How To Hold a Carbon Bike In a Bike Stand | Bike Hack

There are some horror stories out there of clamping bike frames in a bike stand only to crack or dent the tubing of the frame, effectively killing your bike. I have actually witnessed this happen to a customer’s bike when working in a well known bike shop (no it wasn’t me that did it!).

As bicycles, road bikes in particular, adopt carbon fibre frames and seat posts as standard, in addition to looking so aerodynamic that they look more like spaceships… Clamping the bike via the seat post in a conventional bike stand can prove quite tricky.

Of course a traditional post can be clamped safely in a bike stand, carbon or not, providing care is taken to ensure that there is not too much force applied. But what happens when you want to hold your super aero or carbon fibre frame safely to carry our maintenance without the risk or any damage occurring? We have a very cheap and easy trick to solve this problem and it is as simple a an old set of road bike handle bars with some bar tape applied. You simply clamp the old handle bars in the bike stand positioned so that they form 2 hooks for the bike. The bar tape will protect from any scratches and ensure that you do not risk damaging your bike with the stand.