BIKE BENCH SET-UP
Scoop on the best invention for the ageing restorer.
You’re 18 and your bike needs some work carried out to it; it’s not a major job but it requires some fettling. If you are really lucky you have access to your dad’s garage, if not it’s the garden path or the kerbside that will serve as your workshop. Inarguably, you will also be working at ground level kneeling, stooping or lying down to gain access. This procedure, allied to the occasional roadside plug chop, will become so engrained and automatic it may very well be your default for the rest of your life. You’ll possibly acquire garages and workshops but you’ll probably still be bending aged limbs until one day a light bulb illuminates and you finally give serious consideration to a proper bike lift… welcome to my world! Brutally hurtling towards a seventh decade, my old bikes are actually in better physical shape than their owner. So here I am thinking: “why work off the floor when the floor can come to me?” A bike lift with some form of lifting mechanism is a thing of pure joy, yet until you’ve used one you might very well scoff at the idea, but think on. We bend to a good degree but there are limits to knees and hips; hydraulics are not so encumbered. If you need simple access to a particular part of your bike this is now readily achievable and when you sit on that old office chair in the shed and have the contact breakers staring you in the eye, life is suddenly so much easier. You are now able to focus solely on the job in hand and all your effort is directed to the task with nothing held back for contorting your body at crazy angles. Goodbye tomorrow’s aches and pains, hello several consecutive days in the workshop. No two working areas are the same and no two shed dwellers have the same requirements. Each set of spannering criteria will be different but hopefully there’s a bike lift out there for most of us. Surfing the net shortlisted those that should suit most of my needs and arch CMM supporters Sealey Tools kindly came up with the ideal match for my personal circumstances. What follows is an overview of how to install a bike lift and what to look out for. These devices are, by their very nature, heavy so you really only want to move it the once. Forward thought and planning is the order of the day.