I’ve built myself a few bike stands like the ones I wrote about in this blog post and bought myself a real stinker that I had to return. But I am always looking for something of a nice quality and smaller and lighter yet secure, for when I carry my bike on the car to various ride, group rides, or events and races.
So I took a chance with this Vista Trails Bike Stand. And was I sure happy to have done so!
In basic design, it’s similar to several others that I have seen and somewhat similar to a pair I made for myself and my wife. For the most part, I bought this BECAUSE it was quite close in design to the one I made, but much much lighter. For the one I made I used heavy-duty spare wood that I had lying around and it came out well, but it is a bit heavy and bulky to stow in the car and it doesn’t disassemble.
Initially, I expected this Vista Trails Bike Stand to be ‘just okay’ I guess, and I wasn’t even sure about trusting my expensive road and gravel bike on it at first as the 3/4 inch plywood was so much thinner than the wood was that I built mine with. But on the other hand, I went overkill on the ones I made and used what I had lying around, which happened to be thick particle wood.
The Vista Trails Bike Stand fits (or I should say has slots for) wheel sizes from about 29 mm to 67mm.
After a quick assembly, I found that this stand far surpassed my expectations. It looks minimalist but that’s really all you need for a bike stand, unless you plan on banging it around or something.
The road bike wheels fit and stay in it quite well, and nothing touches the expensive carbon aero wheels on my road bike nor the larger tires on the gravel bike; both of which fit into the slots just fine. I even tried it with my mountain bike and it held it securely also, which is pretty surprising. I want to note here also – both front and rear wheels fit in this just fine on all bikes as there is nothing that will obstruct or mar the derailleurs in any way.
If you find your tire to be too loose or possibly exactly in the middle of these numbers you could always add a little shim, of various types. I did not need to with any bike we own.
I can’t attest to this as I don’t own an e-bike or large touring or commuter bike, but many of the Amazon reviewers who had e-bikes or large bikes say that it is not stable enough for those heavier machines. Some seemed to believe that it was fine.
When assembling the stand you put the pieces together according to the size of your bike tire, and the instructions has a nice little visual and textual help guide. So say the widest space for a fat bike and the thinnest for a road bike. It is not going to match your tire exactly probably, but is going to be close enough to hold it securely, at least it was with my bikes. Plus I wouldn’t want to physically have to push a tire in between the uprights – there should be a bit of space so the tire isn’t being scruffed or rubbed and for older bikes with more protruding wheel rims you don’t want them rubbing, so the adjustable tire width works well. You just slide it all together via slots in the wood according to the width of the tire, at the extremely large end you do get a little offset on the legs but that also makes it steady with bigger wheels.
I like having a portable stand as something to carry in my car for when I get to a destination where I am riding and have taken the bike off the hitch-mounted bike carrier. And am getting ready to go and waiting for others or getting all set, or attaching things to the bike (like bike bag and computer, etc) or just changing or getting situated.
The rack also seems to hold the bike pretty securely in high winds, which I have worried about with other bike stands. I guess I am not 100% on safety during high winds as I stand nearby just in case, but I think very few things are going to secure a bike in high winds unless it is strapped or hooked into or onto something.
Assembly is quick and so is disassembly. The pieces slide together and seem secure. I guess the only thing I am going to be aware of in the future is if over time the pieces may wear and not stay as secure, which may happen with wood, but maybe can be fixed with painting (which I decided to eventually do as I wanted the stand black to match my bike) or polyurethaning.
The outer surfaces are a faux wood grain overlay, with multiple layers of wood sandwiched in between. I suppose this may not be to everyone’s liking but it looks fine to me, and I think the veneer probably is heavier duty and less resistant to shipping and wearing than the actual wood layer would be.
Speaking of which – the stand looks really nice as it is, the wood quality is pretty excellent. But I also think it would look just as good painted, which I tuned out to be an an easy thing to do. The outer surfaces are a shiny coating which I assume makes them more resistant to moisture and wear, but I was able to paint them just fine with some primer first.
And I think this surface on the wood will help it to resist wearing if I assemble and disassemble it often. However, you don’t want to put TOO many coats of primer and paint on it as the pieces may not slide together quite as well. Unless of course, you want to use this as a permanent stand where you are not ever disassembling it, in which case you could just paint it as one piece or put a little wood glue on the pieces and then paint it.
But I would not put a lot of lateral weight on this – whether it’s from a large heavy bike or just leaning on it or something. It’s a great bike rack I think, but it’s not going to take that kind of abuse – like leaning on it, or something.
The stand is very light and compact and likely most times I won’t even bother to disassemble it but just stow it in the car as-is. But whether assembled or disassembled it is deceptively light but strong.
The only mods I have made is painting it (very successful and smooth texture, but enough texture so printed logos can stick) and I might suggest that if you are using it inside or somewhere with a floor that might be scratched that you add furniture pads (I have not done this with this stand but have with previous ones and it worked out well).
It is very nice and I am glad I got it, it’s very useful and seems to be really good quality and cut out perfectly so that all pieces fit well together (great craftsmanship). Check out how it looks painted in the photos below. I may get another now for my wife’s bike. Check out the Vista Trails Bike Stand, highly recommended.
