A regular kickstand is not "cool", but a double-kickstand is way cool.

I have a ~35 yr old Pletscher double on my hybrid commuter. It allows me to load the panniers up without any fear of the bike falling. The other neat feature of a double, that you don't get with a single, is that with the rear wheel lifted off the ground, you can fully pedal the bike (by hand, not sitting on the bike, of course) and make any shifting/derailleur adjustments, like you would normally need a bike maintenance stand for.

love my pletscher too. Not a fan of leaning or laying down my bike. But to each their own. No right way just your way.

I used to have a saying: If your bike has a kickstand, you're not riding. However, a few years ago I bought a used bike which happened to have one on it (the kind that fit in the frame corner, not your conventional metal stand in front of the crank) and now I swear by them! After that bike got stolen, I bought a Greenfield for the next bike. The ones that fit in the frame corner are so much sturdier! Yeah, it doesn't make me look cool anymore, but hey, at least I don't own a car!

Why are kickstands considered uncool?

I remember when I was a kid, and there was a point when all of a sudden, all attachments were uncool. It may have coincided with the emergence of BMX. We had to immediately remove all fenders, chain guards, kick stand, and so forth. My kick stand survived because nobody could figure out how to remove one from a Schwinn.

Later on, we kept our "cool" bikes, but each of us got some old utility bike that we actually rode.

Since we've already gone off the deep end, there's two types of people in this world: ham fisted idiots who have no right owning wrenches, and those with a mind capable of not overtorquing a kickstand bolt or scratching metal to hell installing other simple metal parts on it.

I fully consider myself qualified to own a wrench, in case you were wondering. That said, my disc brake bikes dont have one, out of lack of suitable options, and I manage. Plenty of times I'm annoyed about it tho. My favorites are the rear triangle mount Greenfields.

Id love to give one of these a go some day

I use the Greenfield rear stabilizer kickstands on my bikes.

All 9 of my bikes have a kickstand, even if I had to add it myself.

evidentley it's because if you have a kickstand then you are not considered a "hardcore" bicyclist and extra weight slows you down. I have a kickstand, a rack, trunk full of stuff sometimes and a bottle of water in a cage. It's so uncool but....the extra weight makes me work harder to get from point A to Point B so maybe I am cooler than I thought..

While I generally agree, you can damage tubing installing a kickstand. Surly had a blog post about it on their website. It started a mini firestorm when people interpreted Surly as being anti-kickstand. That's not what was written. It was a warning about the possibility of damaging tubes by over-tightening during installation.

Personally, and based on all the attendant circumstances, I think this a troll thread started to get people riled up. Hence my previous low hanging fruit comment.

Sure are a lot of Troll hunters here at BF. You'd think the Trolls would learn by now bringing up certain topics will bring the Troll Patrol hot in pursuit.

OK!
Appreciate all the good ideas!!

Exactly. I work with wrenches on a daily basis so I feel qualified to have installed my Greenfield onto my bike without destroying the chain stay or seat stay that it's attached to. So far, for the past year or more that I've had it on, it's not destroyed the bike even though it spends a great deal of time standing up in my home office.

IMO dead weight that should be removed

It has nothing to do with "coolness" or "uncoolness" nor with how "hardcore" you are. It has more to do with utility, in my opinion and experience. When I have had a kickstand in the distant past, the bike inevitably ended up on the ground anyway. A gust of wind and over the bike goes. They don't have much utility for holding up loaded touring bikes and they are down right dangerous on mountain bikes. Once I got used to not using them, I found I didn't need them.

Only my Raleigh Superbe 3 spd has a kickstand, all the others are leaners. By the way, nobody has mentioned placing your helmet under the non-driveside pedal to achieve a temporary vertical stance for taking pictures, or other quick stops. (Variable wind gusts can be problematic, but it works fine on pleasant, sunny days) Don

I have a right to tools: And I got'em! Don

But since there are usually no consequences, they are not deterred.

I find it absolutely hilarious how heated people get on this topic. You'd think he was asking if he should get the bike circumcised or something.

As long as he doesn't install it in a way that hurts the bike, he should try it and if he doesn't like it, remove it.

Whether we like it or not is completely irrelevant.

I have the 'other' model (the one that doesn't fold and clip on the water bottle bracket instead). I have to use a 'parking brake' though (piece of inner tube to hold the front brake lever depressed) because that small bracket on the rear wheel quick release will sometime rotate, no matter how hard I tight that quick release lever.

I do not have a kickstand on my half-bike, but we have a double-leg kickstand on our tandem that is absolutely wonderful. I don't much miss it on the single, because that bike rarely is off the stand but not being ridden (i.e., I rarely stop when riding that bike, and there's almost always a convenient something to lean it against when I do). I'd put a good double-leg kickstand on it if I had enough demand for it to justify the weight.

I have a kickstand on my touring bike. It is the only bike that I found a need for a kickstand. My other bikes just get leaned against something or laid down.

Doesn't rotate for me but I'm using a thru axle version. May be try to add a washer?