A year ago I took the plunge and bought a Surly Long Haul Trucker. This week is the anniversary of my having returned home from a ride on one of my other bikes to discover the Surly box waiting by my door. Oh happy days! I immediately set about unboxing and assembling the bike I decided to call Petra, and within the day I had her ready to roll. I’d make a few modifications as Petra and I got to know one another, but it didn’t take long for her to become as comfy as a pair of old jeans. There are many LHTs, but Petra soon became uniquely mine.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before I placed my order for the LHT, I dithered over which color to buy, which pedals to choose, and how to best outfit her for touring and long-distance day trips. There was one component which didn’t need much consideration, though. I never doubted that I would fulfill a long-held desire to outfit Petra with a Pletscher two-legged kickstand. Now, after a year and about 2,500 miles, what do I think of the Pletscher? Did it live up to my expectations? And would I buy one again if I had to do it over? Let’s consider, beginning with the Pletscher’s…

 
Cost and Weight  A basic one-legged kickstand costs less than USD10, but the Pletscher costs about USD45, and though it’s made of aluminum, it’s bulky and heavy. The extra cost—not the extra weight—was my main consideration, but I got a good deal which blunted the strain on my purse, and I was in a holiday mood when I placed the bike order.

 

 
Design  The double legs of the Pletscher two-legged kickstand scissor so that when folded the legs stack over one another. When open the legs assume a nine-inch stance to support the bike, usually with one wheel lifted off the ground. Legs are scribeded at increments as a guide for shortening them. I haven’t cut the legs on mine, but some people do. I prefer to retain the wider span permitted by the original legs’ length. And when parking on soft shoulders or on lawns, the legs can sink in.

 

 

 
Mounting the Pletscher Two-Legged Kickstand  The goal is to clamp the chainstays just tightly enough to prevent the kickstand from shifting when a load is placed on it, but not so much that the chainstays are dented or crushed. And this is where the Pletscher’s most glaring weakness is revealed. The clamp could be better designed. Much better. The kickstand clamp is tightened with a single bolt running through the upper jaw into the lower. Unfortunately, the smooth angled facets of the upper jaw are eager to shift once clamped to the bike frame, and that encourages over-tightening. How can you avoid it? Short of remanufacturing the clamp, the only solution I’ve found is to introduce something grippy between the kickstand jaws and the chainstays. Originally I tried aquarium tubing, but it was too thick, too rigid, and turned out to be too slick:

 

 
The photo above illustrates proper clamp and leg alighment for a LHT, but you can see how thick the aquarium tubing was. After a trial run with this set-up, I removed the kickstand and replaced the aquarium tubing with lengths of recycled inner tube and then secured the tubing to the chainstays with electrical tape. I also put electrical tape on the contact faces of the clamp in hopes of making it grippier. Here’s a photo of the clamp today with that same rubber tubing and tape:

 

 
The strips of rubber offer a modest amount of padding, the tape continues to grip, and although I clearly need to give Petra a good cleaning to get rid of the sand and grime, the kickstand hasn’t shifted in a year. I’m not sure what I’ll find when I remove the tape and tubing… peeled paint, as some LHT owners have discovered? I’ll see.

 
Two-Legger Technique  With a single-legged kickstand, you get off the bike, flick the spring-assisted leg into the down position, lean the bike, adjust the cant on the front wheel to be sure the bike won’t topple, and walk away. Parking with a two-legger requires a different technique.To extend the legs, one end of the bike has to be lifted off the ground. I usually lift the back wheel by pulling up on the saddle (not the rear rack), then push the kickstand legs down with my foot, and lower the bike to rest on the kickstand. Alternatively, the front end can be lifted, the legs deployed, then the bike lowered onto the kickstand. With a load on the bike, lifting takes more umph, and the bike feels wobbly at first when set down on the dual legs.

Depending on how weight is distributed, one end or other of the bike will lift off the ground. Unless your bike is outfitted with a heavy handlebar bag or front panniers, usually the front of the bike is lighter and therefore lifted off the ground. The front end on Petra wants to swing when it’s lifted, so I’ve padded the top tube using a simple hook-and-loop tie wrapped around the tube, and cock the handlebars to that the bar-end rests gently against the frame. If I forget to cock the front end, it will swing of its own accord and smack into the frame, threatening to topple the bike.

Here’s Petra parked on a level surface, with more weight in her handlebar bag then in the pannier:

 

 
Even if the nose is down and the rear wheel elevated, the front end may want to swing, so beware. Most of the time, though, I end up parking the bike with the rear wheel on the ground:

 

 
Here I’ve parked the bike perpendicular to the road and sunk the legs an inch into the soft ground, then cocked the wheel to the right, which offered the best stablity. Occasionally the slope of the road verge is such that I can park Petra with both wheels on the ground, or near enough:

 

 
When carrying a heavy load, I like to park near something solid so the front wheel can rest against it, as shown here:

 

 
Stacked bags of mulch and topsoil afford some security against the bike flopping over with a 30-pound load of groceries in the Nashbar Townie panniers. Further down the road I stopped at the wine shop for a box of vin de table. I parked close to the storefront so I could cock the front wheel left against it while loading the wine:

 

 
Why all this concern over balancing and parking near a solid support when Petra is loaded? Because the two-legged kickstand isn’t as stable as I thought. In fact, I don’t think it’s less stable than a single-legged kickstand. Here’s a graphic showing why this is so:

 

 
The illustration shows the triangles formed by the points of contact when using the different kickstands. The single-legged kickstand’s support triangle of my mountain bike is on top, and the dual-legged kickstand’s support triangle of my LHT is below. To clarify, here’s a photo of my mountain bike loaded with about 30 pounds of groceries:

 

 
With the single-legged kickstand, the points of contact are the front and rear wheels, and the tip of the single leg. For a two-legged kickstand, usually only one wheel is in contact with the ground. The two legs of the kickstand form the other two apexes of the triangle. See how small and short the latter is as opposed to the longer, somewhat wider support base of the single-legged kickstand? Of course, when there’s a load on the bike, and it’s supported with a single leg on a kickstand, the whole load (bike and panniers) is leaning to one side. But cocking the front wheel to the right offsets the imbalance while still maintaining an upright position. The balance improves if the loaded bike using a single-legged kickstand is leaned toward a slight upward slope, as happens when parked on the shoulder of a road. A slope to the side of a two-legged kickstand only destabilizes the bike, so it’s important to park with the bike perpendicular to the angle of slope.

 
Pletscher Two-Legged Kickstand Ups and Downs  Mostly they’re downs. If that’s the case, what encouraged me to buy the two-legger? Several characteristics I’d read about in reviews and forums, notably:

 
Loading racks and panniers is said to be a cinch  I didn’t find this to be so. Loading mounted panniers with light loads is easy, but the bike does not have a rock-solid stance, so loading heavy loads into mounted panniers takes considerable care, as does racking heavy panniers one at a time.

 
It’s a built-in workstand for roadside repairs  I have used the two-legged kickstand as a mobile built-in workstand, but it wasn’t always possible. The exact mounting location, the length of the legs, and the geometry of your bike would possibly result in a different experience. I can rotate Petra’s crank and work all the gears—now. When I first installed the kickstand with the aquarium tubing as padding, the position was different and I couldn’t rotate the crank through the full revolution when the legs down because the pedal on one side struck a leg.

 
Bike is balanced and upright when parked  Finally, a two-legged kickstand is said to be inherently more stable than a one-legged design, but I’ve found differently, as already described. My bike toppled over the other day when the gravel where it was parked shifted, even though I’d pushed down hard on the legs to seat them. Luckily Petra wasn’t packing a load and the landing was soft, so no damage was done. I feel better parking near and leaning slightly toward a tree, fence, wall, or other immovable object. Most surfaces aren’t exactly level, and the two-legged design doesn’t cope at all well with slopes, even slight ones.

 
The other downsides of the two-legged kicktand include:

• • Cost
• • Clamp encourages overtightening and isn’t well designed
• • When front wheel is lifted it can swing and topple bike
• • Bike must be lifted off the ground to swing the legs
• • Stability is questionable under most circumstances

 
At nearly 50 bucks, this is a costly kickstand. If money is no object to you, you won’t care. But if you’re on a budget, you will, and that might be the deciding factor when considering how to outfit your bike. The clamp is another reason why you might go with a different design. I won’t gild the lily—mounting this kickstand on a Surly Long Haul Trucker was a fussy business, and plenty of other folks have had the same difficulty with the same bike. Other bikes might be more accommodating, but the clamp design could be improved. Surly could make things easier, too, by incorporating a kickstand plate that spans the chainstays. I’d pay extra for it.

The tendency of the front wheel to rotate when lifted off the ground requires consideration when parking, every time. I simply have to remember to anticipate this and cock the wheel when I park.

Some cyclists might find it difficult to lift their loaded bike in order to swing down the kickstand legs. If your upper body is weak, this is something to keep in mind. But even with strong arms and shoulders, it’s a strain, and strains the bike.

 
Pletscher Two-Legged Kickstand—The Bottom Line  Would I buy this kickstand if I were to do it all over again? For a touring bike, maybe, but probably not. I won’t get one for my utility or road bikes, which have single-legged kickstands. In my book, the advantages of the two-legger for a loaded touring bike don’t outweigh the disadvantages. If Pletscher improved its clamping design and brought the price down, that would be a step in the right direction. But the inherent instability of the two-legger cannot be overcome. And that’s why I’ll probably replace this one with a single-legged kickstand.

 

 
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