#20 - Kickstands On Long Haul Truckers

Occasionally we hear from someone who has installed a kickstand on their Long Haul Trucker and crushed the chainstays.  This is never a good conversation –for you or us—but almost no one thinks that installing a kickstand is worth asking about beforehand, so most people contact us only after they have just destroyed their frame. 

If they had asked us before they installed it we would have led off with the self evident advice that a bike which is lying down can’t fall over.  More often than not there is a tree or a building or something that you can lean your bike against if you don’t want to lay it down.  But we know there are times a kickstand is a pretty nice thing to have, like when you have a heavy, loaded touring bike, and the ground is muddy.  It is inevitable that some people will use kickstands, so in order to avoid the future unpleasantness of The Conversation let’s lay this out clearly here and now:

You can crush the chainstays of the Long Haul Trucker (and our other frames too) if you tighten the kickstand’s clamp bolt too much.  This is because the chainstay tube walls are not super thick.  The LHT chainstays are spec’d to optimize the strength-to-weight ratio for the task at hand --hauling gear on racks-- while minimizing unwanted torsional flex in the rear triangle.  They are not designed specifically for the clamping forces imposed on them by chainstay-mounted kickstands.  Thicker stays could be used, of course, but there would be a price and weight penalty.  Since most LHT riders don’t use kickstands, and since kickstands can safely and effectively be installed without hurting the stays, this is not a great solution.  Why don’t we just add one of those kickstand mounting plates under the stays?  Because it doesn’t solve the problem.  You can still crush the stays. Besides, the plate adds cost and more importantly heat to an already sensitive area.  Welding a plate can actually weaken the stays if not done correctly.  And they are fugly.

The long and short of it is this: Use caution when installing a kickstand on any bike.  Use the least amount of force necessary to keep it from moving around or coming loose.  And just as important, LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE DOING while you are tightening the bolt.  Watch what is happening so you can stop if you need to, and check over the clamp and chainstays from time to time to make sure everything is copacetic .  Some people use cloth bar tape or sections of old thin road tire between the kickstand plates and the stays.  This helps keep the kickstand from wiggling around, reducing the amount of torque necessary to keep it in place.  This isn’t a magic bullet but it helps. 

So far we have talked only about kickstands that mount by clamping above and below they chainstays where they meet the bottom bracket.  Some people prefer rear mounting kickstands which usually clamp around the non-driveside seat- and chainstays.  This type do not always work on Long Haul Truckers because of the placement of the spare spoke holder.  It has been our experience that unless you only ever load the rear of your bike, a rear mounted kickstand is not the most stable type anyhow(although if you do only load the rear it's pretty good). 

O.K.?

Once again you have wasted perfectly good minutes of your life you could have spent riding your bicycle.  Hopefully in the future common sense will prevail, you will approach things thoughtfully, and there will be no need for us to write such things or for you to read them.  Now give us a hug and go away.