Repair Stand

Although obsessed with bicycles for longer than you've been alive, I never ever owned a bicycle repair stand.  Shameful.  Now that I've become independently wealthy as a high school teacher I figured it was time.  I stay rich by making my own whenever possible.

Somebody somewhere attached a hitch mounted bicycle carrier to a work bench.  I have the bench and I have the carrier so it'd be a quick job that I could do with wood scraps and screws - just a bit lower cost than the $200 repair stand I was considering.

First I had to make the 2" receiver.  Wood is plenty strong for this type of project so I plugged in the 1960s Shop Smith Grandpa gave me twenty years back and cut the 2x4 scraps down to just over 2 inches in thickness.

Naked blade

Naked blades can cut off your fingers.  Easily.  So my left hand runs the controls, neither hand crosses the center line, and I touch no cut work until the blade is fully stopped.  Most of the time.

Here is the 2" x 2" box required

I predrilled to avoid splitting the top board using my wonderful hammer drill which doesn't hammer when drilling

and then hammer drilled my favorite torx-head screws.

3" torx head screws from the inside of the cabinet secured the receiver

and the hitch mounted carrier slid securely into place.  It wobbles a bit to one side or the other just like it does on the rear end of your car but once you get the bike up there it's pretty solid.

Now I have an easy to install work stand that securely holds a bicycle and quickly folds for storage.

It cost me scraps of wood and 20 screws.  It's not height or angle adjustable but it works better than kneeling before the bicycle on the basement floor.  Tested and approved.

Success.