I picked up a portable bike stand a couple of weeks ago and finally had the chance to use it yesterday. I'm sure others must have seen these but I haven't seen them mentioned here before.

It's basically just a big lever. You set the height of the bar, lie it under the bike, then lean on the handle. As it tilts up, it lifts the bike easily.

I lifted the front to drop the forks to remove the stock turn signal mounts. I was really surprised how stable the bike was up there. There were two of us working on it and we got the job done as it was just sitting on the stand. Of course, we were careful about keeping it in place.

I haven't tried lifting the rear yet. I imagine I'll have to secure the front for that.

The stand is rated to 200 kgs and cost me under $50 new, here in Australia, from a place called Third Gear.

That's cool. Much lighter and easier to store than mine.

I built this to double as a 'work station' as well as what I drive the bike up into to haul it in the back of my pick-up. I can raise the rear wheel safely, but if I need to remove the front wheel I can't use this...Have to resort to hanging the front forks from the roof of the shop with straps  

Hey guys, I really like the ideas with the eyebolts - a self contained unit for holding the bike steady. I will no doubt need to  build something similar at some point.

The main advantage of this little lift I bought is the ease in actually getting the bike off the ground. If I place the stand centrally under the bike's distributed weight, I can actually tilt the bike forward or backward. And it stays pretty stable. So it gives me a way to manoeuvre the bike before I secure it.

And for $50 I thought that was pretty good. I'm very happy with it. ☺