Best stand for fully loaded HPV Streetmachine?

[TPMB12]

Looking for the best and most stable stand for my touring recumbent.  It has lowrider rack with off centre stand attachment point. I've also read that rear mounted stands are more stable when bike is fully loaded.

I'm curious what other two wheeled recumbent riders use when fully loaded touring?

[Slave To The Viking]

While poking about at reviews of touring recumbents a while back, I happened across this piece which addressed - among other things - that very issue.

http://www.nextstopwhere.com/2017/04/17/azub-vs-streetmachine/#Kickstand

[Blodwyn Pig]

While poking about at reviews of touring recumbents a while back, I happened across this piece which addressed - among other things - that very issue.

http://www.nextstopwhere.com/2017/04/17/azub-vs-streetmachine/#Kickstand

Haha! This is the very article that prompted me to get a Streetmachine in the first place. Excellent!

[Kim]

Odd.  I've always found the lowrider mounted kickstand on the Streetmachine to be rather good.  Certainly the loaded bike is a lot more stable than my Dawes Discovery with its rear-mounted stand, though I expect much of that is down to the way you pack the heavy stuff in the front panniers on a recumbent vs the rear panniers on an upright, and that the steering is a lot less inclined to flop sideways.

Obviously anything's going to dig in and bring the bike down on soft ground, but that's not the stand's fault.  Having a parking brake on the rear wheel helps a little, as the bike doesn't rock as much when you mess with luggage.

[Slave To The Viking]

Haha! This is the very article that prompted me to get a Streetmachine in the first place. Excellent!

Oddly enough, it's making me really lean toward the Azub - I've ridden a Streetmachine and really liked it, but the description of the Azub's ergonomics suggests it might be more my flavour. The more upright seating in particular sounds good, as does - potentially - the angle of the bars, and the linkage-driven steering.

Hoping to seek one out later this year and finally make a decision.

[TPMB12]

That article got me thinking about stands. It looks in one photo that the SMGTe had rear and mid mounted stands.

I've never had a stand on a bike but my son's old frog bike had one.  It was a frog supplied stand built for the bike itself. One issue,  it didn't hold the bike up with panniers nor the unladen bike without panniers on anything but flat tarmac.i expect a recumbent loaded won't be stable everywhere I want to park it.

[fd3]

My wife's upright bike with a basket had a stand that wouldn't hold the bike up in anything but the best circumstances, ideally with someone holding it.  My SPM had a kickstand that would hold it up in pretty much any condition.  I put this down to CoM and Moments/Torque.  The Tern had a side stand that would have been okay if the bolts weren't sheered but would never have coped with loading/unloading a powerfully built 6 yo, hence the centre stand.

[Slave To The Viking]

The Pletscher Comp Zoom - as mentioned in the aforementioned Next Stop Where blog - is perfectly decent, but is rated at 18kg. The Comp Flex, on the other hand, is a chunky little number, rated at 50kg. It's made with the additional weight of an electric in mind, but if you're after some overdone heft with plenty of redundancy for peace of mind, that could be worth a look?

I find one of the key factors in ensuring stability when using a stand is some sort of parking brake, so the now-offset weight of a leaning laden bike doesn't trundle round, steering on its swung front wheel and pivoting on the stand, and fall over. My incredibly sophisticated solution these past few years has been loops of bungee cord - which live on the bars - round the levers when I stop.

[TPMB12]

Just checked pletcher site out. Optima flex is best for my SMGT because it has an off centre bolt attachment point for stands on the low rider rack plus the same 50kg load rating. The one you mentioned was esge attachment one with the two bolt holes that go onto a rear bolting point. My recumbent doesn't have the esge compatible frame.

Do centre or rear stands give better performance?

[Kim]

Do centre or rear stands give better performance?

Good question.  I've always assumed that centre ones are more stable, but it probably depends on the weight distribution.  Recumbents are very different to uprights in this respect: The bike itself tends to be front-heavy compared to the more even weight distribution of an upright.  And this changes again when you put heavy luggage on it.  Upright loaded tourers tend to be very rear-heavy, as you naturally try to avoid putting too much weight on the steering, and maybe a rear mounted stand works better in that case?  My Streetmachine seems reasonably well balanced in loaded touring mode, but it's sensitive to the order you fit and remove the bags: Lowriders go on first / off last, and the bike will tend to tip if you fit the left (ie. stand side) rear bag before the right.

The other thought that occurs is that the stability of any kickstand is going to be very sensitive to length adjustment.  If the bike's too vertical, it can be knocked/blown away from the stand.  But if it's leaning too far over, the centre of mass is going to be outside the stand and it's going to tend to tip regardless of where the stand is mounted (which is what appears to be happening to the Streetmachine in the photo on the nextstopwhere page - it's hard to tell exactly what's going on because the bottom of the stand is below the local horizon, but the stand looks far too short).

I don't seem to have a photo of mine from directly behind, but here are a few by way of comparison, and I think it's clear that the stand length is configured for a much more vertical position:

[TPMB12]

What stand do you have on your Streetmachine? Pletscher of some variety I assume. It being  the big player in quality stands I reckon.

[Kim]

What stand do you have on your Streetmachine? Pletscher of some variety I assume. It being  the big player in quality stands I reckon.

A black one.  Except where the paint has flaked off, where it's aluminimum colour.  No obvious sign of branding.

Whatever they were fitting to SMGTs circa 2003, anyway.

[frankenthorn]

I'm curious what other two wheeled recumbent riders use when fully loaded touring?

No hugely relevant, but my experience from the pair HPV Grasshoppers I’ve owned is that the (HPV) stand was entirely capable of holding the bike up on level-ish ground provided that you had the same number of panniers (and thus weight) on each side. But if you only had a pannier on one side then the bike would fall over in that direction, whether it was towards or away from the stand.

[Lightning Phil]

The key as Kim has pointed out is the length of the stand and the camber and the surface you prop your bike on.   Agree you need to balance the weight with pannier either side. I too have a black prop stand, mounted centrally with no obvious branding.  Though I’m sure I could see what I bought at the time if I went back through my emails.

[Kim]

What stand do you have on your Streetmachine? Pletscher of some variety I assume. It being  the big player in quality stands I reckon.

A black one.

Look what I found at an awkward angle underneath the schmoo:



Looks like 'Pletscher' and 'ESGE' , which I interpret to mean their standard centre kickstand, probably cut to a non-standard length before I beefed up the foot with a random bit of steel angle (because the stand had worn a hole through the middle of it) and Sugru (because sandals).  I've been thinking 'it'll probably need a new one at some point' for about 10 years now.

[TPMB12]

Managed to find something on the HPV website about it. I'll need to recheck but I think it's esge comp or classic for centre with a different one for the rear mounting ones or if you don't have the lowrider.

Think I'll buy one. My lad likes them but my partner doesn't. She says there's always something to lean your bike against. However in my experience there is and she hogs it !

[Kim]

Kickstand update:

The SMGT died of metal fatigue.  I bought a Shiny! New! SMGTe to replace it, transferring various Perfectly Good Components over from the old bike to save costs.  Among them were the low-rider rack, which had been replaced in about 2016 or so, and the above ESGE kickstand.

The kickstand got the wire brush and Hammerite treatment, on account of being structurally sound but a bit tatty looking.  I also replaced the customised large-diameter ferrule^[1] with a new customised ferrule^[2], for similar reasons.

Anyway, when I installed them on the new bike, I discovered that the stand would hold the bike almost exactly vertical, to the point where a light breeze or wobbly floorboard would tip it over to its right.  This improved slightly when I swapped the Boring! New! wheel (HPVelotechnik branded disc-specific rim with 40-406 Marathon Racer) with the old dynamo hub wheel (Sun CR18 rim with 40-406 Marathon Greenguard).

From which I conclude that:
a) The SMGTe geometry is slightly different from the SMGT with regard to the height of the low-rider rack above the ground.
b) Wheel/tyre dimensions make a difference to optimal kickstand length.  (With hindsight this is obvious, but it's easily overlooked.)

After a couple of iterations, I've hacked about 10mm off the kickstand and re-moulded the ferrule, achieving a lean angle that's stable but slightly more vertical than the old bike.  I may come back and shorten it a bit more, if necessary.  Hard to find the sweet spot when you can only adjust it with a hacksaw.


_{[1] Mild steel L-bracket and Sugru.
[2] Stainless steel penny washer and Polymorph.}