St. Paul bicyclists take for granted the convenient and whimsically designed metal structures that have appeared on many sidewalks for locking up two-wheelers to grab coffee or do a bit of shopping.

But, when securing their bikes to steel racks appropriately shaped like bikes, some might have wondered where the structures came from. Related Articles As memories of George Floyd fade, activists make sure his legacy does not

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The answer is a Minneapolis company called Dero, which has been making all sorts of bike racks, lockers, stands and more since the 1990s, with increasing design flair. One of its latest bike-rack creations looks like a stegosaurus.

The company straddles the St. Paul-Minneapolis border in an industrial area not far from Surly Brewing Co. near University Avenue.

Its manufacturing facility is a flurry of metal bending, shaping and painting. All of its creations are made here, with steel that has been sourced from St. Paul and Iowa. It has separate warehouse space in St. Paul, too.

Although it largely flies under the radar, Dero has had a profound impact on the city of St. Paul.

POPPING UP ALL OVER

When the city’s Lowertown Bike Shop recently moved into its new location at Union Depot, it brought on Dero to outfit a basement storage facility for downtown-bound bike commuters.

“It’s fantastic,” said Crystal Sursely, the bicycle shop’s operations manager, of Dero’s handiwork. “It is so well made, and durable.”

Earlier, Dero worked with city of St. Paul planners in multiple waves of bike-rack installations, including those along the commercial districts of Grand Avenue and West Seventh Street.

The city Neighborhood Bike Rack Program has installed racks on Snelling, St. Clair and Selby avenues, in Frogtown, and on Old Kellogg Boulevard near the St. Paul Cathedral.

St. Paul bicyclists also can tie up at Dero-designed structures at Bang Brewing Co. (2320 Capp Road) and at Espresso Royale coffee at Fairview and Randolph avenues.

The various efforts on city streets have been funded in part with Neighborhood STAR grants, which partially come from city sales tax collections; and with funding from the St. Paul-based Transit for Livable Communities, a neighborhood nonprofit.

And Dero structures keep popping up. New to the list: a tidy row of smallish racks, each designed as a vertical pole intersecting a circle, outside St. Paul’s year-old CHS Field baseball stadium.

SIDEWALK CHALLENGES

An ongoing challenge, says Dero sales manager Stephanie Beebe, has been finding sidewalks that comfortably accommodate both racks and pedestrians. Many sidewalks in St. Paul are simply not wide enough, she noted.

Also, older city codes governing such construction projects are a part of the problem, said Jon Kerr, a West Side resident who worked with Dero and the city’s public-works department on a “Greening the Avenue” push. A neighborhood group called the West Seventh Federation also was involved.

All kinds of rules governed how far racks had to be from doors and signs, how much concrete was required to anchor racks on grassy boulevards — which seemed to defeat the purpose of a “greening” project — and more, Kerr said.

But he added that Dero was skillful in dealing with city officials.

Kerr said he likes Dero’s rack designs — the bicycle-shaped ones in particular, which are known as “bike bike” racks.

He isn’t sure how much use they are actually getting these days, but “if nothing else, they ended up being good public art and are spreading the idea and the concept of bicycling,” he said.

CUSTOMIZED DESIGNS

Dero doesn’t just deal with local governments. It also has commercial and educational customers who want bike racks on their locations or campuses.

It has made outdoor racks in the shapes of bats, alligators, lions, elk, dinosaurs and dragonflies. Other rack models can incorporate company or organization logos in a stamped-metal or image-infused form.

Its oddball creations in the Twin Cities include train-shaped racks at light-rail stations, baseball-shaped racks outside Target Field, and a caribou-shaped design in Minneapolis.

Dero also does a brisk trade in various kinds of lockers, shelters and sprawling storage facilities. Its latest entry, the Bike Depot, is a modular metal outdoor enclosure that can fit in multiple bicycle racks and is lockable for added security.

Dero works indoors as well as outdoors. When the Schmidt Artist Lofts in St. Paul needed versatile bicycle storage, Dero outfitted a communal room with a variety of modular racks and stands.

“We are seeing a lot more secure places to store bicycles” within buildings and parking ramps as bike commuting becomes more and more popular, Beebe said. “Parking garages are sometimes retrofitted into bike-parking spaces.”

Consumer education is another big part of Dero’s mission, Beebe added.

“We do a fair bit of advocacy to show people how to properly lock a bike,” she said.