Do the words of Hugh Alan Cornwell et al. “There Just Hanging Around” apply to your biking gear? Yes? then you need to get them sorted, “hang about” you say “how can they be sorted?” Flimsy coat hangers don’t last long when hanging the great weight of a motorcycle leather jacket or the lighter textile gear from the rather pathetic construction. Step forward the latest in technology, beefy clothes hangers.
When looking browsing the Internet for some sort of solution the website for Biker Tidy (www.bikertidy.co.uk) they were the answer to my prayers. It was around the time of the NEC bike show in 2013 so I decided to check out the products at the show, however circumstances transpired that I was unable to go so I went down the on-line route and chose their Heavy Duty Combo Hanger (£12.98), Heavy Duty Jacket Hanger (£5.99) and a Heavy Duty Trouser Hanger (£6.98) plus the usual cost of shipping (£10.00). Parting with the on-line funds I eagerly awaited their arrival. In the mean time I constructed a hanging rail in the garage using some 25mm Galvanised conduit I had knocking around from the shower rail modification I had done, fabricated a few wooden support brackets and all was set.
Biker Tidy Heavy Duty Combo Hanger
A few days passed and the hangers arrived, they were exactly as you would imagine, perfect for the job. The jackets and trousers all hung perfectly and as luck would have it the loop of the hanger was just big enough to sit around the 25mm pipe. On the face of it all was good to go.
Biker Tidy Heavy Duty Trouser Hanger
After a couple of days use I came across an annoying feature of the trouser hanging portion of the goods, these were essentially heavy duty crocodile clips with red plastic gripping jaws. It was these bits of red plastic which proved to be the weakest link, they are constructed to “clip” onto the crocodile clip which means they are easy to “clip off” the crocodile clip. Picture the scene, my garage is absolutely bursting at the seams, junk and crap everywhere, a couple of workbenches, fermentation fridges for the home-brew, buckets, boxes etc. etc. well you get the picture, so unclipping the trousers from the clamps also unclipped the red thingy from the crocodile clip and onto the floor it went. At 6:30am on a November morning this was not the time to jump for joy, and as you can imagine the thing bounced never to be seen again, bollox!
Biker Tidy Annoying red clips
Hunting around was fruitless and to this day the poxy bit of red plastic has not surfaced, I am sure that when I shuffle off this mortal coil and my offspring are clearing out all my junk, this red thing will pop to the surface and, the subject of much cursing, will just be chucked in the bin without a second thought as to the suffering it has caused.
A lesson learned so now I am ultra-careful and make sure the remainder are clipped back on as soon as they come off thus preventing much cursing.
Over the past couple of months I have added a couple of jackets to my collection and not being one to get rid of anything I was back in the market for beefy hangers when I came across a “pop-up” on Google Chrome leading me to www.dritekproducts.com and the promise of “Secure hanging for all garments” and “The Dritek Hanger is covered by a 10 year warranty, to replace any broken or failing components, free of charge.” I read all the site waffle and decided to give them a try, ignoring eBay, I went for the direct sale and being a tight arse avoided the postage charge by ordering two of the Dritek Hanger’s at £15.00 each as they offered free postage on orders over £30. They do offer a more heavy duty hanger named the Dritek Hanger PRO but I thought an extra £2.50 for a bit of rubber around the carabineer was taking the piss!
Arrival was swift and it was soon confirmed that these were indeed bits of very chunky plastic, each came with a carabineer and strap which made them fully adjustable for hanging height and multi hanging possibilities.
Dritek Hanger
I have been using these for a couple of weeks now as a main location for my everyday kit and, once you get the hang of positioning your kit on the hanger, they work perfectly. That is not to say the Biker Tidy hangers have been consigned to gather dust, no far from it, they all work in perfect harmony and I have even got used to the dratted red clippie thingies and I couldn’t be happier. The open trusses of the garage are adorned with hooks and short pieces of conduit so I have a plethora of positions from which to hang all the gear, be it wet or dry, light or heavy. Brilliant!
www.bikertidy.co.uk
www.dritekproducts.com
