Getting the WDM 20 on the rear stand did not present a problem for those young, strong DR's: stand behind the bike grabbing the lifting stay, drop the rear stand with the tip of your boot, and hop! up she goes over the top of the fulcrum. But this is a real challenge for the aging like me, and if you forgot to put the front wheel in the straight on direction, you might experience a nasty - and if there are spectators - humiliating fall.
So something should be done to that, and a first experiment is shown just below: a lever attached to
the rear stand, that would hide between the pannier carrier and the mud guard. The idea was
that standing beside the bike, you could pull it down, put your right foot (or left one, if you
are a south paw) on that lever, and push down hard.
Alas, in order to get enough leverage, the lever would stick out some 15 cm above the rear; I tried a telescopic extension, but I prefer to forget this insane idea.
A better solution was to shorten the rear stand; I cut two short sections from the legs, and an
even shorter piece from the horizontal bar. To determine the length you can safely remove,
measure - with the stand in horizontal position - the distance between the horizontal bar and
the rear tyre; deduct 1 cm and you have the amount you can cut from the left (nearly vertical)
leg.
But first make a spacer that you can put between the legs; I used a 178 mm piece of ½" gas pipe and a piece of 5 mm threaded rod with washers to keep the legs at the correct distance and aligned with frame during the cutting and subsequent welding operations.
Then prepare the stubs that will go inside the pipes; use 16.8 mm rod (hardly a commercially available size, so use your lathe). Length is not critical, but not less than 5 cm.
Now first cut the left side and remove the section you measured; insert a stub halfway, drill a 3 mm hole through the pipe and halfway in the stub and fix it with a piece of 3 mm welding rod.
Cut the right leg and the horizontal bar and push the stub in the other half of the left leg. You can now scribe the length of pipe to be removed from the right leg and the horizontal bar, taking care that the distance between the threaded rod and the foot of each leg is equal, otherwise the bike, once on the rear stand will not be vertical (am I a bit clear....?)
The rest is simple; insert the stubs in the right leg and a fitting one in the horizontal bar, weld
(or have it welded), file the welds and paint, or preferably, powder coat.
The result was very satisfying; a lot less problems to lift the bike on the stand, and no visible change in appearance.
Hans Muller
WDM 58764
Version June 2007
