I think I have talked my way into a repair stand for xmas. However I needs to decide what i want. It will end up being a low end stand no matter what, Moms not gonna layout the dough for a Park stand for me. My question is wether to go with a seatpost clamp style or one where the fork mounts to the stand and the BB is supported. For the record my current bikes are a Cervelo Dual with an aero seatpost, a Giant TCR with a Carbon fiber seatpost and two bikes with steel seatposts. I am worried about clamping the seatposts on the Cervelo and Giant, but am not sure if clamping their carbon fiber forks while I crank on the bike is good for the forks either. So whats says the wisdom of ST?
http://www.parktool.com/products/detail.asp?cat=23&item=PCS-1
$150
Clamp the ST, TT or just hook the seat over the rail.
While these may be more than you wanted to spend, I have both the Park Tool PRS-15 and PRS-21 Race Stand - good quality, solid, and portable.
Park Tool PRS-15 Professional Race Stand:
Park Tool PRS-21:
I have been considering getting a stand, Jim. The conclusion I came to is that it’s better to work on a fork/bb clamp combo in the following instances:
If the bike has an aero seatpost you need to clamp the frame (not good for carbon).
If the bike has a carbon post and a lot exposed.
If I were you I would go for the best within budget with the above clamp.
I have a fork & BB stand. It was the result of a parental Christmas gift gone awry. I wanted a stand that clamped the seat tube/post and got this one instead…
In the 17 years that I’ve had it, I’ve used it less than 10 times, and all of that use was in the first few weeks… It’s useless. Here’s why.
You can’t centre the front brakes since you need to take the wheel off. It’s pointless really to make any brake adjustments without the wheel on the bike.
Does your bike/will any future bikes route any cables under the bottom bracket? This is where your bike is going to rest. It’s pretty hard to tweak your gears when the cables are pinched between the frame and the stand. It’s not a lot of friction, but it is enough to interfere with shifting, especially when shifting to smaller tooth cogs and pushing the cable/using derailleur spring tension rather than pulling the cable back with the shift lever… It’s pointless to adjust your shifting with something pushing on the cable since it will be different once you take it off the stand, put the wheel back on, and test it out…
You also have no freedom to swivel the bike around to gain more ergonomic access to harder to reach areas. Get down on the floor if you want to string new cables, ignoring the fact that you won’t be able to push them under the bottom bracket anyway…
I’ve seen lots of people with crimped tubes from clamping too tightly on the tube-clamp style stands. My mechanic clamps mine on the top tube all the time and I have no problems. You just have to be careful and not clamp too tightly…
Good points, Davey. How do you cope with something like a Kalibur that has no regular shaped tubes including a square toptube? I found the PCS-9 with this clamp:
*Screw type clamp adjusts to fit tubes of various shapes from 7/8" to 3" (24mm to 76mm)
*Clamp rotates 360 degrees for easy access to any part of bike. *Will also clamp on aero shaped seat posts.
Anyone got experience with the clamp? It sounds great but I have reservations on it’s quality given it is on an etnry level stand. How do your shop guys clamp a KAlibur? Tom?
I would say that a square top tube would just be clamped very loosely… You’re after all just trying to elevate the bike for ergonomics and to let the wheels spin freely. If you really need to reef on something with a lot of force, do you really want that force to be counteracted by the edges of where the clamp is acting on your frame or seat post? Not likely so you’d just lean the bike against the wall anyway. When my mechanic works on my Blue T-12, it just rests loosely in the stand on the top tube. It will move around if you push on it.
If anyone would like my fork/bb mount repair stand, you are welcome to come and get it off my front porch where is has been collecting rust for the last six years. I live between Niagara Falls and Hamilton, Ontario…
I saw a blackburn stand in the classifieds that was a fork clamp with what looked like rubber projections to rest the BB on that wouldn’t interfere with the cables. Let me see if I can find the pic.
My stand has a rubber piece with a centre projection that rests between the chain stays at the rear of the bb. It interferes with the cables.
You’re still welcome to come and take it away…
It’s pointless to adjust your shifting with something pushing on the cable
With the PRS-20 (steel) and PRS-21 (alloy & steel), you can mount the bike by either the fork or rear dropouts so obviously if you have the bike mounted by the fork, then it will have to be removed from the stand to adjust the front brake. As for cable runs, the stand has a molded rubber piece with a wide channel that cradles the bottom bracket and allows full drive train adjustments - including cable installation. I have used the stand extensively over the past few days to build our new TCR Advanced ISP framesets - the ISP stands for Integrated Seat Post - carbon seat mast - no seat posts:
