I must admit that I dreaded needing to purchase another bike stand. I originally had a Spin Doctor stand that fit my old Mongoose mountain bike perfectly.
After upgrading bikes to my new Specialized Fuse Expert I found I had no choice due to the geometry of the bike. Looking at the image below gives you an idea of the differences.
The old Spin Doctor setup worked by allowing the bottom bracket portion of the frame to sit in a molded pocket with a clamp connecting to a bottom clamp. The new Specialized just wouldn’t fit the stand. The New Conquer stand works perfectly and is pretty solid for the price point.
This setup allows ultimate access to the bike to allow you to do a wide variety of things on the bike.
From doing the routine maintenance or cleaning of your mountain bike having the proper stand is crucial to making these tasks easy.
Beneficial features
The stand comes with these beneficial features
- Stabilizer bar that connects from the Stand to the Handlebar prevents the wheel from going crazy while working on the bike.
- The clamp has a rotating head that allows you to adjust at any angle allowing for clamping on either the tube or the seat post (30mm to 75mm)
- Folds away fairly compact for easy storage
- Tool tray allows for the organization of tools and parts with a magnetized section to prevent smaller parts from walking away.
- Solid steel construction with quick-release clamps.
Things to look for
The biggest thing to look for when you first get the stand is to make sure all fittings are secured properly. Especially the connections on the outer part of the legs. If not secured firmly, this stand (like other brands of this type) can topple over with the bike attached.
This did happen to my bike once while I had it posted up outside of the garage for cleaning. The issue was that it was windy and the nut securing the bracing for one of the legs had loosened slightly. Thus the brace gave ever so slightly and the bike and stand fell into the grass.
This has only occurred once and after the nut was tightened there have been no other issues with the stand.