It only took a year of nagging but Ive finally managed to persuade the accounts dept that we need proper workshop quality workstands. Up to now we've been using an assortment of different portable stands (Minoura, Park, Tacx) but they just aren't up to the job. Each of our two workstations might be visited by 15 or more bikes in a working day. One of the issues we have with portable stands is their light weight. In order to be stable and light they need a wide base which means that the legs stick out and people trip over them so all three legs on my two month old Tacx are bent. They're just too long and too lightweight. The plastic rotation adjust lever broke off within a week so it now wears a pair of mole grips. Spandexes Park stand is little better, it's impossible to do up the quick-release levers on the main upright enough to stop it rotating, the whole affair sags so that the bike is at an angle and the forks swing round and again it's just too light weight to withstand the kind of effort one sometimes needs to apply to a bike without becoming unstable.
What I really wanted was a pair of French VAR stands but we settled for kestrel. VAR stands use an enormous sheet of plate steel for a base which must weigh close to 75 kilos. Ive used Kestrel stands for years, a bit cheaper than VAR but they're heavy, you can bolt them to the floor and they last for decades. Six week delivery though.
