Bike Bench

[markwhitelock]

Evening all

I'm looking for a bike bench, does anyone have any recommendations?

Cheers

Mark

[dave16mct]

There are lots of different kinds. Depends on how heavy your bike is, how much space you have, how easy you need it to work and how much you want to pay. Mine's an L&L Easy Lift but I'm not sure they're still for sale. I've had it about 12 years and it cost £240 delivered. It does have very good points and some faults/limitations. I made a perfectly good bench from angle iron with wood top. It worked very well but was in the way when not in use. I also made a similar one from pallet wood which was just as good. I like the hydraulic type as you need it at diffent heights for different jobs and it takes seconds to change height. Some people make them from old hospital beds but they need to be narrowed and they are about 10" high when down. Cheap though, and well made with quality hydraulics.
Dave.

[Mick D]

Hi

I have a Sealey 365 with which I am very happy, it is stable when the auxiliary feet are extended, has integral tie downs and the ramp is removable which greatly reduces it's footprint in use. When not in use I store it up ended against a wall.

Lift.png

Shop around, there's quite a large spread in prices

Regards Mick

[GOLDSTAR]

I have one of each type, the one shown above is nice as it is raised in it's own length, the other type need a tad more room, however I find the illustrated platform is not as long as the older type and I don't use it as much, I think the one shown is called cantilever dunno what the other is.
kind regards

[Plugsnpoints]

Due to my limitations for space, I bought a small hydraulic 'square' motorbike lift. It's raised with a built in bottle jack and has casters so easily moved. I stripped my M16 down to the bare frame using it. Then reassembled it with ease. It rises to a useful height and is stable.

Plus the fact you can hide it in a corner under the fixed bench when not in use. I found it a good compromise. I think they're about 80 quid on eBay.

Andy

[Mick D]

Hi

Further to Goldstar's comments, the 'X' lifts, (my description), do indeed require less space to raise and lower than the 'parallelogram type. As for the platform length, a shorter platform suits my needs as it allows more free space around it, most work is conducted with the bike on the centre stand and the rear wheel off of the platform, hence the ramp can also be removed saving space. If I need to work on the front wheel or forks the ramp is fitted and the rear wheel tied down.

This type of stand is, however, far from ideal for bikes with rear stands.

Regards Mick

[shifter]

I have little room to work in now after relocating and had no room for my big lift so I gave it away for pence (silly bugger I know) so I plumed for a Sealey 450kg single sided lift its got good and bad points but its good enough for what I do now.

[1608]

I have recently bought one exactly the same as the Sealy one shown above. Cost £350. Wished I'd done so years ago. I made a few modifications though. As it is approx 4" off the ground when lowered its very difficult using the centre stand, so, I added a hinged ramp ( 1/4" x 2-3/4" x 15" mild steel) on the front so the front wheel is lifted higher and bolted a short piece of angle iron to one side of the bed to prevent the stand slipping backwards on the slippery bed when placing on the stand. Once the bike moves backwards onto the stand the front ramp can be lowered. With three bikes in the garage I leave one bike on the stand so the stand takes up no more room than a bike did before.

[Group Leader]

I went through this process a couple of years back. In the end I chose the Mick Hosker parallelogram job. As space is limited in the garage I went for the narrow option.

After a couple of years service I'm reasonably happy with it. It's substantially made, was well finished (I went for the powder coated option), has a removable plate at the rear for dropping back wheels out (obviously not so handy for the rear stand on my Beeza!), has tie down fittings and a front wheel clamp (which hardly ever gets used) and a locking strut for the front parallelogram arm (but see note on Jack). I've mounted it on small diameter, heavy duty castors so that I can move it about (not when it's raised with a bike on!!!) again because space is tight.

With the benefit of experience I do have a few niggles ......

The ramp is very short and both my bikes bottom out as it goes over the joint. In the end I made a much longer ramp out of Dexion and planks to replace it when I added the castors.

Personally, I think the geometry of the trolley jack connection is a bit suspect. The jack's pad is effectively wedged into a socket on the ramp and doesn't pivot as the jack is raised so when it's fully extended the pad is almost vertical and so the load point effectively rolls round the corner of the pad and frankly it doesn't past the "Stephenson Test" for me.

The Halfords jack seals have leaked from day 1 so the ramp descends over a period of hours. Whether it's just a poor jack or a consequence of the funny geometry of how it's used I don't know. I suspect the former but, on the other hand, I have had an identical jack for servicing the car for many years and that has never suffered from the problem

The worst and most dangerous "feature" is when you come to lower the ramp. You have to be very, very, very, very careful cracking the jack bleed screw so that the ramp doesn't just quickly collapse in a big heap (complete with bouncing motorcycle). This is made much more difficult if you've tried to give it that little extra tighten to stop the gradual leak .....

I keep thinking I'd take a closer look at the Jack attachment and improve it (I never have), take a look at ways of putting a locking strut on the rear link to take the load off of the jack in the raised position (I never have) and try and replace the jack seals to see if an improvement can be made (I never have)

Anyway, food for thought.

http://www.jampot.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... p&start=30

[dave16mct]

Good one in the 'For Sale' section just now.
Dave.