Spring is making its way north, and though it’s still chilly here in the northern Adirondack foothills, there have been plenty of sunny days. After a rough winter with snowy, icy roads, it’s a delight to take the bikes outdoors for spring maintenance.

Working on bikes often requires using a stand, and for major operations nothing beats a rugged workshop repair stand that raises the bike up off the ground. But for routine work like cleaning and lubing the drivetrain, a workshop stand is overkill. That’s why I really like the simple but effective Nashbar “Stand by Me” workstand. It was one of the earliest additions to the household tools and bike gear collection, and it’s been one of the most-used. Best of all, it cost less than 20 smackers.

The steel design is simple, with four legs, a vertical stand, and a pair of adjustable hooks where the bike’s off-drivetrain side seatstay and chainstay are rested. This lifts the rear wheel off the ground by about a couple-three inches (depending on the diameter of your bike’s wheel). The stand steadily braces the bike and permits you to work through the gears, remove a rear wheel, and turn your back to the bike without fear of it crashing to the ground. One caveat, however: brace the front wheel if you’ll be away from the bike, especially if the wind is blowing. If the front wheel shifts, the bike my become unbalanced enough to topple.

 
Here’s a profile of the stand:

 

 
Simple and good. You can see that rust has begun to form on the legs and bolts holding the vertical support in place, but the stand is still strong and capable. A bit of elbow grease with steel wool and Flitz®, followed by a new pain job, will take care of the rust. Why the rust? It was caused by using the stand to wash accumulated salty slush from dirty winter bikes. The blue plastic coating on the upper hook still holds tight, but the plastic coating on the lower hook eventually wore and peeled off. No matter. A length of aquarium tubing took care of padding the bare hook. And recycling eye-drop bottle lids as pads for the ends of the hooks prevents gouging the bike’s frame. Here’s a close-up of the top hook:

 

 
The hooks’ angles are adjustable to fine-tune them to fit your bikes:

 

 
Placing the bike just right into the stand takes a little fussing, but after the first few times you do it, this is second nature. Because the small stand is so, well, small, it will fit into the most cluttered apartment or workshop. Tuck it into a corner, even hang bags of rags off the hooks when the stand isn’t otherwise employed, then pull it out to do those necessary tasks before and after your ride.

 
If you’re building a collection of tools to maintain your bike, you can do worse than buying a small workstand, whatever its design. Unfortunately, it appears as if Nashbar has dropped the Stand by Me workstand. Hopefully the company will bring it back. The good news for me is that the one I use is still going strong, and should last a good long time.

 
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