Is this Chinese bike repair stand any good?
If you're a DIY bike mechanic and enjoy working on your own bike, then you probably know how difficult (or annoying) it can be to work on it without a proper stand. Well...I finally caved and decided to buy one. I've been browsing various repair stands for some time now but always hesitated, mainly because I was too cheap to buy one, until now.
A quick Google search will return a wide variety of stands ranging from inexpensive Chinese brands to high priced ones from Park Tools, among others. With so many options to choose from, how do you know which one to get?
Because I'm not a professional bike mechanic it made no sense to spend a lot of $$ so I went with the "CXWXC Bike Repair Stand" on Amazon.com for $83.98. This same exact stand is sold under various other names at varying prices. You'll quickly find that this is a generic Chinese made stand.
My first impression of this stand is that it looks and feels pretty sturdy. While the frame is made of aluminum, all the clamps and fixtures are plastic. The aluminum tubing is pretty thick and build quality seems solid, but time will tell. The stand is foldable so it makes storage and transport convenient. It comes with a tool/parts tray that is easily removable along with an adjustable rod to hold the front wheel steady if needed.
The main clamp head rotates 360 degrees so you should be able to hold pretty much any bike regardless of whether it has a traditional top tube frame or if you have to use the seat tube (like my bike). This also makes it easy to position the bike evenly to distribute the weight. Depending on where and how you clamp the bike, you will need to balance the weight so the stand doesn't tip over. One thing that I didn't take into account was having to hold the bike with one hand while trying to securely clamp the bike with the other. If you have a light weight road bike, this is going to be a lot easier. My mountain bike weighs over 30 lbs and having to hold it with one hand while trying to clamp it was a bit challenging until I finally figured out what works best. This will require a bit of trial and error as you figure out what clamping position works best for your particular bike.
