CENTRE-STANDS add weight and aren’t very pretty, so a lot of bikes don’t have them – but I don’t care about any of that. I just want to be able to clean and lubricate my chain.
I’ve got a paddock stand but it doesn’t match the convenience of a centre-stand, which goes wherever the bike does and lets you do things like whip the shock out without the back-end collapsing. So when I saw that SW-Motech makes a centre-stand for my Suzuki SV650S, I immediately got one.
I thought I might fit it myself until I unwrapped it and found it mounted to brackets which require the unfastening of a shock linkage. Firstly, the back-end would collapse if I undid the shock linkage with the bike on my paddock stand, since it supports only the swing-arm. Secondly, as the centre-stand attached to the linkage, it wouldn’t in fact ever support the bike with the shock removed, one of the benefits I had imagined.
I’d have needed another type of paddock stand to fit it and that just seemed self-defeating, so I got the dealer to do it at the next service.
I don’t think it was easy. ‘Pain in the arse’ were the mechanic’s words. But the dealer stuck to the original estimate of about half-an-hour’s labour, although I think it took longer.
The mechanic also felt the need to show me how to get the bike onto it, not because I look incompetent (I hope) but because he’d established it wasn’t so easy. There isn’t the long lever you get on many side-stands, to push down on with your foot. The stand is claimed to not reduce cornering clearance and the absence of that lever is probably why.
Instead you get a stubby lever, which you can’t quite get your foot on because the chain is in the way. You have to put your toes on a triangle attached to it, push that down and work your foot to the end. It still doesn’t give you enough leverage. You have to push down with your foot and haul the bike backwards with one hand on a lever that bolts to the pillion foot-peg hanger, and comes supplied with the stand, and the other on the left-hand handlebar. There’s a knack to it but it’s easy once you’ve got it.
I use my bike through winter but cover it with anti-corrosion spray. Most of it’s looking pretty good but the centre-stand assembly is beginning to rust after one winter (it was fitted in October). That’s slightly disappointing. Time to get the Smoothrite out already. The original Suzuki side-stand is in better shape after three winters.
On the whole though, the convenience it brings to maintenance has made it a worthwhile purchase and I would buy one again if I had to.
Product tested: SW-Motech centre-stand for Suzuki SV650S
Price: £145
Details
Thanks to Motoden in Dalston.
- Sign up for Visordown's weekly newsletter, Bugsplat, to get the best motorcycle news, road tests and features plus exclusive competitions and offers direct to your inbox. Register as a Visordown member here and tick the box for Bugsplat in your newsletter settings here.
