I admit, I was bummed that nobody had posted this and then realized that (of course) BryanD beat everybody to it by a few days!!

It's true, we bought Hirobel Cycling Solutions and are now producing the clamp in our Indiana facility with a few tweaks and mods, as well as a new much lower price.

Please ask any questions you may have, I set out to design a totally new work stand clamp almost 4 years ago and after realizing that a compression mechanism is never going to be the right way to hold carbon, killed that project so we could focus on this acquisition.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

Almost bought a Hirobel a year or so ago, but put it off thinking I was going to get around to building a BB mount workstand.

At $185 I'm in though. (I'll still get around to building a bb mount stand...someday) probably past time to stop hanging the expensive bikes by the saddle :D

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Josh - I have been using a Hirobel for years in the stand and am a big fan for certain applications.

The one thing I have always wished it had was a bit more stability, at least to prevent lateral movement of the bike. Perhaps some type of arm the drops down & wraps around the seat tube, NDS spindle, etc?

Awesome - love your products! Keep it up and great job with the podcast, really something different, technical, and super interesting.

Will you make a clamp or travel system you could put on a car!? :)

grosso27

This is really the one and only complaint we've heard about the clamp and is something we are looking at. The problem is that many of the solutions to the little bit of lateral swing that might not be ideal for some type of work, actually significantly reduces the likelihood of damage when doing other types of work. We are working with Ruckus composites using their database of hundreds of frames broken in work stands and during maintenance and have see frames with the seat post literally blowing out the side of the seat tube from a mechanic hammering out a bonded in BB cup.. so in that type of case a stabilizing arm of some sort likely could have or would have caused similar damage.

This is a great SILCA type of problem because the industry is in a corner where mechanics and consumers want the bike held rigidly, but the very nature of the rigid holding is what's causing damage and limiting frame designers in many aspects of what they need/want to do.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

Hello joshatsilca and All,

I want one .....

When will it be available?

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Love it! Now that I've started doing all the work on my bikes the last year or so, I've taken to clamping so loose on the top tube that the bike is always moving around like crazy when working on it. It's annoying. This is perfect! Didn't realize Ruckus has seen so much damage from this, but not at all surprised either.

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-Bryan Journey
Travel Blog | Training Blog | Facebook Page

https://silca.cc/...oducts/hirobel-clamp

Hello SummitAK and All,

Oops ....

Thanks

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

We love working with the crew at Ruckus, they see all sorts of amazing stuff!! Most interesting to me is that so much of the clamp damage isn't purely from just the clamping, but from the leverage on one end or another of the frame being resolved as a torque within the clamp itself. We are working with them on a white paper on this, but using Fuji Prescale pressure sensitive films under a traditional clamp it's not uncommon to see localized pressure hotspots of more than 200psi when doing even mundane work like taping bars!

Here's an awesome image they send us of a new Madone 9.0 that failed during headset work when clamped at the top tube, it's interesting to note that the yellow grease pencil shows the extent of the inter laminar damage that occurred as revealed by ultrasound.. the actual visible crack appeared at the forward edge of the clamp, but once it failed you can see the damage zone is actually about 12-15X greater than what's visible

Also, for nealhe, we are building and shipping them now, but have been a bit overwhelmed by orders so we are running a few days behind. If you order now, it will ship early next week.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

I ordered one. My Canyon Aeroad does not 'sit' well in the clamp of my parktool bike stand and I really don't want to clamp the top tube too hard so happy to invest in something that brings me more security my bike is more protected.

I love the clamp but have hesitated at the prior price. I had guilt since they are local and support our races.

Awesome device and the new price is great.

Buy Morf Technologies.

Thanks everybody for the thoughts.. I like to think of the Hirobel as being like a shoe... you wouldn't clamp your foot between two rigid forms.. but you would tension it down into a form using a binding. I think and hope you like it

As for MorfTech, I just learned about Frank and am so sad. I don't think that people always understand or realize the passion and risk it takes to drop your regular life and go all in on a project/product like this and having met Frank on a few occasions, he was most definitely brilliant, and passionate and all in on his vision. Such a loss.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

I just received mine today - It works very well with the clamp from my ParkTool workstand and holds my bike very well. Very stable and secure so the peace of mind it brings definitely seems to be worth it.

Benv,
Thanks for the kind words and glad to hear that it's working well for you!
Yes, the feedback so far has greatly exceeded expectations and we've run ourselves out of our first push of aluminum extrusion to make these things, so already sold out!! Should be back in stock mid April based on the info we have now.
Best
Josh

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

Hi Josh,

Hirobell looks like a good option, and I'm in the market for a new stand. But I don't like the idea of clamping by the frame, so I have been eyeing bb mounted stands like the Feedback sport Sprint. As I don't have any bikes with a bb mounted brake, is there any benefit of the Hirobell concept compared to a bb mounted stand?

Also, when I go to the hirobell page on silca.cc there is sound on autoplay. That's like the biggest no-no on the internet!

Also no. 2, love the podcast.

minimalist,

Thanks for the comments, my web guy just showed me that our defaults are to not play AND to be on silent, what page are you seeing this on and what browser are you using? We just can't recreate it on our end, but you are right, this should NOT be turned on.

Secondly, the fork mount stands are great for cleaning and running through the gears. As the bike isn't clamped at the BB in any way, they are pretty challenging to do more complex work with IMO, but I have a stand like this and have spent many, many hours using these stands with our pro teams.

Where the fork mount stand falls apart is in building bikes or doing complex work, particularly anything that involves a BB or headset. The pro teams are not allowed to clamp frames in any way, so when we route Di2, the bikes are either laid out on a table, or some mechanics will attach the fork to the fork stand and then rotate the bike upside down so the saddle is sitting on the ground in order to get access to the BB.. The mechanics also take turns holding the bikes upright for each other when they make front brake and disc adjustments as those aren't possible in these types of stand.

Both types of stand really have their place, but especially now that we have disc brakes everywhere, I find that I never use the fork mount stand as it's just too big a hassle compared to just putting it on the Hirobel.

Josh

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

I've had both and definitely prefer a stand with a clamp. It gives better access all around the bike and you can change the height easily based on what you're trying to do. Working on the BB, crank, wheel areas you set it higher and working on handlebars, headsets, saddle you set it lower. You can also change the angle too and when cleaning the bike the stand isn't all messy. (I'm using a Parktool PCS-10).

What is the price? Website just says sold out.

My big grip with my Feedback Sports Classic is that it doesn't hold tri bikes well (it's made for round seat tube). Unless I am mistaken, this would solve that correct? I could clamp it onto the Hirobel and hold tri bikes and anything with a non-round seat tube well.

https://silca.cc/...oducts/hirobel-clamp

when you scroll all the way to the bottom if where I found the sound, but I had to click on the image first to get it started, which I assume is by design

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning

Thanks for the reply. I might get myself a hirobel when they are avaliable (in Europe).

Regarding the web page: I'm using Brave browser on Android, so I may not be representative for a lot of users.