you can do a lot of maintenance very well indeed by simply either
a) hooking the nose of the saddle over a beam or b) hanging the bike up using some loops of rope to secure the saddle, and (ideally) plastic covered hooks to secure the handlebars.
The value of any support is (IMHO) greatest when re-cabling a bike, setting up brakes, and fiddling with derailleur gears. With hub geared bikes there is less value in it; most hub-geared bikes can be worked on as easily whilst inverted.
A benefit of a free-standing workstand is that it can be put anywhere, so some folk will put the bike in the stand, outside, for cleaning. A downside to a typical workstand is that the bike still needs to be lifted in and out of the workstand. OK for a sub 20lb road bike, but less fun with a tourer and with a Dutch bike it is real weight-lifting event.
An advantage of scheme a) is that most bikes hang nose-low quite naturally; this keeps the steering straight, and the handlebar controls at a convenient height. By contrast if the bike is set with the wheels at the same height, the steering will flop unless it separately supported. [ If it doesn't, your headset is probably faulty...]
An advantage of b) is that (with a simple system of pulleys) the bike can be hoisted up and down, and/or set at any height without great effort.
BTW it looks tempting to clamp the top tube in the workstand; it is easier to mount the bike in the stand etc but be careful! It is easy to damage the top tube in a workstand, either by simply clamping it, or by using tools on the bike such that load is passed into the clamp. Everyone I know who works on bikes on a daily basis will clamp to something stronger (typically the seat post) in order to avoid damage this way. They will raise the saddle if necessary to allow the workstand to have enough seat post to clamp onto.
BTW to most easily set the rear mech cable as previously described when building a bike, do it before either the rear wheel or the chain is fitted.
Were those pliers not on hand the other day, it was very likely that a new air compressor had to be bought. Or at least, the full regulator and switch unit.
The way those pliers work is that the jaws are always parallel, so you can safely remove nuts or square collars that are made out of plastic. Those soft materials will be most certainly damaged by any other tool that has a bit of play with it (like a nominal sized spanner or adjustable wrench). Also, they work great on alluminium headset locknuts: can be fully tightenend with no marks whatsoever
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are...
I have been using a genuine 'Le Loby's Foot' for 25 years! Plenty of look-a-likes available now. Such a good simple design. Used for building bikes up, stripping bikes down, adjusting gears and so on. I much prefer this to my Park work-stand. Its only fault is that no good with my Brompton, which is why I purchased a Park work-stand, which I only use for fettling the Brompton!
Tiberius wrote:I used to own a FULL SET of fancy 'Snap On' spanners....Metric/AF/Whitworth you name it, I had the lot.
THEN, I discovered these......
WR169.jpg
I've honestly never looked back. They fit EVERYTHING....I don't even bother with that notched ring spanner thing that's needed for Shimano HT2 bottom brackets. A quick twiddle on the fully integrated adjustment system and on she goes (and here's the clever bit) EVEN IF IT'S CROSS THREADED....They are SO powerful that they can make ANY female thread fit ANY male thread.....and visa versa....nip/twist/nip/twist, minor coil of swarf and in she glides.....bl**dy clever....Really !!
My mates Mum reckons that they use them on space shuttles ( wise ).....Recommended.....
..........Bang Don't give up the day job.
profpointy wrote:here's another tool I bought on a whim, yet is a lot more useful than I expected - a small angle grinder. Need to cut some steel - get the grinder out, sand half an inch off some wood (for a rough job only), de rust something - use the wire brushy thing. Cut a rusted bolt off. Top tool -and even Bosch Blue (pro grade) is onky £50 or so.
Just received this a few days ago.
Before that tried everything. Watched every YouTube video. These get the quicklink off..er... Quickly.
I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my HUAWEI VNS-L31 using hovercraft full of eels.
Not sure how long Le Loby's have been going, but we welded up our own version of the same idea at some point in the early/mid nineties - still going strong and better than anything I've seen for sale, particularly if you're on uneven ground. It's practically part of the family now [emoji2]
I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my SM-A500G using hovercraft full of eels.
Sorry to be thick and should have asked before. How exactly do you put the bike in the stand? Chainstays? Pic would be handy. Thanks for your patience.
the chainstay goes into the lower hook and the seatstay goes into the upper hook. The weight of the bike is taken by the lower hook and the upper hook stops the bike from falling over, more or less.
If you are planning to DIY one, the centre of the base should be under the rear wheel, more or less; having the legs poke out for miles behind the upright achieves relatively little.
cheers
Last edited by Brucey on 17 Aug 2017, 9:13am, edited 1 time in total.
Sweep wrote:Sorry to be thick and should have asked before. How exactly do you put the bike in the stand? Chainstays? Pic would be handy. Thanks for your patience.
Yes - one hook for seatstay, one for chainstay, holds the rear wheel just off the ground so that you can adjust gears and brakes (relatively) easily. I use ours predominantly for washing - being able to spin the wheel and pedal through the chainbath makes it much easier.
Also I reckon it looks Moto in the carpark/campsite* [emoji2]
*yes I know I'm sad like that, but I don't care! [emoji13]
I'm a trendy consumer. Just look at my SM-A500G using hovercraft full of eels.
They are too short to unscrew the SA hub ball ring, but you can mount one horizontal in a bench vice ( with soft jaws ) sit the wheel in it and turn the wheel.