Bicycle Maintenance Stand

ArdyOCD

Hi

As part of my A level Product Design course I have chosen to develop a Bike Maintenance stand.

I would like to see what features do you think are the most important for a bike stand (apart from holding the bike up ofcourse).
Any features that you would like thats not on the majority of the bike stands?
Any suggestions that would make existing designs better?

And I'd also like to ask what jobs do you carry out yourself using a bike stand - and do you use them before and after race events like triathlons and race events.

Any replies are greatly appreciated
Thanks,

Dave

small_bloke

I would like to see a hydraulic style height adjustment. When the bike is clamped in the stand, it becomes too heavy to raise higher and reach your hand around the back of the stand quick release lever at the same time (becasue the bike is in the way).

blakeya

A holder for a beer can ;-)

arlowood

Most maintenance stands employ a single clamp which can be moved vertically and also rotated about a central axis. Whether this clamp is used on a seat post or one of the other major frame tubes, it can be awkward if you want to rotate the bike to access areas you want to work on because the weight of the bike can make the stand less stable.

One thought that might be worth exploring is to devise a 3-point clamping system on a central disk that can be fixed or rotated as required. The clamps would be radially adjustable on this disk to cope with different frame sizes and angles. In this way the top tube can be clamped first and the other 2 clamps can then be adjusted to hold the seat tube and down tube respectively. Once held in this way the frame can be rotated through 360 degrees more easily.

Might be totally impractical but you did ask for ideas

wishitwasallflat

If you design a questionairre on Survey Monkey and post the link bet you will get more responses

fgaffney

A method of locking/clamping your handlebars so the front wheel keeps in line with your rear wheel, rather than flopping from side to side.

jimothy78

ArdyOCD wrote:

I would like to see what features do you think are the most important for a bike stand (apart from holding the bike up ofcourse).

Clearance allowing you to turn the cranks - easy to forget the obvious.
Maybe a shelf for tools/bits - ideally Detachable/relocatable or on some sort of anglepoise armature so you can put it where you want it.
As stated by others - clamps that can be used (optionally) to stop wheels, handlebars, cranks etc turning would be very useful.

mpdouglas

A pet subject of mine. I received a Park PCS10 for Christmas last year and these are the things I would change if I was designing one:

- I'd use square tubing, not round. I'm tired of putting pressure on some part of the bike only to have the upper, sliding tube of the stand rotate inside the lower tube, causing the whole bike to move. No matter how tight I do up the quick release clamps, it still pivots round. Square tubes would eliminate this

- Park sell a tool/parts tray that mounts onto two vertical holes on either side of the height adjusting clamp. This puts the tray right in the way of the inside pedal so you cannot rotate the cranks without clattering into the tray sending your tools/parts everywhere. The tray is a must have but it needs to be in a better position to allow full crank rotation.

- a parts tray with some cup-holder style receptacles so cans of GT85, degreaser etc don't keep falling to the ground every time you bump the stand

- some LED lights on flexi mounts, attached to the stand would help. I end up using a Joby Gorilla Torch with magnets in the feet but it's difficult to get in a good position and easy to knock off

- some hooks to hang cloths/rags on. You can put them on the tool tray but it's often full of bits and you risk flicking them to the floor when you pick the rag up again

- Park sell a simple plastic coated arm (PTH-1)that you can mount a roll of paper towel on. It seems like a good idea to me but I can never find anyone that stocks it.

- some hooks on the lower tube that you can hang a wheel on. When I take the rear wheel out to clean/maintain the rear mech, it would be good to have somehere safe to hang the wheel

Hope this helps. Probably makes me out to be some work stand nutter with a form of OCD!

PS The fold up nature of the pcs-10 is great and requires very little storage space

gllewellyn

I have one of the cheapie lidl stands, but it works very well. Based on my usage of that I'd say...

mpdouglas wrote:

- I'd use square tubing, not round. I'm tired of putting pressure on some part of the bike only to have the upper, sliding tube of the stand rotate inside the lower tube, causing the whole bike to move. No matter how tight I do up the quick release clamps, it still pivots round. Square tubes would eliminate this

I don't agree - I see where you're coming from, but I also like being about to easily rotate the bike around the stand when needed.

mpdouglas wrote:

- Park sell a tool/parts tray that mounts onto two vertical holes on either side of the height adjusting clamp. This puts the tray right in the way of the inside pedal so you cannot rotate the cranks without clattering into the tray sending your tools/parts everywhere. The tray is a must have but it needs to be in a better position to allow full crank rotation.

+1 the tray on my stand is in a fairly awkward position behind the bike, and things are often knocked off by the pedal.

mpdouglas wrote:

- a parts tray with some cup-holder style receptacles so cans of GT85, degreaser etc don't keep falling to the ground every time you bump the stand

+1 - this happens a lot! In fact, I'd like the option of having a couple of parts tray - especially clean/dirty to keep the old manky parts away from the nice your shiny ones.
Also an option of a magnetic tray would be good.
Also, my parts tray is black - not a great colour in low light when looking for small parts.

mpdouglas wrote:

- some LED lights on flexi mounts, attached to the stand would help. I end up using a Joby Gorilla Torch with magnets in the feet but it's difficult to get in a good position and easy to knock off

+0.5 - not sure if that would work well, or if they would just get in the way - maybe just better workshop lighting is a better solution.

mpdouglas wrote:

- some hooks to hang cloths/rags on. You can put them on the tool tray but it's often full of bits and you risk flicking them to the floor when you pick the rag up again

+1

mpdouglas wrote:

- Park sell a simple plastic coated arm (PTH-1)that you can mount a roll of paper towel on. It seems like a good idea to me but I can never find anyone that stocks it.

Better trays and/or rag hooks would eliminate the need for that I reckon.

mpdouglas wrote:

- some hooks on the lower tube that you can hang a wheel on. When I take the rear wheel out to clean/maintain the rear mech, it would be good to have somehere safe to hang the wheel

+1

mpdouglas wrote:

Hope this helps. Probably makes me out to be some work stand nutter with a form of OCD!

In that case, me too!

Actually, maybe an option instead of adding a load of extra trays hooks, etc to the bike stand maybe to keep the bike stand as minimalist as possible, and have a separate, matching stand for the trays, hooks, lights etc that you can have next to the bike so it's accessible, but not in the way/behind the bike.

ben@31

Apart from the usual... low cost, nice looking aesthetics and easy to use ergonomics I'd go for.

- Stability
- Durability
- Quality of the finish
- Fits a wide range of bikes

The problem with design is it's often a compromise. For example, its difficult to have durability, high quality and low cost. With the exception of Rapha who get away with charging £130 for one jersey (this must be down to clever marketing and brand image).

Sprool

fgaffney wrote:

A method of locking/clamping your handlebars so the front wheel keeps in line with your rear wheel, rather than flopping from side to side.

^+1 for that.

..with the exception of Rapha who get away with charging £130 for one jersey

it's only what some people are prepared to pay...
Light, stable, magnetic tray for parts, hook for cleaning rags, easy release one-size-fits-all clamp, flexi goose-neck LED to illuminate those tricky places