I have never seen a Sheffield stand where I live, but far better than what we have. The only way to lock a bike to the ones here is to take up 5 or 6 lock points since these are designed only to lock your wheel to them. Have a ulock ? Find a sign.
In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
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Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#12I don't understand why many of the stands he calls useless are useless. Sure most of them are less economical but as long as there's a loop of metal anchored to the ground how is it useless?
They don't work for many bicycle geometries[1]. Small vs large frames, small vs large wheels, wide vs narrow tyres, tricycles, tandem bikes, cargo bikes, recumbent bikes, hand-cranked bikes etc. Also if they are too finicky about the exact way you lock the bike (particular orientation, particular lock-point) it can be hard to make it work when there are obstacles (such as other bikes). The Sheffield stand makes the fewest assumptions.
The "wheel grabber" kinds are particularly useless; thieves just detach the wheel or snip the wires and make off with the remainder.
[1] I'll give an example: the other week I tried to lock my bike to a trapezoid shaped stand, kind of like #13 in the thread but longer and without the lower wiggly bit. It was perpendicular to a wall, with the tall end towards the wall. The diagonal part happened to be exactly parallel with the mid-frame of my bike. Since parallel lines do not intersect, I would have had to move the bike completely inside the stand in order to make a D-lock fit around it, which was precluded by the placement next to the wall. I couldn't put it the other way and attach it to the rear chain stays because it would have jutted out into the path and obstructed pedestrians. Try as I might, I just couldn't make it work. So I just attached it to a metal fence ten yards away.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#13(Submitter) It makes me think that we ought to retire the phrase "reinvent the wheel". There's lots of different kinds of wheels and it doesn't seem crazy that you would need to make a new kind. And when people do make new kinds of wheel, they generally meet some minimum bar of worthiness (rather than being say, square). But I've never seen any improvement to the classic Sheffield stand, save possibly for the sub-var…
Hello fellow Sheffielder :)
eyup
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#14Several of the "useless" ones are very common in Copenhagen, where bikes often aren't locked to the stand at all.
My bike is in the third type right now, and will use the fourth at work tomorrow.
(Of course, the point remains that these aren't suitable in England.)
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#15Those staples work well; plenty of those in the Netherlands. One alternative that works fairly well is this fixed post thingy:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Fixed_bo...
The clamp for the vertical seat bar is probably what limits this to conventional framed bicycles, but the U-ring welded below is very useful for attaching the lock as I did on the photograph. The big benefit of this one is that the clamp can be closed, and that your bicycle is then essentially storm-proof (I would guess for at least one Beaufort more than the Sheffield staple).
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#16There's an American firm called Forms+Surfaces that has a whole catalog full of terrible, weird bike racks. They must have a lot of mindshare among architects apparently because their junk keeps popping up all over California. Nobody who has ever used a bicycle would choose them but they keep showing up anyway. Here's a fun tweet where local well-known cyclist rips them out of the pavement with his bare hands.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#17I don't understand why many of the stands he calls useless are useless. Sure most of them are less economical but as long as there's a loop of metal anchored to the ground how is it useless?
They don't work for many bicycle geometries[1]. Small vs large frames, small vs large wheels, wide vs narrow tyres, tricycles, tandem bikes, cargo bikes, recumbent bikes, hand-cranked bikes etc. Also if they are too finicky about the exact way you lock the bike (particular orientation, particular lock-point) it can be hard to make it work when there are obstacles (such as other bikes). The Sheffield stand makes the f…
And there’s the risk of getting a wheel out true if the slightest pression is applied to your bike horizontally.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#18I have never seen a Sheffield stand where I live, but far better than what we have. The only way to lock a bike to the ones here is to take up 5 or 6 lock points since these are designed only to lock your wheel to them. Have a ulock ? Find a sign.
Not sure what kind of racks you have but for some back-in parking might be easier than front-in. I try to lock one of the back tubes and wheel if possible.
I'm also a fan of the Sheldon Brown lockup strategy[1]. There's also a modified version that may be more secure[2].
[1] https://sheldonbrown.com/lock-strategy.html
[2] http://www.802bikeguy.com/2011/07/the-modified-sheldon-brown...
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#19In The Netherlands we commonly refer to these as “staples”
In French we call them reverted U.
Re: In praise of the humble Sheffield stand
#20So, which is the Sheffield Stand? The first one?