Colorado Kid

Now that my local market has started to carry heavy stuff like Watermelons and other such stuff, I have to wonder "if" anyone still uses kickstands to support the extra weight on their bike?

pdlamb

I've loaded and unloaded touring panniers and commuting panniers with a kickstand on for years. As long as you're not trying to support a heavy load with a pointy kickstand on wet turf, it's not a problem.

Chuck Naill

Choosing Your Click-Stand

BobbyG

A rear-mounted kickstand handles heavy loads better, and a dual kick stand works even better.

I have a rear-mounted kickstand on my old MTB-based commuter that clamps to both the chain stay and the seat stay.
It's a Greenfield SKS2B Rear Stabilizer Kickstand...the one on this picture (not my bike)
My bike with it has Wald folding baskets and I have parked it with over 50 pounds in the back no problem.

My main commuter has a rear stand but I mounted it differently:
Brace Yourself for My Kickstand Hack...

My 2007 20-inch Dahon folder had the original mid-mounted kickstand which was not stable with my commute bag on the back rack. I recently replaced it with a longer one which keeps the bike more upright which helps keep it from tipping under load.

Fredo76

Here's my kickstand recommendation:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DYFS3N4/

Low-key, adjustable, works well, doesn't rattle, 280g

RCMoeur 

All of my bikes have kickstands except for the dual-suspension (won't fit except for an axle-mount), the racer (no room on the chainstays and it would be sacrilege), and my fast comfortable bike (and I may eventually put a kickstand back on that bike some day). The tandem has had a Pletscher dual-leg kickstand for 28 years, and I just put a dual-legger on my primary touring/town bike (but may go back to a conventional model). For the weight, a kickstand is a remarkably useful component.

On the long-wheelbase recumbent, I had a custom extension added to a standard Pletscher kickstand back in the 80s due to the very-high bottom bracket. Recently I also added a rear-triangle kickstand for added stability parking with loads, but I sometimes forget to retract the rear one, at which time it reminds me loudly to do so every time I lean slightly to the left.

Leisesturm

A 'kickstand', even if strong enough cannot support a loaded bicycle in the way you envision. I don't want to argue about it. Kickstands, Clickstands, yada ... can hold a properly stabilized bicycle in place well enough, but things like brake lever actuators and steering lock devices must also be used to keep the whole assembly from collapsing in a heap on the ground. A centerstand (dual leg kickstand) is what you are after, and, of course, people still use them. Is this really the question you wanted to ask? Sounds like you need a trailer or Travoy to supplement your bicycle would be my assessment.

Fredo76

Go to the watermelon store last.

2_i 

Not sure what 'still' in the above stands for. Every bike in my family is equipped with a kickstand and the number of those bikes is in the vicinity of 20. I cannot see how a bike can be effectively used in everyday day life w/o a kickstand. As a counterpart, I see people using bikes w/o kickstands as lacking seriousness/after-hour riders. (Sure, they might be competitors where the competition streamlines their bikes under different criteria.) What kickstand to choose depends on details of the bike and the manner in which the load is distributed on the bike.

grolby

Different people have different preferences and experiences from yourself, even people with otherwise similar lifestyles and attitudes. So this is just a little much. A kickstand is an absolutely wild thing on which to form a judgment of other people.

My personal experience is that typical kickstands work pretty well with an unloaded or lightly-loaded bike but pretty quickly get dicey with heavier loads. The problem is most bikes don’t have a way to stabilize the front wheel, which will often flop unexpectedly when the bike gets loaded up and change the balance point of the bike. It’s worse if the bike isn’t constructed with mounting a kickstand in mind, and many aren’t - so you risk crushing and damaging parts of the frame. Of course there are other options and upgrades like a dual-leg kickstand. I don’t have experience with those. They might be great. Nowadays I don’t really haul gear on my standard bikes, but if I did I would prefer to just lean them on a wall.

The one kickstand I do trust absolutely is the center-mounted kickstand on my longtail cargo bike, and you do need it to most easily load the bags, or a child onto the back. But it’s no 1/2 lb aftermarket double-leg Pletscher number. It’s integrated with the frame, designed along with the rest of the bike. It’s a very wide, extremely sturdy device and there’s no doubt that it’s heavy AF. That’s what that bike is all about. For loading up a more typically sized bike, I can see how a double-leg might be the way to go, though I would want a kickstand plate for sure. But a standard single-leg kickstand isn’t worth it in my opinion. No problem with the many people who feel differently though.

2_i 

I cannot help it - this is how I form my judgement. To add, I very often heard judgements passed on the basis of kickstands, this usually on US forums, including BF, along the line "kickstands are for kiddies' bikes", so it is in a way a form of payback.

I do double-legged kickstands, preferably steel and Hebie, on all full-size bikes. They work really well. Bikes may be loaded in the front and rear and stay park safely.

An exquisite frame builder in my area, Matt Assenmacher, designed a kickstand plate that is a stable 3D structure, which I asked him to braze on on all bikes in our household that use center kickstands. These plates made the woes common for the center mounting plates to go away.

Folding bikes have their own challenges and fitting a 2-legged kickstand there is just too much to ask. Still a 1-legged kickstand is better than nothing, even when you just need to adjust a phone on the handlebars or anything else. I fit 1-legged kickstands on those, including on Brompton where you can flip the rear triangle to park. The kickstand lets you park just by extending your foot forward, with no need to remove load from the rear rack.

Darth Lefty 

I can't see how I'd use a kickstand with my single speed bike.

I can't see how my wife's Gazelle could be any good without one

It's all about conops

tornado60

I think every bike I own has a kickstand. It's just so convenient to pop it down and not have to find a place to lean. Just for reference I have used a double pannier system on my commute bike for years. Probably a good 15 to 20 pounds between the two of them on the rear end of the bike. Yes if I was not careful how I positioned the bike it was capable of flopping right over the Kick stand. For one turn the handlebars away from the heaviest pannier. On the one were I could adjust the height of the Kick stand I made it stand the bike stand slightly taller which helped greatly. It did however make the bike slightly less stable on the stand unloaded. It was still usable unloaded though. I did always think a center or as I called it triangle stand would have been better. But I never could justify the expense of replacing what I already had. If I was starting with no stand I'd probably give one a try.

cyccommute 

As someone who has spent more than 40 years riding a bike back and forth to work…


…doing thousands of miles touring…




…on and…



…off pavement…



…on all manner of bicycles…



…even on roads that really aren’t ideal for carrying a load on…



…with somewhat predictable results…



…that I don’t lack for seriousness when it comes to bicycling. What I do “lack” is a kickstand. I learned very early on in touring and commuting that loads on bikes and kickstands don’t work all that well. In my early years of serious cycling I spent a lot of time picking up bikes that had fallen over and decided that if the bike was going to end up on the ground, I might as well just put it there rather than let it fall over. 35+ years on, I still have no use for them.

If you want one, go right ahead. But don’t tell me I’m “lacking seriousness [or an ] after-hours rider…” because I make a different choice. I spent a lot of years riding “after hours” in the dark as a serious everyday rider without one.

jon c. 

I suppose payback is one word for it.

2_i 

I am sorry, but these photos make no sense. Running around to find something to lean the bike against, dropping the bike on the ground?? I suggest you have not tried out serious kickstands and/or provisions for the kickstands. Whole nations, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, India, whole of Africa, to name some, employ kickstands en masse, using them consistently to uphold larger loads than yours, piling up by millions if not billions their experiences over yours.

cyccommute 

They make perfect sense. There is an almost infinite number of places to lean a bike against across the world. While you can find a lot of pictures of heavily loaded bicycles across the world with kickstands, you can also find a lot of pictures of similarly loaded bicycles without kickstands.

A kickstand becomes a liability when riding on rough 4x4 roads. The bicycle on the ground in the last picture was only “dropped” there because it crashed there. I wouldn’t want a kickstand there because it would just get in the way or, worse, do damage to me. The rocks are bad enough.

No, I haven’t tried out “serious kickstands” because I don’t find their utility something that I need nor the weight something I want. If you want them, feel free to use them. But don’t go telling me (or the world) that if we don’t use kickstands, we are only toy riders.

2_i 

That is indeed a serious argument.

I have ridden bikes w/o kickstands on occasions and the surprise was that there was typically nothing to be found to lean the bike against when you needed it. Maybe when you plan ahead to stop and park only when there is something? I do not need to look at pictures. I spend a third of an average year outside of US and, yes, commuting there. Aside from racing/competition bikes very few lack kickstands there. A typical mother in Japan will carry her young age child on a bike around the day, often even two of them, one in the front and one in the rear, and then groceries and maybe other equipment on top. Parking by leaning the bike against a post or dropping on the ground?? Maybe likely connected to an arrest...

Oh, yes, there is a particular shadow to the US bike culture. Bikes to fill some inhibition gap? Macho wannabe racers? Typical ones surface when weather gets nice and disappear when there is any gray in the sky. Bandana on the head, maybe lycra, heavy breathing when they try to pass you, triumphant look back and you think 'what the heck, do I compete in the number of sips when I drink water??' Yes, there may be no room there for the kickstand with the bandana. (And this is not to say that there are no circumstances when the bandana and lycra are useful.) There is likely some history there, including of marketing, in how US biking developed. Is there a toy, poseur element there, and this also tied to the kickstands? Sorry to say, but yes. Once the culture evolves that way, the bikes offered commercially have poor provisions for kickstands and poor kickstands, etc.

I-Like-To-Bike

So what? Do many people commute to work or shop for groceries by bicycle on 4X4 roads?
Bike Forums > Bike Forums > Commuting > Kickstand

cyccommute 

I’ve ridden 10s of thousands of miles without a kickstand and have never been at a loss to find something to lean the bike against. That includes lots and lots of miles above timberline here in Colorado or out on the treeless plains of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. I seldom have to lay my bike on the ground but, on the rare occasion that I do, it’s not a problem. Bicycles aren’t so delicate that they can’t lay on the ground.

I’ve loaded kids on tandems…again without kickstands. I would never let a child climb aboard a bike with a kickstand in any case. They aren’t stable enough to handle the wiggling involved and the bike is far more likely to topple over. I would still hold the bike up and since I have to hold it up anyway, the kickstand becomes superfluous…thus I wouldn’t need one.

Again, I’m not a fair weather rider. Yes, I wear Lycra and I ride hard but I’m not a fair weather rider nor do I ride “toys”. But I just don’t find a kickstand to offer any kind of utility.

cyccommute 

Some do. I have. I’m retired now but about half of all my commutes to work involved some mountain biking and single track riding. Riding roads and/or bike paths gets boring after a while. The bike path I used most often ran next to a creek and there were miles and miles of single track along the way. There was a mountain behind my work where I regularly rode as well.




Commuting doesn’t have to be dull.

grolby

Personally I don’t think we need to load ourselves down with more tests about who is a “real” cyclist or morally pure or whatever. It’s just a kickstand. I think the original question has been answered - yes, some people still use kickstands. It may or may not work depending on the specific kickstand, the bike itself (seriously, be careful not to damage your frame!), how the bike is loaded, personality quirks, whether Mars and Venus are in opposition, etc. I guess my advice to anyone asking about kickstands is, by all means buy one (a good one) and give it a shot.

OLDYELLR

I've had bikes for over 70 years, mostly lightweight road bikes, but never a kickstand. Some years ago I acquired a 2001 Schwinn Rocket 88 Stage 4, which I sometimes ride around the subdivision, and a kickstand would be handy.



I'm looking for a specific recommendation of a kickstand for this bike.The chainstays are 19mm round and kickstands that mount there are meant for oval or rectangular chainstays and can't be securely clamped on round ones.The other option is a centre mount one that bolts in front of the chainstay bridge, but on this bike that's a very tight spot because of the suspension. (There are also ones that are clamped in place by the rear axle nut for cheap low end bikes, so not applicable.)

Germany_chris

I ordered a kickstand plate for my disc trucker so it’ll be getting one of my dual leg kick stands

Korina

I'm not sure that can take a kickstand. You might find a nice stick and carve a notch to prop the bike up.