Folding work stand review

[helijohn]

I decided to get a work stand and it had to be one that folded away fairly well and quickly and that did not rely on the bike having a cross tube. I bought one of these (though not from eBay).
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Home-mechanic ... Swd4tT6MIC

I did not much like the way the detachable feet/legs were secured so I decided to make them semi permanent which still allows the stand to be slotted away somewhere and I can remove them if I need too.

So I drilled the lug on each of the feet (on one wall only!!) to allow a bolt to go right through to the far wall of the lug's tubing. Yes it means no thumb wheel but it locks the feet to the unit tightly without deforming the tubing. It cuts out that rocking these stands do; it does away with the temptation to keep tightening the thumb wheel to the point where the lug gets deformed.

So now to the bike fitment itself. Only one real complaint which is that the cables run under the bike and the forward support tended to trap them so I Dremelled relief recesses.

Also you will notice I added some neoprene strips to help lateral grip and it could also prevent scratching.
So the bike is on but now the clamp needed attention. The clamp is not threaded all the way so a spacer was needed - I used copper pipe I had lying around but any (suitable) tubing would do.

So now the bike can be well clamped.

It is such a relief after all these years to not have to stoop but more importantly to be able to crank the rear wheel and change gears. My verdict, an excellent stand and sooooo cheap.

[francovendee]

It's almost the same as the one I bought from Lidl some years ago for 17 Euros. Not bad for the money and helps with sorting brakes and gears. The bike can move a bit but it's not fallen off, yet!

[TrevA]

Quite similar to my old Tacx folding stand, though mine had a work tray that folded out too. Also, it couldnt really cope with thick aluminium tubes as the screw thread on the clamp wasn't long enough. It's still being used by my son today.

[markfh]

I too have a stand like this one and seeing helijohn's modifications to the clamping of the foot I have carried out a similar modification, i.e. drilling a hole in one wall of the "lug" on the foot, but rather than using a longer bolt I have cut two pieces of hardwood to fit inside the lug - approx 22mm x 22mm x 66mm long. This means that I can use the original "thumb screws" as they have only just go to go through the first wall of the lug before they start clamping on the hardwood block and also the clamping takes place over the entire opposite side rather than just where the end of the screw/bolt hits.

As the bike I am currently using has a large down tube I do not encounter the problems that helijohn encoutered as the downtube binds on the side of the forward support (see the third picture in helijohn's post) of the stand well before it bottoms out so there is a reasonable gap between the forward support on the stand and the downtube for cables. Because of this rather than adding neoprene strips as helijohn did I have stuck some draft foam excluder strip on the inside faces of the forward support and also the bottom bracket support to reduce the chances of scratching the paint.

One issue I have encountered is that due to the large size of the bikes down tube, the front wheel/mudguard hits the stand below the front support rather than beeing clear as is the case in helijohn's 5th picture preventing the front wheel from being turned freely to left and right. It would probably not happen if the bike had a narrower down tube or no mudguards but it does not prevent me from doing most things I want to on the bike.

[helijohn]

Well after two years I have decided I don't like the stand that much cos I have had a bike fall off twice. The problem with finding another type of stand is that bikes with no cross tube can't be hung on on them. I cannot think of a way to make a bike more secure on the stand apart from strapping it down with Lord knows how many belts or straps.

[rfryer]

Many stands allow you to clamp the seat tube, so would work ok on bikes without a "cross tube".

[helijohn]

Yes, I think I am going to go that route.