TESTED: Granite Designs HEX stand

Keeping your bike out of harms way at home doesn’t need to involve drilling holes for hooks, or investing in massive racks – it can be done quickly, simply and efficiently with a few products on the market.

There are already a couple of products out that use the hollow axle of BB30, Shimano Hollowtech II and similar crank arms, but the Granite Designs Hex Stand also folds up for easy transport, which makes it ideal to bring along to an event. By using the hollow centre of the crank axle instead of around the rear axle of the bike, you neatly sidestep changes in wheel size or tolerances between frames and disc rotors.

The Granite Designs stand comes in a carry bag, and the two legs slide down, and the support for your bike can be changed depending on your wheel size. The support arm can actually be adapted to suit 10mm or 19mm hollow axles, and there’s even a little adapter for Shimano road cranksets, making the stand more versatile for road, cyclocross and gravel bikes too.

With a trail bike mounted on the stand, I had no concerns it was about to fall over. As the stand’s legs sit flat on the ground, it isn’t as stable on rocky or uneven terrain, which is where ‘race racks’ that hang a few bikes by the saddle work really well. But they’re massive and expensive and overkill for one bike.

Instead, the Granite Designs rack is small, light and easily portable. It makes things like lubing your chain, pumping up tyres or shocks, cleaning, or even minor adjustments to brakes and shifting possible without a massive work stand. The Hex Stand is also a highly mobile storage solution for your garage, hallway, spare room… or wherever you need to keep bikes. Setup time is less than 30 seconds for something that keeps your bike off walls, and stable.

The only downsides to the rack are it’s not as solid as the one piece racks that hold a bike in the same way. So while you might be able to do some servicing with the Granite Designs stand, the stand does bounce around a little and you’ll need to pedal through gears from the non-drive side, and get accustomed to working from over there too. But, the stand is stable for storage and cleaning, and can be a great way to keep your bike stable and not leant against things for storage, while doubling as a useful stand to put in the back of your car (or even a bike bag) when travelling to ride.

For a little over one hundred dollars you can get a well-made stand that will work as well at home as on the road, and can be used for storage, cleaning and servicing. I found it was a product I didn’t think I needed, but that I have ended up using way more frequently than I expected.

Words: Mike Blewitt   Photos: Tim Bardsley-Smith