I think if I had stumbled across this Click Stand in a bicycle shop, I would have purchased one years ago. It seems like a no-brainer, and this video demonstrates very clearly how it works and shows its advantages. I think the only reason I haven’t tried one out is the barrier of having to order one online and have it shipped from overseas. I have a laziness gene or a fear gene that keeps me from pulling the trigger on purchasing things online. But I’m slowly getting over that reluctance.
I was thinking about this, of course, because before my last visit to Sumatra with my bicycle, my tried and true kickstand broke. And I have been unable to find a good replacement in Malaysia or Indonesia. The Pletscher kickstand I normally use is also something of a specialty item, and you’d have to order it from overseas and have it shipped to a local address.
I appreciated that Peyman points out that for this bicycle to stand to work, you MUST also have a locking mechanism for your brakes, something that I just made a video about. And I guess the Click Stand comes with its own elastic parking brake that, in all respects, is a more professional version of what I make out of bicycle inner tubes.
I suppose the main downside to this Click Stand over a traditional kickstand is the obvious one: it is a separate item that must be carried with you and then assembled and disassembled every time you use it. That would soon be an annoyance for a normal person riding their bicycle around a city for fun. It’s one more thing that you will forget to bring, and then you need a place to put it. So it’s not that useful for normal people. Where it comes into its own is when you have a fully loaded touring bicycle with heavy bags. In that case, you generally have tons of places to keep this Click Stand on your bicycle. And the advantages of using it would outweigh the inconvenience of having to assemble it and disassemble it every time you want to use it.
In any case, there is no reason why you can’t have both. In a perfect world, I would pack one of these Click Stands on a long journey, AND I would have a normal kickstand attached to my bicycle for quick and easy convenience. Of course, the true Planet Doug version would be a DIY copy made out of a broomstick. I would just need to create some kind of U-mount on the top.