Workstands

Park workstand with optional wheel attachment.
Click to enlarge.

Workstands are incredibly useful when maintaining your bicycle so it's somewhat ironic that I originally purchased my workstand as a way to avoid constant mess and the ability to work more easily on the bike is an added bonous.

To explain this a little more, I am a year round cyclist. While riding in the snow and ice has it's fun moments it became obvious to me very quickly that the mess that the melting snow makes on the floor isn't cool at all! I purchased the workstand to give me an easy way to elevate the bike above some underbed pans that I use to collect the water, grease and dirt etc that comes from the melting snow. It's much nicer to have it captured in the pan then to spend hours constantly mopping the floor.

Jakub's simple but highly functional workstand.
Click to enlarge.

I've had the stand now for five years. In additional to fulfilling it's winter duties amazingly well it's also really helped out with maintaining my bikes. Rather then suffering with a sore back from stooping I can instead work on things at eye level. Recently I obtained an extra add-on for my Park Workstand that also allows me to easily true wheels.

It's not necessary to spend money to purchase a workstand unless you really want to. There are easy alternatives available and they more closely match what you are likely to have readily available to you when you are on tour.

One alternative, shown in Hoogie's picture, is to hang your bike from strategically placed ropes. This gets your tires off the ground making maintenance more back friendly and allowing you to easily make adjustments to things like your brakes without having to constant lift up the back of the bike. On the road you could use trees for the rope while at home a garage with exposed beams or hooks will work nicely.

Hoogie's rope stand in use.
Click to enlarge.

A second alternative is to use a couple piece of wood. In the picture of Jakub's setup he uses 2 X 2 lumber and some bricks but you could likely do the same thing with a few pieces of dead wood, a picnic table and a heavy rock or two to hold the wood in place.

Workstands are not mandatory, especially for bicycle touring and in fact I doubt that I will ever see someone carrying one during a fully loaded/self contained bicycle tour but if you do a lot of pre or post tour maintenance then they really are nice to have. Some supported tours carry workstands in the SAG wagon to make repairs and tune-ups much easier for their riders.

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