External Bike Storage in a front garden

MJohnston

Seen a lot of threads about bike storage in general, but nothing about keeping them in the front garden of a house...yes, I may be mad but our back garden is only accessible by going through the house, and there are no sufficient areas in the hallways to be able to mount some hanging racks or anything like that. But we do have a small gated driveway/garden out front that is big enough for our car, bins, and a potential bike shed.

So I'm looking for some tips:
1. They're not super expensive bikes so I'm not too worried about exposure to the elements beyond keeping them covered and dry
2. Are there racks or locks that can be mounted to external walls of a house?
3. If not, what would be the most secure way to mount some ground racks?
4. Is something like this going to be better than adding my own mounts and then DIY-ing a shed around them?
5. Has anyone ever done this and lived to tell the tale?

cdaly_

At one stage, I had an eyebolt fixed to a rear garden wall. The U-lock went through that and through the bike frame. It was low down enough that you couldn't rotate the bike to unscrew it. The drawback is that the bike was out in the weather.

Putting something in the front garden kind of advertises that you have something worth stealing but it's more obvious when somebody tries to steal stuff. Anything you install must be easy to use or you'll end up either not using it or not taking the bike 'cos it's too hard to get out of the store.

You can happily do something a bit ugly in the back garden but anything in the front must look nice too or what would the neighbours think?...