Having recently picked up cycling again after a long time out, both my tourer and road bikes needed storing in a small flat whilst taking up as little space as possible. This meant one thing: a bicycle stand. I had seen the options: those that attach to the wall, poles that attach to both ceiling and the floor and those that seemingly defy the laws of physics, yet call themselves ‘gravity’ stands.
The latter was my preferred option as it doesn’t involve any damage to the walls, floors or ceilings, and although this wasn’t the cheapest stand I had seen, the Minoura was by far the most svelte and, as looks are everything, this is the one I plumped for.
The assembly can easily be completed by one person – although I would say it would be easier with two to fit the legs – and the instructions are clear enough to do it without any undue swearing – although I would recommend studying some of the diagrams to fully understand what is going on before diving in and later questioning how on earth you put one leg on back to front (never happened).
Although you can clearly see the build quality and strength of the stand through the assembly process, once up, there is a certain sense of intrepidation as it takes the weight of your bikes for the first time, but this unease soon goes when you step back and admire your steeds hanging almost invisibly on the wall. Having used it and taken the bikes on and off for around a month now, I have every confidence in its stability and strength and I’ve never felt the need to tiptoe whilst in its vicinity in case seismic activity proves its downfall.
With my bikes being one metre from floor to their highest point (the saddle), I was able to configure the stand to accommodate the tourer on the bottom cradle, set in the lowest position and the road bike on the top cradle, set to the highest position. This gave me 11cm to spare to the ceiling (which is around 2.3 metres) without having to do anything tiresome like drop the saddle every time I want to store the bike.