Kickstand love it or leave it?

[canalligators]

I find a kickstand handy for local riding, with a single adequate for this job.  My kick-around bikes have kickstands (winter bike crank forward, English roadsters for utility riding, etc.).  A sturdy double kickstand is very useful on a tandem, touring or local, because tandems can be unwieldy.  I skip it on my main rides (used for touring solo or long local rides) for same reasons stated.

[Jmw58]

Just put kickstand on my Trek 520 today cause I use it for urban transport and in my experience there is NOT always or even usually something all that handy for leaning fully loaded bike against..plus much easier to attach panniers to a bike on a stand, in my experience.  Clamping front brake with bungie also helps keep bike from wriggling away while you load it. Kickstand might add a pound of weight, prolly not that much.

[HikeBikeCook]

I bought a Click Stand and used it on our recent Erie Trip. I took off my two legged kick stand, which I had put on temporarily, for a few reasons:

1 - My loaded bike exceed the weight limit of the kick stand - 25 Kg

2 - The stand weighed almost two pounds with bolt and Surly mounting plates

3 - It was a pain to lift the bike up on it (two legs) and the bike would shift from front to back wheel when I got something from the panniers.

The click stand is easy to store in my handlebar bar, quick to deploy if and when needed, and really quite stable one you get the hang of it. I rode for years without a kickstand and also have ridden with a trailer, so I am used to leaning my bike. Ironically the first trip with the click stand was the Erie with no place to lean your bike for miles at a time.

BTW - as mentioned above, the click stand comes with two little bunges to secure your brake levers which would make any bike more stable on any stand. I typically only use the front.

[ezdoesit]

Has anyone used one of these? http://www.click-stand.com/ I saw one used in a CGOAB journal and have been thinking of trying one.

It's the only one I use and have been using this click-stand going on 14 years and very highly recommend it.

[froze]

Click Stand...never even heard of it till just now!  Interesting idea, much better of an idea than a kickstand, and if you have tent that needs a pole on each end or in the middle I wonder if this would work for that as well instead of using a walking stick as those tents recommend using?

In 40 plus years of riding I never needed a kickstand, but I do use a Velostrap cinch strap of Velcro that I use to pull the front brake lever closed and hold it closed, this way when I lean the loaded bike against something it won't move and fall over.   I only use the Velcro on the touring bike, never needed it for any other type of riding.  On my old Schwinn touring bike (the one the fork got bent on) it came with some sort of wedge, for lack of a better word, that you put into the top of the lever so that it would apply pressure on the brake lever and thus onto the brakes so your bike wouldn't move, and it dangled on a piece of string off the brake lever, not sure what it's called and I couldn't find it on the internet, but that thing worked good too.

[hikerjer]

Two things struck me about your post in their similarities to my way of thinking. First, I too, use a velco strap to tighten the front brake lever to keep the bike from rolling when it's leaned against something. Works great. The other thing is the use of a "sort of wedge, for lack of a better word, that you put into the top of the lever" of the front brake. I had one for years, made by Blackburn, I think, but lost it.  I've tried for years to find another one but to no avail. That simple gadget really worked well.  I've never really seen the need for a kickstand but each to his own.

[Westinghouse]

I have done about 35,000 miles through 19 countries. Balancing the value of a kick stand on a scale of useful on one side of the scale and useless on the other, I say the greater weight is on the useful side. I have done long journeys with and without. I would not want to do a long tour without one.

[j1of1]

Have a kickstand after years without one.  Will never go back.