My aldi special has finally given up the ghost and I fancy something a bit better.
Criteria: Needs to be two footed and preferably under £100.
Cheers hivemind
A used park tool stand? Try eBay and Facebook marketplace.
Why two footed? There's s reason milking stools don't wobble.
Unless you’re a paid mechanic, can’t see the need for anything more than the cheaper Park one. Mines robust and steady, whilst also the legs fold down so it can stand in the corner out of the way.
Park pcs-9
I’ve got the Park PCS-10 and I’m a bit undecided if I like it as much as I thought I would. It replaced a generic cheapie one that cost about £25 quite a number of years ago.
The Park Tools one is definitely more robust and it looks ace in that blue. The quick release type clamp is better than on the cheapie one - but you can rotate the bike left or right without moving the whole stand as the main strut is oval not round. That’s surprisingly annoying.
Also, the mechanism to swivel the main arm seems to jam up quite easily and take a lot of effort to rotate it - I’m not sure if it needs some grease in there or if that’ll mean it’ll never hold in a specific place.
My conclusion is I think there must be better options out there than the Park Tools ones.
Edit - I’ve read a few things about feedback sports work stands - this is the cheapest one I can find. Not sure if it’s any good or not?
Why two footed? There’s s reason milking stools don’t wobble.
You're correct, two footed = three points of contact like said milking stool. 👍🏻
space reasons as well as stability.
interesting review of the park stand, the oval tube and lack of rotation would be a big irritation.
I got this in the CRC sales for £60.
I’ve had a DH bike in it with no complaints.
Yeah, I didn’t anticipate those features on the Park when I got it. About to build a shed to get some of the general crap out of my garage so I can actually walk around the stand etc to the other side for things. I’m going to stick with it because it was quite a lot of money, and well, it’s shiny and blue. But if I were designing it I think I’d tweak several things on it. It also doesn’t fold down that small vs the old cheap stand I have either.
What happened to your Aldi stand? I thought you could drive a car over those and they'd survive. Was just pondering buying one.
It's always been just about ok, for the price. The plastic on the clamps is stretched and cracking now.
Tbh, if that lifeline one at £90 is as good as the online reviews I don't think the Aldi stand is worth spending £40 on. Objectively, it's clearly worth £40, just factor in it not being as good for a long time and the extra seems worth it.
I've got an aldi stand that is about 10 years old now and starting to fall apart...
Used the park higher end stuff when I worked in a bike shop but £100+ is a lot to spend so trying to find something in the under a ton category looks like that lifeline one looks decent.
Also a great reason for 2 legs in you can put it up against a wall/fence unlike the Aldi type where you need a big open space.
I saved up for a good Feedback Sports as my first workstand and... I don't know what I was expecting, but I'm not convinced it was worth the cash tbh. There's a surprising amount of flex in it, and while the clamp is apparently the big differentiator, it's OK without truly blowing me away. Maybe I need to try other stands to realise what they're lacking.
I've got the X Tools one from CRC, been fine for the last 5 years or so.
Having owned the Feedback Recreational stand for a year or so now, I'm convinced it's the best compromise between the expensive ones (inc. Park and the Feedback Pro ones) and the cheapo Aldi/Lidl/Lifeline/whoever's put their brand on this batch ones. The clamp is much more solid, and the quality's generally better than the cheap ones. The two-leg folding design is simple and solid. Providing you don't want to take it away with you or store it in a tiny space, it's great.
I presume nicko74 has one of the expensive lightweight ones.
The Park PCS9 is the cloest equivalent, but my housemate had one and I didn't find it as good. Apart from anything else, the legs fold the wrong way so it takes up way more space than necessary.
I picked up a Feedback stand a few weeks back - https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/mobile/feedback-sports-sport-mechanic-repair-workstand/rp-prod21388
Brilliant, sturdy well made.
+1 Feedback Sports
Choose the model that suits your requirements. I went for the 'Sprint' which is fine, but as it secures the bike by the front dropout, is not so good for headsets etc.
Also, you have to take the front wheel out which makes it a slight faff for small jobs compared to just plopping it into the jaws.
But once in the stand, is very stable and adjustable, and you can swivel the bike around easily, etc, and your bike isn't being held by jaws.