Keeping a kickstand on tight

On Wed, 31 Jul 2019 04:05:28 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

On Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 12:38:37 AM UTC-4, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Jul 2019 17:44:54 -0700 (PDT), Doug Landau
wrote:

Why can I hardly ever get a kickstand to stay on tight? It seems like no matter how hard I tighten it, all I have to do is bump it with my foot when in the up position, and it moves, and then it moves easier after that.

The thought occurred that maybe the bolt should be thinner, by jobstian logic - remember his claim that thinner spokes stretch more and thus go slack less easily, maybe the bolt that hold the think together is too beefy for it's own good? The one that comes with tha aluminum stands is pretty substantial - I don't have one in front of me but maybe 3/8 or even 7/16" thread? That will help reduce stripping of the threads in the Al it is going into, but it's not going to stretch much.

I tried replacing the little plate that goes on top of the chainstays with a steel one, but I used soft steel, and it bent when I tightened. I could make my own Al plate, and use a much smaller - 6mm or 1/4" bolt, and not thread the AL but put a nut on top of it. But the hole in the stand part is larger that. I spose that could be addressed by a collar.

?

What I've seen happen is that the kickstand has two plates, one of
which is positioned below the chain strays and the other above and a
bolt through both the top and bottom plate compresses the plates
against the stays, which flattens the tubular stays a bit and the
kick stand gets loose...

My cure is to make a steel plate about the size of the kick stand
bottom plate with ends that wrap up about 1/3 the diameter of the
stays, remove the existing chain stay bridge and braze the newly made
plate onto the bottom of the chain stays being careful to braze the
entire contact portions of the plate and tubes.

That when you bolt the kick stand onto the bike you tighten the
mounting bolt against two steel plates and it stays tight.

But then, I've been assured right here that real cyclists do not use
kickstands.
--
cheers,

John B.

I love a kickstand on my bikes. Far too many times I've stopped where there was nothing to lean the bike against and I'm one of those people who detest laying their bike on the ground.

Cheers

I have kick stands on my two bikes here as I find bar tape too
expensive to hazard it by laying the bike down on the curb :-)
--
cheers,

John B.

On Wednesday, July 31, 2019 at 1:44:56 AM UTC+1, Doug Landau wrote:
Why can I hardly ever get a kickstand to stay on tight? It seems like no matter how hard I tighten it, all I have to do is bump it with my foot when in the up position, and it moves, and then it moves easier after that.

The thought occurred that maybe the bolt should be thinner, by jobstian logic - remember his claim that thinner spokes stretch more and thus go slack less easily, maybe the bolt that hold the think together is too beefy for it's own good? The one that comes with tha aluminum stands is pretty substantial - I don't have one in front of me but maybe 3/8 or even 7/16" thread? That will help reduce stripping of the threads in the Al it is going into, but it's not going to stretch much.

I tried replacing the little plate that goes on top of the chainstays with a steel one, but I used soft steel, and it bent when I tightened. I could make my own Al plate, and use a much smaller - 6mm or 1/4" bolt, and not thread the AL but put a nut on top of it. But the hole in the stand part is larger that. I spose that could be addressed by a collar.

?

The common Swiss-made ESGE-Pletcher stand has the same problem until you disassemble the whole thing and take a hard look at it. It was designed to bolt directly to the non-drive side chain stay and has a half-round channel in the mounting for that purpose. However, if it is mounted to a flat tab sticking out of the chain stay, a half-round spacer is fitted to the channel, and this is tapped to take two bolts to hold it in, with the extension of the bolts attaching it through the tab. Since the nuts at the back of assembly aren't obvious, I turned off bolts trying to fasten the thing after it came loose. Once disassembled and with the broken bolts removed, I fitted new bolts and added spring washers to the nuts at the back, and it has been firm since.

Andre Jute
Frustrating until I discovered what was amiss

On Wed, 31 Jul 2019 04:05:28 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

I love a kickstand on my bikes. Far too many times I've stopped where there was nothing to lean the bike against and I'm one of those people who detest laying their bike on the ground.

My first bike came with a kickstand and I unbolted it because it was
too hard to clean, and was causing rust. Fast forward half a century:
I slipped on snow I'd tracked into the house, and needed a way to get
around without putting weight on my knee. I took a Trek Pure BSO for
a few laps around the parking lot, found that my knee was happy, and
bought it. I'm quite certain that the knee healed much faster than it
would have if I hadn't been able to exercise it.

The Trek came with a kickstand welded to the chainstays. One day I
rode it into the park's parking lot, stopped in a parking space,
kicked the stand down, and walked toward the splash pad thinking "I'd
better reconsider my stand on kickstands!"

Just then I heard a crash and turned around to see my bike lying on
the asphalt and the detachable basket detached and its contents
scattered.

Ah, yes -- there might be no crevices in a welded-on plate, but there
is another reason I don't like kickstands: I don't trust one any
farther than I can throw a feather.

But the kickstand is convenient in the garage, and I used it when I
rode to Sweet Dreams yesterday to bring back a ham-on-rye for our
supper.

But I was really, really tired of twiddling the pedals before I got
there even though it's not as far as it is to the church, and the
church is less than half a mile.

On my road bike, twenty miles is too short to count as training.

(Unless I'm riding with no breakfast, no lunch, and not enough water
in 95F heat. And that *still* didn't count as training! Education,
yes, but not training.)

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/