame.

ok
i stayed out of this because i thought it was funny
but seriously

lets say the bike weighs 50lbs
its seeing ONE G of load
ONE.
thats 50lbs
Those bearings in a headset are rated for at least 2 orders of magnitudes higher force.

did you ever stop to think that a 200lb rider hitting a rock and coming to a near dead stop from 10mph is WAY more force than simply hanging a bike by a wheel? cant say ive seen any headsets break (other than those crank brothers cobalts) because of normal use, even normal use that includes wrecking.

I have however seen broken forks and cracked headtubes....

[Lonnie]

did you ever stop to think that a 200lb rider hitting a rock and coming to a near dead stop from 10mph is WAY more force than simply hanging a bike by a wheel?

Which direction are the forces being applied? One is compression (upward), the other is a shear (downward). One pushes the fork into the frame (and allows the stress/force to be absorbed by the frame), one pulls the fork away from the frame.

Think about this. When the headset is compressed UPWARD by your 200 lb rider, that load is basically distributed over the entire headset and throughout the frame. When the bike is being hung, that stress now focused DOWNWARD on only a couple of ball bearings, 1 or 2 on the top and 1 or 2 on the bottom of the headset. How much surface area is there in 1 or 2 ball bearings?? Yeah, it's only 30-35 lbs, but that is on a very small area. It will also put stress on the threads of the screw that keeps the headset tight.

I'm not saying that this will cause a fork or headset to fail, I am just saying that headsets and forks aren't (primarily) designed for those kind of forces.

Just hang by the rear or by the frame....

[pechelman]

You are such an idiot im not even going to bother explaining why you are wrong.

you're the one who needs to think about this more before you go off posting wrong shit. its obvious you know nothing about angular contact ball bearings or the actual loads a frame\fork\headset sees during riding.

[Lonnie]

You are such an idiot im not even going to bother explaining why you are wrong.

you're the one who needs to think about this more before you go off posting wrong shit. its obvious you know nothing about angular contact ball bearings or the actual loads a frame\fork\headset sees during riding.

No, please do. I really want to know (seriously, I do) I will admit I'm wrong. All I was trying to say was that if I am hanging a bike and I have an option, it's not by the front wheel....

[pechelman]

i honestly have to run to another building to pickup some parts, but do you honestly think that a headset sees no shear loading when you ride a bike?

think about that and how and why headtubes are reinforced the way they are with gussets and larger hydroformed tubes. Then think about this picture.

[Lonnie]

You are right. The force would head down the top tube...