Lifting a road bike by one of the seat stays

Anonymous

Hi guys,

Maybe a bit of a silly question but still wanted to ask. Is it ok to lift a road bike by one of the aluminium seat stays? Yesterday I realised I was doing this when inspecting the rear derailleur during a ride (front of the bike facing down, all the weight on one seat stay) and afterwards it got me a bit worried that I might have bent/damaged something. Bike is Cannondale CAAD12, total weight around 9kg. Just have no idea how strong these seat stays are and what they are capable of. Thank you for your answers .

Cheers!

sheffsimon

DaanP wrote:

Hi guys,

Maybe a bit of a silly question but still wanted to ask. Is it ok to lift a road bike by one of the aluminium seat stays? Yesterday I realised I was doing this when inspecting the rear derailleur during a ride (front of the bike facing down, all the weight on one seat stay) and afterwards it got me a bit worried that I might have bent/damaged something. Bike is Cannondale CAAD12, total weight around 9kg. Just have no idea how strong these seat stays are and what they are capable of. Thank you for your answers .

Cheers!

They're capable of not bending/snapping when your bike is descending and hitting potholes and sprinting and crashing.

In other words, they're really really strong. You have done no damage whatsoever.

apreading

+1 what SheffSimon says, but dont clamp a stand onto them or pull them sideways - their strength is along their length, they arent designed to take a bending force at 90 degrees

fenix

If you could bend it by picking it up by the stay then it'd not be safe to ride. Relax.

Prob the worst bit is that your fingers might go into the spokes from there.

webboo

No its knackered. Let me know where you live and I'll pop round to get rid of it for you.