Recommend me a workstand

[MacB]

My Ribble one arrived yesterday, very impressed with solidity and ease of use....thanks for the info folks

 

[MacB]

Just used it to do the 'Mickle Method' on my chain, very easy to use and seemed very solid to me, big thumbs up here

 

[dodgy]

That's the one I have. I paid £79 for it from CRC. It is now £109 - almost twice as much as the Ribble price.

Flippin' 'eck, I got a Park PRS-15 for £237 back in December and it's now £309 from CRC! It took enough self-persuasion for to buy it at the price I got it for!

 

[Archie]

this.

I have two, and for the money they are great.

This looks like the same one jpembroke linked to on CRC only £50 less. I've decided to take a look

Hopefully it'll arrive by the weekend. I'll report back if anyone's interested?[/quote]
The BikeTool (BT) stand did indeed arrive so I've had a chance to gather some thoughts as the weekends jobs were done. It's the same basic design as the Lifeline Spin Doctor (LSD) so any differences are in the detail of how it's put together.

The fold-down legs have a smaller footprint than the LSD, but it made no practical difference in my back yard. Both workstands were plenty stable. They use the same cam lever design to secure the feet.

The BT uses the same cam lever to secure the height adjustment, which is better than the twist-grip arrangement the LSD uses - I'd identified this as a possible area of failure. So the BT scores better on this.

Both stands allow you to change the angle of the clamp jaws. The BT has a neat arrangement and metal interlocking teeth are apparent on the inside, whereas the LSD had plastic teeth only. To be fair, these showed no sign of wear on the old stand.

The clamp jaws are plastic on the BT, and use the same method as the LSD's metal jaws to adjust the clamp width, but the rubber grips are softer and have a channel you can line cables through for unimpeded use if needed. They also have a rather interesting articulated arrangement on one of the jaws, I guess to adjust to unusually shaped tubes? The point of failure on the LSD, the cam lever closing the jaws, is also plastic so there's no telling at this stage if it's harder wearing than the old stands.

Overall I'd endorse the view it's a good value, solidly built workstand. I'd say it's better than the stand it replaced, but I'll be interested to see how it stands up to a years abuse in my hands!

 

[giant man]

Flippin' 'eck, I got a Park PRS-15 for £237 back in December and it's now £309 from CRC! It took enough self-persuasion for to buy it at the price I got it for!

Christ I wouldn't at that price, not for a Park, that's Kestrel territory!