Truing stands are one of those tools that people tend to put off purchasing only to wonder how they lived without for so long when it is finally part of the collection.

Truing a wheel between the brakes on otherwise on the bike just isn’t the same. Like just  about any tool, it is worth being realistic about your eventual uses and buying appropriately. The Feedback Sports Wheel Truing Station is a consumer tool meant for the home mechanic, or for the racer already toting a repair stand event to event.

The roughly $75 Feedback Sports truing stand is meant to either clamp to the top of a Feedback repair stand, or sit upright on the workbench on it’s included weighted base. I’ve found that it also fits on my ancient Park shop repair stand, and can imagine the handy user finding ways to attach the Feedback stand to other objects, say their hitch rack, fairly easily. It’s a relatively simple, one-sided design but don’t let that fool you into thinking it is inherently inferior to double-sided shop-style stands. The round and true adjustments slide into place and are then fine tuned with a plastic dial, allowing a degree of precision as close as anything else, and definitely within the limits of the home user. From small 16 and 20″ wheels up through 29″ wheels with fat tires mounted, you can fit just about any wheels with a conventional quick release or bolt on axle. The range of adjustment even allows you to true a disc brake rotor, which I’ve found useful a few times in recent memory. In some respects single-arm truing stands are easier to use than shop-style ones, with nothing in the way you have a clear line of sight and more working space with a one-sided stand. When building wheels one-sided stands automatically allow you to gauge even dish—simply flip the wheel over without moving the truing arm. If it isn’t even on both sides, the wheel is out of dish. It requires flipping the wheel back and forth, and working the quick release or tightening the axle nuts, but the practice works and I’ve built a few successful wheels this way without a dishing tool.

The Feedback truing stand is not a shop quality tool, nor should you expect it to be given the price tag. For the home mechanic, or the mechanic on the go looking for a lightweight, race-ready kit, the Feedback truing stand is ideal. Anything save for some high end mountain wheels and select other oddities fit, and the design allows full access to the spoke nipples even if the tire is mounted. There is no question that a shop quality truing stand is more up to daily abuse than the plastic knobs and fixtures on the Feedback stand, but I’d be the first to recommend a shop or even daily user to look towards a more robust, and pricier, piece of hardware. A truing stand is a key addition to a serious home shop, and in my opinion the Feedback truing stand is a solid choice for all but the most serious

The Straight Dirt

Posts Tagged ‘Feedback Sports Pro-Elite’

This is really a tale of two repair stands. The first is a battered old Pro-Elite model that bears the name of Feedback Sports’ predecessor company, Ultimate Support. I’ve used it to hold countless bikes over the last five-plus years. It has been folded up and tossed unapologetically into corners or the dark trunk of many a car with little regard for its well being. And aside from a few scuffs and scrapes, it is no worse for wear.

The clamp snaps shut in seconds and can be released with the push of a button.

The only issue I’ve ever experience with the stand came after one particularly unforgiving drop onto a concrete garage floor that caused the spring that draws the soft-clamp jaws open to jar loose from its post. I thought the stand might be a gonner, but after removing a few 5mm Allen bolts the clamp housing opened to reveal some fairly simple-looking inner-workings. The problem was easy to identify, and after simply hooking the spring back on and crimping the end a bit it has been good as new.

And I can confidently make that statement—good as new—because that quick spring fix was three years ago, and the clamp head performs every bit as well as the Feedback Sports version of the Pro Elite I’ve been testing the last couple months. The stands are nearly identical, and blindfolded I’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the old stand and the new one.

Feedback Sports took over Ultimate Support’s bike division (the company still makes musical instrument and speaker stands) a few years back, and wisely they’ve made very few changes. There are a couple of small design updates. Notably, the splaying action of the support legs has been re-engineered so that the three legs hinge straight outward from the base, an improvement over the old side-swivel design that could sometimes get crossed up if the three legs weren’t all positioned to swing out in the same direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) relative to the base. The only other change is the profile of the aluminum legs, which were previously tubular and now benefit from a more stable D-shaped profile.

Quibbles? This is the most stable and versatile portable repair stand I’ve ever used, but if you’re not careful it can be prone to tipping over. Positioning one of the tripod legs under the bike and the other two splayed behind it is your best bet. Because the best place to clamp most bikes is at the seatpost there’s automatically a significant weight bias toward the front of the bike, which can sometimes overcome the clamp securing the telescoping joint and cause the bike to rotate away from you while you’re working on it. This issue is exacerbated if you try to clamp the bike in the stand so that the wheels are level with the ground, but if you let the front end settle into its natural position the “wandering” effect is perfectly manageable.

Adjustable height seatposts (and their cables) didn’t become popular until after the clamp was already in full production. But luckily, there is enough space for a cable to fit even when the clamp is tightened against the post.

The soft red jaws of the clamp are replaceable, but unlike, say, Park Tool professional-grade clamp rubbers that can wear down over repeated, high-leverage clampings (and quite possibly over-clampings), the Feedback Sports design grasps seatposts squarely and with just enough pressure to keep them in place, and after years of use and abuse the red clamp rubbers on the old stand show no signs of breaking down. The square clamp arm is substantial enough to simply hook a saddle over for a quick repair, but the quick-clutch mechanism of the Pro Elite makes it so easy to securely clamp a bike that I rarely found myself hanging bikes by the nose of their saddle.

In over three years of use, the stand has proven durable, dependable and worry free.

So, is it worth the coin? In a word: Yes. Feedback Sports’ basic work stands start at just $130 with the “Recreational” model, which can be found online for as cheap as $110 (with free shipping), but I highly recommend at least going with the $150 Sport model, which benefits from the same folding tripod base as the Pro-Elite, albeit with a dumbed-down clamp mechanism and oversized plastic thumbscrews instead of the alloy quick-release levers of the company’s top-end model.

Splurging the $239 for the top-end Pro-Elite model gets a host of features that, over the long haul, I’ve come to really appreciate. The 13-pound stand goes from smaller than a golf bag to a fully functional heavy-duty work stand in a matter of seconds. Once I got the hang of setting it up, I could deploy or collapse the Pro-Elite with all the speed and flourish of aMarine Corps drill team.

Feedback Sports Velo Cache Two Bike Column
by dennis

Long-time viewers will know that we’ve reviewed other products from FeedBack Sports before: their excellent Work Stand, their Raak Single Bikestand, and of course Squirt lube. Each of those products were carefully designed and manufactured and easily surpassed our expectations.

If my friend, John Robert Williams, likes Squirt for his own bikes, then you’ve got to know that it’ll past the test with anyone.

And the Pro-Elite Workstand? Well, it’s practically a work of art. Even with it’s hefty price tag it’s a good deal simply because it works better than any other workstand I’ve ever seen.

So what about the Velo Cache? Let’s take a look.

The Velo Cache comes solidly boxed, every piece is individually wrapped and pretected from rattling against another so you can be sure it get to you in perfect condition. Full instructions (with pictures) are included so there’s absolutely no excuse for assembling it incorretly unless you are like Dennis who never reads instructions – then you’ll have to take it apart and put it together correctly the 2nd time. I hear that women won’t typically have this problem, but you guys will know who you are.

Aside from the incorrect assembly of the support arms, it takes about 15 minutes to assemble the Velo Cache and all the holes line up perfectly and all you’ll need is a Phillips screwdriver with a #2 (medium size) bit. Don’t do it with the smaller #1 Phillips, you’ll screw (pardon the pun) up the nicely finished black screw heads and the Velo Cache looks like a top quality piece of home or office furniture when it’s done. And even though the screw heads are generally hidden from view, well…. just get the proper tool anway.

The Velo Cache has molded soft rubber cradles and the stance is wide enough to fit nearly any bike including many full-suspension mountain bikes, BMX bikes and Commuter Hybrids.The fully assembled matte black rack is surprisingly stable – even when placed on a carpeted floor. If your house still has 1970′s 4″ shag carpeting you’ve long overdue for new carpet and you should probably keep your new bikes out of that room anyway. For hard surfaces and contemporary carpeting the Velo Cache is plenty stable. The three legs have rubber feet which keep it from moving about and keep it solid. After the Cache was fully assembled, Dennis tightened up all the screws with his screw gun set on medium impact, but you can adequately tighten them with a screwdriver. The Feedback Sports Velo Cache works well as a commercial display and it would look equally great in your living room, keeping black marks off the walls and keeping bikes from getting knocked over. The three leg positions all the rack to mount close to the wall. The Velo Cache is available at bike shops and on-line for about $170.00 and there’s also an accessory kit that converts your 2 Bike Cache into a 4 bike system. Who doesn’t have more than 2 bikes these days?

Review: Feedback Sports – Sport Mechanic Work Stand

Looking for a bike stand? Check out our review of the Feedback Sports – Sport Mechanic Work Stand to learn more about what it has to offer.
Feedback’s major competitor would easily be flagged as Park Tool but they both offer some unique features to their respective bike stands. One key difference is that Feedback stands have a wide triangulated base much like a high-end tripod. This gives the stand a really nice footprint and support for holding the bike securely in all positions without any wobbliness.

In addition to the sturdy base, the other major difference is the clamp design. The Sport Mechanic Work Stand has a nice clamp that won’t damage your post and has a wide opening to fit just about any tube.

It’s worth noting that if you need to clamp a bike to the top tube the Feedback stand works very well. In addition the wide/long aluminum box-shaped tube makes it easy to rest the nose of a saddle over the stand for quick bike storage. The clamp also rotates a full 360 degrees and can rotate downward out of the way when not in use reducing its storage footprint which is important during transportation.

The rubberized clamp inserts themselves are secured with allen bolts to the stand. This method is a bit more refined than other stands that use mini clips to hold the rubber inserts to the clamp.

Compared to our Park PCS-11 that we’ve reviewed this stand is a little bit lighter and folds up a bit nicer.

The clamp on the Sport Stand works well but isn’t as fast or easy to cinch up or remove a bike in comparison to Park’s mechanism or the higher end Feedback Sports stands.

Key Highlights:

Can hang bikes on the square clamp tube easily
Wide base give a very sturdy stand for light and heavy bikes alike. Quite helpful for heavier bikes or when you need to orient the bike at an odd angle.
Easy to setup and adjust with the big wing nuts
It is well made, feels sturdy, and is lightweight (slightly lighter than our pcs-11 race stand)
Folds up compactly
height adjustable to suit any reasonable demand
Replaceable rubberized clamps that are secured nicely with allen bolts.

Things to note on the Sport Mechanic Stand:

No storage/transportation bag is included.
It is a little bit harder to snug up the bike with the Ultimate Sport clamp design as you have to hold heavier bikes while twisting the mechanism for install and release.

The big knob to secure the angle of the bike doesn’t provide the most leverage as there is no pivot point to gain leverage off of like a Park Stand.

Conclusion:

Overall Feedback has got a pretty great design going on with their stands. There are a few minor points that I don’t like about the stand but overall the Sport Mechanic is a great stand. It offers stellar support for bikes of all weights and sizes no matter what angle you need the bike at. Check out Feedback Sports’ website to learn more and to see additional accessories and stand options.

Bikes, compared to say the plumbing in your house or the fuse box in your basement, are child’s play to work on

Why?  One-handed operation. That big, red, triangular button adjacent the clamp that grabs your seatpost? It’s a spring-loaded release to open the clamp’s jaws. You can also close the jaws with a single hand, and dial ‘em tight with the massive dial, also with one hand. Check out the competition. Their dials are wimpy or require monster-wrench hands to operate. You don’t have those hands, because you don’t wrench all day (just a guess).

Light. The mostly aluminum setup weighs 13 lbs. Check out other stands and you’ll find that’s what New Englanders call “wicked light!” That makes it easier for me to move it around and set it up where I need to, or want to, like on a nice day when I’d rather work in the driveway. And it folds down easily into a compact package, so you can pop it in the trunk and take it with you in case you need to do some trailside tweaks.

Tall — or short. I’ve never tested a stand that will extendthis high, high enough so I’m not crouched if I’m changing out a set of cranks (yes, that’s a relatively simple job) or unbending a bent disc brake rotor. Which is precisely the idea of a work stand — a good one makes wrenching on your bike easier.

Just leave the hard stuff to the shop. I’ll put it this way: Would you trust one of their wrenches to do your job?

The Feedback Sports Rakk is a fairly clever bicycle storage stand. It features a spring-loaded swingarm that allows it to hold wheels from 20″ to 29″ and in widths from 20mm to 2.4″. It’s not only hands-free, it automatically adjusts for the different wheel sizes—you just roll the bike into the stand.

The Rakk can support a bike by either the front or rear wheel, which is handy for two big reasons. One, even if you have full-length bolt on fenders, you can slide the front wheel into the rack. And two, if you’re using several racks side by side, you can store the bikes in alternating fashion.

An interesting design element is that the stands can be linked together for added stability or for creating retail displays.

The Rakk bicycle stand is available in black, white or silver and retails for $42 each. Visitwww.feedbacksports.com for more info.

Review: Feedback Sports Pro-Elite Bicycle Repair Stand

5 out of 5

We Liked:  With all of the stuff we bring to a cyclocross race light weight is something that we appreciate. The Pro Elite Repair stand from Feedback Sports is very light weight (12.6 lbs) and collapses down to a very small package (45″ L). Thank you Feedback Sports for these features! This also means that you don’t need a lot of space in your car to pack this thing up!

This stand is fast and easy to use! If this stand could race it would win the hole shot every time. Set up takes seconds because at each of the telescoping points the Pro Elite stand has quick releases that make collapsing or telescoping as simple as 1-2-3. Need the bike in and out of the gate in a hurry? The Pro elite has that hole shot as well. The clamp mechanism is on a ratcheting rail that has a release button on a spring. Hit the release button and Ka-Pow! The clamp springs open immediately releasing the bike. Need to put the bike in fast? Hold the bike up to the clamp, push the clamp shut and give the clamp a couple of twist and your are in like Flinn.

One size does fit all with this stand! No matter how tall or short your mechanic or pit crew is this stand will work for you and them. The work height will adjust form 42 inches all the way up to 71 inches! That means you can work on your girlfriends bike and then after all of the races the Pro Elite stand will work for her as she pulls power wash duty on the bikes.

The stand is a cool bright anodized red We love this! So keeping this piece of equipment nice and shiny is a must. The guys at Feedback Sports included some protection with its own carrying bag. This will help protect it from scratches and dings during your cyclocross crusade

We Didn’t Like

This stand is packed with lots of great features. But you can have any color as long as its red. What about green or blue or even pink? Other colors would be cool to have avaiable.

The Final Say

If you race cyclocross on a regular basis this IS the stand for you. This is the perfect tool to have in your box of gear. The stand is very simple to set up and use. It offers a very stable platform for holding your bike for a variety of tasks. Weather you are working on your bike, changing the wheels or washing your bike after the race this stand is a absolute must for the dedicated cyclocross racer.

I’ve used Squirt on my mountain bike for about two months. The first application was put on a dirty chain that had previously been coated with a non-wax “dry” lube…something from Finish Line, I think.  We have a ridiculous assortment of lubes around the office here, but prior to this gig I mostly used Pedro’s Ice Wax because I liked the idea of a wax lube, particularly that it should help keep the chain clean.

Above, and the next two pics below, show the chain after a particularly muddy ride at Whitewater trails in Charlotte, NC. I had ridden a couple of times before that since the last application of Squirt. Note that while the chain looks a little gunky, the cassette is much cleaner than it would be after using a “wet” lube.

Click any of these pics to enlarge for detail and you’ll see the “chunks” of used wax in the chain…still there after three rides. That’s a GOOD thing, it means it’s still on there lubricating the chain.

Even though it looks dirty, the chain ran smooth and quiet. Next up, application:

One of the really cool things about Squirt is it doesn’t separate like a lot of other wax lubes. In theory, you don’t really even have to shake the tube before you apply. I did merely out of habit, but there was no visible separation in the tube. The pics above and below show freshly applied Squirt.

The consistency was liquidy enough to apply easily and evenly, but not so thin that it dripped right off.  Actually, it stayed on the chain really well…there was no spray on the wheel or ground like you get with some other lubes while spinning the chain during application.

Here’s the chain (above & below) about two hours after application.  The wax has set on the chain and around the old gunk.

…which brings us to the next really cool thing about Squirt Lube:  It literally flakes the crud off your chain as you ride, keeping the chain functionally clean (though maybe not cosmetically) and quiet and shifting smooth.  Here’s the proof:

This is what fell off the chain after shifting it up and down the cassette a few times while spinning the crank. This is the same grease-gunk that was all over the office floor after installing the Gore RideOn cables we’re reviewing, so it continues to shed the gunk even after a couple of rides after application.

Bikerumor.com Rating

This is the dream when it comes to any product. Squirt Lube lives up to every claim it lists on its website, label and marketing. It keeps the chain clean (again…functionally clean), quiet and smooth for several rides between applications.  It goes on easy, lasts through muddy and wet rides and sheds the gunk as you go.   And it’s environmentally friendly. Literally, there is nothing wrong with this product.  At $10 per 4oz bottle, it’s on par with other lubes in terms of price, but it doesn’t take much to coat the chain, and I’ve only had to apply it about every third ride…so it should last a while. With all that in mind, I give it Five Thumbs Up!

Bikinventions’ whimsically-named Squirt comes off as just yet another wax-based chain lubricant but quickly proves itself to be different from the norm. It’s far more viscous than other wax lubes, it doesn’t stink and it doesn’t settle much over time.

According to Bikinventions’ Dewet Marais, this is because Squirt uses a water-based carrier instead of a more volatile organic solvent. This allows for a far higher-than-normal 40 percent wax-to-solvent ratio, a true wax-water emulsion that requires little shaking (if at all) and the slower-evaporating water lets the wax seep further into the chain, too.

As with other wax lubes, Bikinventions still recommends that you start with a squeaky-clean chain completely devoid of other lubricants or degreasers before the first application. Indeed, we got the best results using this procedure but were still surprised with Squirt’s performance just by slathering it on.

In short, Squirt is easily the best dry-conditions wax-based lubricant we’ve used to date and the only one we’ve encountered that can last more than a single ride out in the impossibly fine dust of Moab, Utah and Fruita, Colorado. Chains stayed quieter and smoother for longer periods of time, and even remarkably clean over our six-month test period. Moreover, Squirt’s impressive longevity also means you don’t have to use as much of it so the bottle lasts longer.

As usual, though, wet conditions are Squirt’s Achilles’ heel. While its durability was still far better than other wax lubes we’ve used (enough to justify its use over messier wet lubes in some cases), true wet lubricants are still the way to go when the rain starts coming down. Also, since the water-based carrier evaporates more slowly, you have to allow more time after application before you head out lest you fling all the lube on to ground.

Even so, Bikinventions’ Squirt has singlehandedly turned our opinion around for wax-based chain lubricants. This one actually does what it says and does it well, and it’s now the first bottle we reach for when heading out in dry conditions. Bravo!

4.5 out of 5 stars

“Hands down the best portable workstand there is”

At just 4.8kg (10.6lb) this new stand from portable workstand wizards Feedback Sports is the lightest professional quality stand we’ve seen, and it’s slick and easy to use too. Setup is a doddle: the tripod legs fold out quickly and smoothly, the rubber feet keep it steady, and the head folds out and locks into place using the same dial that adjusts rotation.

The head provides infinite rotation through a full 360° and the clamp has room for tubes up to 48mm across. The Slide-Lock clamp can be operated with one hand while you lift the bike into place with the other. It unlocks with a quarter-turn, although it does lack the push-button instant release of Feedback Sports’ Pro Elite stand.

Once your bike’s in place the stand is stable, and it’s easy to adjust the height. The action of the clamp and rotating mount have a real feeling of quality, and the fact that you can turn the bike to any angle you like makes it easy, for example, to swing the bottom bracket up to head height for easy fettling. All the components are aluminium or stainless steel so it’ll tolerate getting wet if you’re doing field repairs or using it as a very expensive washstand.

Compared with a hefty static workstand, it’s a bit ‘twangier’ and doesn’t provide the solidity you need to do brute-force jobs, but you’d rarely be doing those in the field anyway. If you’re a home mechanic spending this much on a stand, you’re hopefully committing to looking after your bikes well enough that the bottom bracket won’t get seized in the frame in the first place.

The Pro Ultralight will be especially appealing to anyone short of storage space. It folds down to just under 37in (94cm) long, 6in or so shorter than most folding workstands. It’s a pity that unlike many of its competitors it doesn’t come with a bag though – that’s an extra £35. It’s not cheap, but you can see and feel where the money’s gone. Think of it as a long-term investment in making it easier to maintain your bike anywhere and it’ll still be doing sterling service a decade after you’ve forgotten the price.