My new bike stand has arrived.

Toecutter

Pedelecer
Dec 16, 2016
25
28
61
Kent
IMG_2844.jpg IMG_2845.jpg IMG_2846.jpg IMG_2844.jpg IMG_2845.jpg IMG_2846.jpg


Hi All

Excuse the pics up top & text down below something went wrong.

It arrived today via Amazon & cost £40 incl. P&P & i think its a bargain, it's well made, sturdy & i like the huge footprint which will keep everything steady.

It's a 'Utlrasport Bicycle Assembly Stand' according to the box & i like it, excellent value for money. I'm liking this cycling more & more, parts & spares are cheap unlike the world of motorcycles.

I'll have the Woosh on it tomorrow for some gentle servicing & i think i'll have a go at truing the wheel, i did a basic course on wheel building many years ago so i could build m/cycle wheels, replace spokes etc so i'm hoping that truing cycle wheels will be a breeze as there is no offset.

Charged the bike battery up today after 18 miles & according to my plug in energy meter it cost 2p to charge - Not bad at all eh, i think you'd probably wear out more than 2p's worth of shoe leather to walk 18 miles.

Toecutter.
 

oldtom

Esteemed Pedelecer
It arrived today via Amazon & cost £40 incl. P&P & i think its a bargain, it's well made, sturdy & i like the huge footprint which will keep everything steady.
Toecutter, although I'm sure my Aldi or Lidl stand was quite a bit cheaper a couple or three years ago, £40 is still a reasonable price for what should prove to be a perfectly capable stand without the expense of a better-engineered pro-workshop model.

Most bike stands are pretty much alike in form and while the cheaper ones are great for regular bicycles, the weight of some EAPCs can be a little challenging for the clamps when spinning a wheel and braking with the forces of gravity at work. With prudent use however, it should last you years and it makes several bike jobs a whole lot easier, which is we purchase them!:D

Tom
 
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mountainsport

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 6, 2012
1,419
298
View attachment 17014 View attachment 17015 View attachment 17016 View attachment 17014 View attachment 17015 View attachment 17016


Hi All

Excuse the pics up top & text down below something went wrong.

It arrived today via Amazon & cost £40 incl. P&P & i think its a bargain, it's well made, sturdy & i like the huge footprint which will keep everything steady.

It's a 'Utlrasport Bicycle Assembly Stand' according to the box & i like it, excellent value for money. I'm liking this cycling more & more, parts & spares are cheap unlike the world of motorcycles.

I'll have the Woosh on it tomorrow for some gentle servicing & i think i'll have a go at truing the wheel, i did a basic course on wheel building many years ago so i could build m/cycle wheels, replace spokes etc so i'm hoping that truing cycle wheels will be a breeze as there is no offset.

Charged the bike battery up today after 18 miles & according to my plug in energy meter it cost 2p to charge - Not bad at all eh, i think you'd probably wear out more than 2p's worth of shoe leather to walk 18 miles.

Toecutter.
Hi Toecutter a very good bargin. I notice that it can hoist a bike from the top of a frame, can it be adjusted so that it can hoist a bike from the extended seat post?

MS.
 

oldtom

Esteemed Pedelecer
Toecutter, I can't begin to imagine what I wrote in post #2 which drew from you a dislike icon?

Your work stand is fine - it will serve your needs very well, I'm sure as many subscribers to this forum have the distinctly similar Aldi/Lidl model - this page from 2014 lists the comments from purchasers back then when I think the price was £30 in round numbers.

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/aldi-bicycle-work-stand.18132/

Tom
 
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D

Deleted member 4366

Guest
Unfortunately, most of that type of stand don't work with electric bikes because the weight distribution of the bike is all wrong for it. Also the weight of electric bikes is just too much for them. That can sometimes be improved by removing the battery, but that can bring the weight distribution problem.

For an electric bike, the stands with the indexed locking clamps are much better, though they're more expensive.

Please let us know how it works with your bike.
 

Toecutter

Pedelecer
Dec 16, 2016
25
28
61
Kent
Toecutter, I can't begin to imagine what I wrote in post #2 which drew from you a dislike icon?

Your work stand is fine - it will serve your needs very well, I'm sure as many subscribers to this forum have the distinctly similar Aldi/Lidl model - this page from 2014 lists the comments from purchasers back then when I think the price was £30 in round numbers.

http://www.pedelecs.co.uk/forum/threads/aldi-bicycle-work-stand.18132/

Tom
Hi Tom:)

I've no idea how the 'dislike' came about, sorry about that, i've inadvertently hit the wrong icon or something as you do.

Toecutter.
 
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mountainsport

Esteemed Pedelecer
Feb 6, 2012
1,419
298
Unfortunately, most of that type of stand don't work with electric bikes because the weight distribution of the bike is all wrong for it. Also the weight of electric bikes is just too much for them. That can sometimes be improved by removing the battery, but that can bring the weight distribution problem.

For an electric bike, the stands with the indexed locking clamps are much better, though they're more expensive.

Please let us know how it works with your bike.
Plus informative.

MS.
 

Toecutter

Pedelecer
Dec 16, 2016
25
28
61
Kent
Unfortunately, most of that type of stand don't work with electric bikes because the weight distribution of the bike is all wrong for it. Also the weight of electric bikes is just too much for them. That can sometimes be improved by removing the battery, but that can bring the weight distribution problem.

For an electric bike, the stands with the indexed locking clamps are much better, though they're more expensive.

Please let us know how it works with your bike.
Hello :)

I certainly will. I've had a good clearout & purge at my HQ over the last couple of days & mothballed my m/cycles for the winter, it's now hoovered out & ready for the stand & bike. I'll post some pics of the stand in action. It'll handle the Woosh easily with or without battery, with the stands legs splayed open it's going nowhere & won't topple over, you could even fix it to the floor but i won't. This stand is much better than the one i saw in Halfords, if this stand cost 40 quid i wonder what you get for 140+ as seen on the internet?

I'm looking forward to playing with it all, nothing like pottering about in a warm HQ, kettle on with the dulcet tones of radio 2 in the background & getting wound-up listening to the Jeremy Vine show.:D

I think my 7 speed Shimano gearbox needs a bit of adjustment as the gears sometimes chatter so i shall work on that using the manual & the knowledge gleaned from my youth when i had a 5 gear racer from halfords back in good 'ol 76 - What a summer that was if your old enough to remember.

I think i might invest in some decent inner brake cables as i reckon the standard ones may be a bit stretchy or past their best & i want them to glide nice 'n silky.

Yup, getting this ebike has brought back a lot of memories. I enjoyed cycling & exploring everywhere & anywhere on my bike as a young Toecutter. A pushbike was a necessity to get about & have fun with your mates, you needed one, it was a tool. The orchards & open spaces of Kent beckoned you, we'd go fruit picking in the summer holidays riding to different farms on our bikes going from our homes more or less as the crow flies riding the edges of fields passing our bikes over the odd fence & riding a few country roads.

We went everywhere as kids on our bikes which we mostly customised with Cowhorn handlebars, short mudguards & a half-decent seat, it was also the done thing to have only the rear brake fitted & tweeked so you could perform super-long rear wheel skids, my bike had a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub which was much better than a single sprocket & a 3 speed rear wheel was a much sought after upgrade so were centre pull brakes but a well maintained side pull brake with decent brake blocks worked pretty good.

I remember getting an odometer for Xmas one year i was ecstatic as i loved gizmos to do with my treasured bike. It was a mechanical counter with a cog that went round tripped by a thingy attached to a spoke i can't remember how you calibrated it & it was probably next to useless on the accuracy front. Now look at what you can get for peanuts that works & is as accurate as your setting-up. Marvellous!

The lights for bikes these days are incredible - a far cry from the silver 'Pifco' or 'EverReady' ones. The batteries wouldn't last 5 minutes & you tried not to switch them if you could help it. I used to squeeze every last watt or volt out of them by leaving them on the top of the fire to warm them up before going out. You could fit a Dynamo powered set of lights but they'd go out when the wheel stopped moving - How crap is that? lol Yes, thanks to LED's & better battery technology those dimly lit foggy evenings are a thing of the past.

Lets start a campaign to bring back the good old sturdy 'rod pull brakes' Remember them? Usually fitted to old fashioned bikes of the era & Postmens bikes had them. I had a 'fixed wheel' bike once, the pedals always went round so they would often dig in or catch something as you were going along.

I grew up near Dartford on the Fleet Estate which was a new estate about a mile from the now Bluewater shopping centre which used to be two giant chalk quarry's with the remains of the quarry plant scattered about & crystal clear rivers & lakes that were icy cold that nothing could live in as the water was very alkaline due to the chalk. They were also building the first Dartford tunnel & the beginnings of the M25 & there were huge earthworks everywhere right on my doorstep, it was a great playground for us & our bikes.:D

Au revoir but not goodbye.

Toecutter.:D
 
D

Deleted member 4366

Guest
It's not the stability that's the problem. It's the clamps. They can't clamp tight enough. If you're lucky, your bike will balance when you clamp in the middle of the crossbar, which is good for adjusting the gears and things like that, but if you have to take a motor-wheel or the battery off, the bike immediately spins through 90 degrees. If you have a step-through bike, you have no chance of doing anything. The clamps can't hold. It spins around until something touches the floor. You'd have to get one of those fake cross-bar things to clamp to.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that those stands are useless. They're OK for some things. I have one, but the metal ones with indexing clamps are much better because they don't rotate no matter how out of balance the bike is, so much better for electric bikes, though they're much more expensive.

The other things that are quite good if you can install one in your garage are the double pulley hoists. You pull on a rope and your bike is lifted up. they only cost £5.The only problem is that your bike swings about a bit and it still tends to tilt when you take a motor-wheel or battery off.
 

Linfitter

Pedelecer
Apr 2, 2012
48
9
Huddersfield
Kudos King about 26kgs.

I got one of the Aldi ones very similar.

I quickly found that everywhere I needed to clamp cables of some sort ran and got pinched thus negating any chance of making accurate adjustments to gear changing etc. whilst in motion. I tried first to alter the clamp so that it did not pinch the cables but that was a waste of time. Another thing I noticed having a Rear Wheel Motor and Rack Battery was that the centre of balance point on the crossbar was slightly to the right of the saddle stem and then the idea struck me substitute the saddle for some frame size tubing and clamp to that. So using a spare saddle stem and a foot of tubing made a ‘7’ shaped part which I clamp securely in place of the saddle stem proper. Now I find that the bike doesn’t need to be ‘clamped’ at all it just hangs there in perfect balance completely cable free. (Centre Drive and front Hub Motor owners with ‘bottle’ type batteries may find that their balance point is further away from the saddle stem and will have to find their own balance point and make their own ’7’ up accordingly perhaps putting a bracer between the legs to make more of an ‘A’ type support frame). That sorted the hanging bit out next was turning the pedals.

What I didn’t like was that in order to turn the pedals like when checking motor and gear operation or listening for noises the clamp had to be furthest out from the main stem otherwise the pedals tended to touch the stands support legs this put stress on the clamp arm and so I made a bridging support to support the clamp tube. I made a 10cm sleeve to go over the clamp tube and the same to go over the upright support tubing which when in place are both at right angles to each other. Then with a piece of metal of sufficient thickness to support the stresses bridged the two (welded). This part is sort of ‘A’ shaped but with an obvious 90˚ angle.

The bike now hangs at a perfect height for me (I made sure it did by chopping some length off the main stem) and in perfect balance with or without the battery and sitting on my buffet, chain and drive set cleaning is no longer a toil of a pleasure.

Furthermore, there are times like when I put my part studded Winter tyres on, that with vertical ‘drop outs’ putting the wheel back would be a pain in the neck fighting against gravity. On occasions where I am only working on a wheel or its operation I will stand the bike up near vertical with its opposite wheel on the ground and clamp the bike in that position. The back wheel ‘drop outs’ are then in a horizontal alignment and the wheel is much easier to slide in or out. I do the same when working on the front wheel standing the bike up on the rear wheel and clamping in that position. Yes, I must say that with a bit of work it has turned out to be a very good buy and a joy to work with.

Hope this is of some assistance and makes your New Year a much happier one.

Yours sincerely


Linfitter.
 

Toecutter

Pedelecer
Dec 16, 2016
25
28
61
Kent
IMG_2854.jpg IMG_2855.jpg IMG_2856.jpg
Kudos King about 26kgs.

I got one of the Aldi ones very similar.

I quickly found that everywhere I needed to clamp cables of some sort ran and got pinched thus negating any chance of making accurate adjustments to gear changing etc. whilst in motion. I tried first to alter the clamp so that it did not pinch the cables but that was a waste of time. Another thing I noticed having a Rear Wheel Motor and Rack Battery was that the centre of balance point on the crossbar was slightly to the right of the saddle stem and then the idea struck me substitute the saddle for some frame size tubing and clamp to that. So using a spare saddle stem and a foot of tubing made a ‘7’ shaped part which I clamp securely in place of the saddle stem proper. Now I find that the bike doesn’t need to be ‘clamped’ at all it just hangs there in perfect balance completely cable free. (Centre Drive and front Hub Motor owners with ‘bottle’ type batteries may find that their balance point is further away from the saddle stem and will have to find their own balance point and make their own ’7’ up accordingly perhaps putting a bracer between the legs to make more of an ‘A’ type support frame). That sorted the hanging bit out next was turning the pedals.

What I didn’t like was that in order to turn the pedals like when checking motor and gear operation or listening for noises the clamp had to be furthest out from the main stem otherwise the pedals tended to touch the stands support legs this put stress on the clamp arm and so I made a bridging support to support the clamp tube. I made a 10cm sleeve to go over the clamp tube and the same to go over the upright support tubing which when in place are both at right angles to each other. Then with a piece of metal of sufficient thickness to support the stresses bridged the two (welded). This part is sort of ‘A’ shaped but with an obvious 90˚ angle.

The bike now hangs at a perfect height for me (I made sure it did by chopping some length off the main stem) and in perfect balance with or without the battery and sitting on my buffet, chain and drive set cleaning is no longer a toil of a pleasure.

Furthermore, there are times like when I put my part studded Winter tyres on, that with vertical ‘drop outs’ putting the wheel back would be a pain in the neck fighting against gravity. On occasions where I am only working on a wheel or its operation I will stand the bike up near vertical with its opposite wheel on the ground and clamp the bike in that position. The back wheel ‘drop outs’ are then in a horizontal alignment and the wheel is much easier to slide in or out. I do the same when working on the front wheel standing the bike up on the rear wheel and clamping in that position. Yes, I must say that with a bit of work it has turned out to be a very good buy and a joy to work with.

Hope this is of some assistance and makes your New Year a much happier one.

Yours sincerely


Linfitter.
Interesting -Thanks for the input. I note you slightly modified your stand to suit & i shall do the same. I shall create my own form of indexing by drilling & tapping a hole through the the clamp & tube then fitting a threaded bolt with a knurled knob through both clamp/tube. Easy to loosen/tighten & no movement.

I'll do it tomorrow, meanwhile here she is lofted.

I'll get the hang of getting pics & text in the right order one day.

Toecutter.
 
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