urbanknight

It's time for me to get a new work stand, and it has been years since I once spied the type that holds the bike by one dropout and cradling the bottom bracket shell. Park PRS-22.2 or Feedback Sports Sprint for reference. Any reason I would NOT like this style? It just seems better than trying to delicately clamp all those thin aluminum and carbon tubes and seatposts.

veganbikes

Seatposts are designed to be clamped it is everything else on the bike that isn't. However these are the style of stands that pro mechanics use for some of the biggest teams out there. People might complain about removing a wheel to work on the bike but for someone who knows what they are doing and so long as you aren't dealing with belt drives and complicated rear wheel removals like some IGH stuff you would be fine.

I had long thought about getting one of these but ended up getting a really cheap vintage park stand and then wanting to upgrade to a more portable stand as I had plans that ended up not happening and now wanting a hydraulic lift stand for my crappy back and my e-bike so might go for the E-Up stand from Topeak.

awac

I have one. I like it a lot. I have a workshop in a spare bedroom, so not much space. Light enough to lift and move it with a bike on it. I like older stuff so a 120mm rear spread needs to be pulled apart or re-spaced. Have thought about turning a new mount just for his purpose. Different mounts for axle sizes. Packs up small. Yes wheels on and off could be a real pain if you are in a workshop and time is money, but for me this is not a problem. Holds front forks steady as you work, no flopping unless you turn it around of course.

I have one of those magnetic dishes for bits that sits on the cross mount so handy. Height I can work sitting or standing. As you say, no problems with damage.

Thumbs up.

maddog34

see: Aero CF seat posts.

squirtdad

Personally preferrence, I don't like that type of stand because then I have to figure out other ways to hold the bike for brake work, any thing needing the wheel on, anything where I have to take the fork off for

maddog34

test your front brake, front wheel true, and headset bearings for notchy action, in that stand.

but at least you won't need a flop stopper

PS.. i have an old Minoura stand that is very similar... it cradles the BB, and clamps the downtube of old steel frames...and then leaves nasty scuff marks on the downtubes... hey, it was free i'm going to mount an old waterpipe "10 speed" on it as a display, then put EVERY REFLECTOR i've pulled off wheels onto it and aim a party laser at it on a foggy night........ spin wheels for effect.

awac

You can just turn the frame around in the stand. Wheel on, wheel off granted but I don’t find it takes long. For a busy shop I could see it being annoying, but it does feel secure in the stand.

Polaris OBark

Does it enable you to use all of the front and rear hub "standards"? (I our garage we have QR 100 front, 130 and 135 rear, TA 100,110 front, 142, 148 and whatever the hell superboost knolly uses).

veganbikes

Ok...so...??? Yes I do understand there are some odd posts that are harder to clamp with most standard jaws but a seat post is designed to be clamped. You might need to use a different mounting system for that stuff but not because the seat post cannot be clamped just that many clamps aren't designed for some of these odd posts but those aren't super common.

ljsense

I just went to that style out of caution since I'm not convinced all carbon aero seatposts love a repair stand clamp that applies pressure a lot differently than the proprietary wedge bolts.

No complaints, and one advantage is that they are easy to make, if you want to save money with a DIY project.

Just grab a fork mount, like this one that's $12 on eBay with shipping. Then you can hinge a 2x6 to your garage wall. On the other end, add two base support legs on a swivel that tighten up with a wing nut. Easy fold down, throw your bike on it, fold it back up against the wall.

urbanknight

I did think about some of those things, but you can apparently turn the bike around and clamp the rear dropout for any front end work. Of course, that would take some extra time to take the bike off, put the front wheel back on, take the rear wheel off, and out the bike back on but backwards. I’m ok with that.

urbanknight

Yeah, the first time I saw one was walking by a team tent at the Tour of California.

urbanknight

Most of the latest models do, but obviously not if I cheap out and buy an outdated model… and probably will at least need an adapter for whatever trends come up in the future.

One advantage to just using it for myself and my family, I don’t have a need to make it compatible with anything we don’t personally use.

cyccommute 

Several listed above. Stand seems okay for drivetrain work but front fork work would be difficult. The picture shows a major failing in how would you center and/or adjust the front brake?

A few ways around that. Get a cheap seat post or find a Park ISC-1 or Park ISC-4. Neither one is still made but they do show up on Fleabay but not for cheap. Here’s ISC-1 for $100. Alternatively, a linkage Park repair stand clamp is an easy way to prevent seatpost or frame crushing. Fleabay has one for $98 if you have the right stand for it.

cyccommute 

Think about the hassle of putting a rear wheel into the drop outs. Now thing about holding the bike up on the stand so that you can put the quick release into the stand. If you have a couple of extra arms it would be easy.

On the other hand, you can get a PCS-4-1 with a proper Park clamp for $30 more than the Team stand and it will be useful for many more bikes. I can clamp anything in mine including the tandem which, by the way, would be next to impossible to do on the Team stand. It would probably just topple over.

urbanknight

For front end work, you would leave the front wheel on and clamp the rear dropout instead. I do realize that this would create extra steps if doing front and rear brakes in one session, though.

Perhaps one of the worst purchases I ever made was a bike with a proprietary seatpost (Giant D-Fuse) and a proprietary stem faceplate (brake "master cylinder"). My old stand is toast (it lasted 32 years) and I'm getting a new one for sure, so I guess I can "have the right stand for it" if I want to, and I do remember how easy it was to use those linkage clamps back when I worked at a shop.

Then again, those D-fuse seatposts aren't all that thin or light, and I probably couldn't break it in a clamp unless I tried.

Good point about the tandem, although I think that ship has sailed with my son now that he's too cool for that. I had been looking at the PCS-10.3 or PCS-9.3, but you're right. If I was willing to bump the budget up more for the Team Stand, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to get the PCS-4 instead.

cyccommute 

What’s wrong with your stand? Mine is a PRS-6 that is pre-1996. I’ve had it before 1996 so it’s close to that 32 years. I did get a linkage clamp for it about 5 years ago and I had it extend by about 3’ around 2003. I expect it to last another 30+ years.

urbanknight

For starters, it was NOT made by Park Tools. It's a Blackburn Workstand which my father bought in 1991, and as you can see it's not the most desirable clamp design anyway. Some time ago, the threads stripped and I tried to J.B. Weld a nut on the other side, which worked for a while but eventually came loose. I had to then hold the nut in place while twisting the knob to tighten the clamp, and that was when I realized that I could solve multiple issues at once by just buying a new stand.

Andrew R Stewart 

The big issues I have with these types of stands are the reliance on a BB shell underside that is compatible with the stand (granted this is usually OK, till the bike where it isn't) and the inability to rotate the bike into a non horizontal position. I do like the axle clamping aspect because of its solid grip on the bike though. Andy

mschwett 

i find the clamping force needed to hold a bike quite securely in a work stand by the seat post is super low unless for some reason you're trying to support it with the seat tube absolutely dead vertical. it seems to work by a combination of friction and clamping, of which the amount of the latter required is really very small. definitely wouldn't ride a bike whose seat post couldn't take that force, no matter the slightly different direction or nature compared to the proprietary clamp.

ljsense

For sure -- for some work, you can just throw the saddle over the camp and let the bike suspend with no pressure on anything.

Some bike manufacturers make adapters to put their proprietary seat posts in a stand. That signals that they'd rather not trust a mechanic to use least practical clamping force and the part if vulnerable.

So, the fork clamp, BB platform eliminates that worry for those who worry about such things, but the other thing I think it does well is get the most important parts of the bike up to the most comfortable level.

A lot of stands kind of look like cranes and the bikes hang down off their clamping points and put the crankset around the knees sometimes or mid thigh.

The fork clamp stand is more like a scissor lift or platform and will take things to chest level.

Andrew R Stewart 

A good shop stand will have a vertical placement adjustment. Andy

ljsense

I guess I can't claim that the shops I worked at were good without sounding like a braggart or glue sniffer, but they had those big heavy duty Park stands bolted to the steel plates that were under the rubber tiles. I don't think those got the clamp height to much over 5 feet, though, if that. So generally, if you clamped at the seatpost, the bottom bracket was kinda low to be comfortable.

A big domestic bike company I worked at (I'll keep them anonymous as the sponsor of someone who did not win the Tour during the seven years when no one did) had amazing bike stands in all their production rooms, including where things got shipped or turned in on warranties. They'd go floor to ceiling, power assist, no reason to ever force a clamping position.

urbanknight

The shop I worked at also had that kind of stand, a park clamp on a sturdy pole bolted to the ground. The clamp was a bit higher than my home stand, but I also didn't care about bending/stooping in my teens nearly as much as I do now in my 40's.

Bike Gremlin

A classic stand + a cheap seatpost (just for working on the bike) + an adjustable-height piano stool (or a DIY equivalent) to help when doing some high-torque BB stuff.

That exotic-looking stand would not be my choice as the first and only work stand. As a haul-easily for field work - maybe.

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