Sidestand

In my opinion, the only reason to have a sidestand on a trials bike is to make it easier to move around in the garage. The ground where I ride is often too soft to securely support a stand, and it just seems like extra weight. Having said that, I often wish for a sidestand upon arriving at a section where all the good “leaning trees” have already been taken.

My 2011 TR280i came with a brand new sidestand still in its packaging. Cool. Unfortunately, there were no mounting holes in the swingarm, and I soon learned why. The mount for the packaged side stand was a weldment that did not have the correct shape to lay flat against the swingarm - despite a fair amount of my own tweaking in a vise.

Left: Weldment mount (bad) Right: Cast mount (good)

Weldment would not lay flat against the swingarm

Triangle Stand

My next bright idea was to just use a triangle stand in the garage. I fashioned an adapter that fits into the mounting pivot for the chain tensioner. This had the added benefit that the stand was operable from the “normal” motorcycle side (as opposed to the trials side). It worked for a while but eventually distorted the mounting pivot sufficiently that it no longer tensioned the chain.

So now I am stand-less except for the “B” 250 that came with a robust mounting modification (at least one bolt all the way through the swingarm) courtesy of the prior owner. I will probably keep it that way but will not expand the concept to my other bikes.

Triangle stand adapted to fit chain tensioner mounting pivot