Some of us work on our own bikes right? If you're like me, you
know how much of a pain it is to comfortably work on your downhill (DH) bike
with
a repair stand. DH bikes bring most repair stands to their knees with their
sheer mass.
And to further complicate the matter, most DH bikes are made with some
very odd shaped tubing. After a lot of aggravated fighting
with my current stand and language that would make any sailor turn his head,
the guys at Ultimate Support (http://www.ultimatesupport.com
) said they have a solution for me - one of their pro repair stands.
From the start, my expectations were high. I've used many different stands
including shop models. For a stand to be able to do everything I want
it to do and be light was going to be a hard task for a manufacturer to
accomplish
in my eyes.
While waiting on the stand to arrive, I decided to do some research into the
company. Unlike other repair stand manufacturers, Ultimate Support only
makes
repair stands. I was quick to find out that this companies roots were not
in
the bicycle industry at all - their primary business is audio support
equipment for stage speakers, keyboards, etc...So immediately the question
comes
to mind: How did an audio equipment company get involved in making bicycle
repair stands? Brett Rosenbaurer at Ultimate Support was glad to answer
that
question this was his response:
'Well, the founder of our company started Ultimate making Pro Audio
speaker stands in 1977 out of hang glider tubing (he owned a hang-
glider shop and built custom hang gliders in Boulder, Colorado).
Darrell was in a band and he created lightweight, well constructed
gear for his band to do gigs with. Well, no one was making music
speaker stands and he found a niche that was MUCH more
profitable than his hang gliders. Everyone in Colorado wanted
Darrell to make them gear. Ultimate was a side project out of his
Dad's garage on the weekends up here in Fort Collins and soon he
moved back up here full time and started doing well creating music
support stands. Ultimate Support Systems was born.
Well, with the boom of the 1980's mountain biking scene full bore -
especially on the front range of Colorado - Darrell was frustrated
using his current repair stand with no adjustment at a meagre
43' working height while doing routine adjustments on his bike.
There was NO height-adjustable or compact stand available he
could bring to Moab on the weekends. Being the inventor he is and
the design staff we have - we designed the Pro repair stand. Our
Slide-Lock clamp was designed from the ground-up and took a
while of testing and perfecting. The lightweight, sturdy and VERY
adjustable speaker stands were modified by lengthening the legs
and re-drilling the leg brace patter for a lower center of gravity.
Using speaker stand technology we had just made too much
sense for us. In 1992 the Professional Repair Station was
introduced at the Interbike show with amazingly positive response.
We invented the first compact, portable, lightweight, height-
adjustable repair stand! The rest is history. Ultimate Bicycle
Support was born. '
The stand arrived at my door step from the man in brown. After unpacking
the boxes this is
what I had:
The Stand and Accessories
The first thing I noticed about the repair stand was it was indeed light.
So to the digital scale
I went with the stand, and 12.2 lbs it was! Not only is it light, it folds
up to a compact size!
Before I put the stand to use I took some time and gave the stand a thorough
looking over. The first things I noticed were the legs - pictures don't do
them justice as to how wide the legs fold out. The legs spread out to quite
a large diamater when fully extended, but you don't have to fully extend
them if you don't want to. Here is a detail photo of the clamp that
operates the legs. Notice the QR levers are very long and wrap around the
tubes so that they don't stick out. Nice touch!
Working my way up the stand the next thing I noticed was this little plastic
collar thing...What's this for? That was quickly answered when I unpacked
the tool box. The tool box has a metal hanger made into the bottom of the
box as seen in this photo. The box slides down onto the plastic collar on
the mast of the stand.
There is clamp on the large rubber knob at the back that allows for rotation
adjustment and loosened fully to allow the clamp to swing down when folding
the stand for transport or storage. The large knob makes it easy to
generate a lot of torque and the rubber coating prevents slippage.
The clamp attached to the square aluminum arm extending from the mast is a
sliding clamp, Slide-Lock TM Clamp, that
has an internal clutch that allows the clamp to slide back and forth until
you are ready to clamp the bike. The knob here, like the other larger knob,
is rubber coated as well.
You can also purchase the trueing stand made by Ultimate. The trueing stand
is one sided and comes with a heavy cast iron base. The stand can be
removed from the base and slid on top of the repair stand just above the
clamp. The cast iron base has rubber pads installed to keep it from
slipping if your like to true wheels in front of the TV on your glass coffee
table! The base is well designed with a spot to hold your spoke prep and
spoke wrenches and has two slots down each side to hold the spokes. Someone
was thinking when they designed this piece. The stand has two guides that
adjust in every way possible. The guides are made from plastic with metal
tips, while the main shaft of the stand is made from extruded aluminum just
like every other part of the repair stand. As with other trueing stands, if
you have through-axle hubs you have to have some type of insert for the axle
so that you can use a QR skewer to hold the wheel. The angle at which the
stand sits is also adjustable - especially useful when you have it mounted
on the repair stand. The stand isn't meant to compete with high end shop
stands but it's construction and well thought out design deserve a lot of
consideration.
Last but not least is the
handlebar holder. The holder has rubber straps on each end with an
extending shaft with a small thumb screw for setting the length. Lots more
on this nifty device later on in the review.
For transportation, you can get the tote bag that is made specifically for
the stand.
The bag is made of durable nylon material and has carrying straps and a name
tag. A nice touch is that the name is not silk screened on or painted -
it's actually embroidered into the fabric!
Testing and Use
Over the course of two months I put the Ultimate Stand to every possible use
I could come up with, taking it on trips and mounting every bike I found on
the stand. At the time I received the stand, I was beginning the process of
selling my bikes in preparation for next season. So what a better time to
test out a repair stand when I was tearing down and building bikes? First
thing tested...downhill bikes.
The stand is rated for a 65 pound bike. At the time I was tearing down my
Balfa BB7 with a Shiver DC that weighted in at 45lbs. The first thing I
noticed about the bike was the clamp. I picked up the bike with one hand and
used my other hand to tighten the knob, which is conveniently placed on the
front of the clamp. No reaching around the frame to try and tighten the
clamp...what a nice design that I never put much thought into! Another
thing about the clamp that quickly came to light was how the stand clamped
the bike. The jaws move in an out facing the stand so I was able to clamp
around tubing on the frame that I previously had not been able to use for a
clamping location since the clamp doesn't have to fit through holes to get
to a tube!
One of my biggest
complaints with repair stands has always been the lack of vertical
adjustment and the ease of adjustment. Hence one thing I was anxious to try
out was the vertical adjustment of the Ultimate stand. To say the least I
was impressed! The photo to the right gives you an idea of the range of
height adjustment the repair stand has. Notice that it's a DH bike it is
holding that high, but without the fork. As expected, the taller the stand
gets the more flexy it becomes, so I don't recommend trying to do bottom
bracket work at that height.
The tool box, which I didn't really think would be useful, turned out to be
great. When you have your bike up high, the collar that holds the toolbox
rotates around the mast, allowing you to swing the tool box under the bike
as you work to catch falling parts and hold your tools right there for the
grabbing.
I found the large knob on the back of the clamp to be very easy to use and
when tightened, it was able to hold the bike at many different angle of
rotation, even inverted. The handlebar holder turned out to be one of my
favorite accessories. You may have seen handlebar holders made by other
manufactures that really only work well if you have a standard top tube and
then only hold the handlebar straight. This holder is completely different.
I used the holder between the handlebar and the seatpost on all of my bikes.
Since the length of the holder is adjustable, it allows you to lock the fork
in different positions. This makes working on front disk brakes painless.
Turn the handlebars, lock the handlebar holder, and you can easily get to
the front brake for adjustment and alignment.
Ultimate advertises the bike stand to be very stable on uneven ground so out
in the yard I went with the stand and a bike. My bike at the time needed a
good washing anyhow. I found an area in my hard that was quite uneven,
spread the legs of the stand out and mounted my 2Step (36lbs) in the stand.
They were not lying! The stand held the bike firmly as I washed away.
Another interesting thing about the Ultimate stand is that you can wash you
bike off with it - it's construction is almost entirely aluminum and all
steel parts are corrosion coated in some way.
During the time I used the stand I went to two BMX races and traveled back
home to ride some trails at Oak Mountain State Park in Birmingham, Alabama.
It proved to be highly portable and the bag was large enough to hold the
stand, the handlebar holder and the trueing stand as well.
At the time I did not have any wheels to build but a couple of my wheels
needed minor trueing. Time to test the trueing stand. First I tried using
the trueing stand mounted on the cast iron base. My wheel I was trueing was
a Hope bulb hub laced to a Mavic F219 rim with Maxxis Larsen TT single ply
wire bead DS tires and tubeless - not extremely light, but not too heavy
either. Well, the cast iron base could not handle that kind of weight and
fell over without the use of a clamp on the table. But last time I checked
just about every other truing stand on the market requires a clamp to hold
it to the table, so no huge disappointment there. Without a tire, the base
would certainly hold the wheel without the use of a clamp on the table. For
regular wheel maintenance you'd probably rather have the trueing stand
mounted on the repair stand to save space anyway; therefore, the base would
mostly be used for building new wheels.
Conclusion and Thoughts
At the beginning of the review I stated I had a lot of expectations from
this stand and to sum it up, the stand performed as expected and excelled in
certain areas. The design of every part is very well thought out and, to
put it plainly, simply works! The reason you buy a tool is to make life
easier. The Ultimate Support stand does just that. Working on your bike
becomes less of a hassle and more of a fun job with this stand
Something interesting about the stand - Brett from Ultimate Support
described how the company got started with music support equipment for
speakers and keyboards. Keeping that in mind, I was out at a local bar
sipping on some fresh Newcastle brew and listening to the band playing when
I noticed their speaker stands. Their stands looked identical to the repair
stand I had at home, except there was a speaker on top instead of a bike.
So you have to think, if they can support heavy Peavy speakers, a bicycle is
a simple task for them!
MSRP Price List
- BRS-80RT Pro Bicycle Repair Stand: $229.99
- TRS-80B The Pro Truing Station: $74.99
- TB-12B Attaching Toolbox Model: $35.99
- HBH-10B Handlebar Holder Model: $15.99
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