Ok, time to update this thread again!
Back on June 1st, I checked out the Port City VW Show in Catoosa, Oklahoma once again. The cool thing about this show is that not only is it a great VW show, but it's also a great bike show! They even have events for all the folks that bring their bikes to the show, including a cruise, an obstacle course, a slow drag race, and this other game where one rider tossed a ball and the other rider tried to catch it in a bucket... as they're both moving! (I'm still trying to figure out where to post the highlights from that show.)
I brought 2 of my bikes to the show this time: my 2022 RRBBO entry and favorite rider,
Shoestring, and my Schwinn step-thru klunker I built earlier this year for the ORBO. This was actually the 2nd time I brought
Shoestring to the VW show; the last time I brought it out, the bike was still a work-in-progress! I rode
Shoestring the most during the show, while a couple boys rode my klunker during the events.
Well, it turns out they give out awards to all the bike guys at the show, not just for winning an event, but also for best bike (or bikes) in show! I won myself a brand new Park Tool work stand, thanks to my bike
Shoestring! (It might have been for both of my bikes, but I don't know. They didn't say.) Needless to say, I was stoked!
While the box may not have been in the best shape, the work stand itself was all new! I was especially excited about the little parts/tool tray and the adjustable height!
After using my Bontrager work stand for the last 5 years, it's nice to be able to work on my bikes without having them up so high. In fact, if anybody was following some of my recent threads, you might have seen it holding up a few of my projects the last couple months. It makes for a nice upgrade, that's for sure!
That said, there is one annoying drawback compared to my Bontrager stand. No matter how tightly I try to fasten everything down on this Park Tool work stand, my bikes will always sag forward and down. I've gotten somewhat used to it, but it still feels sketchy. At least on my Bontrager, there was a ratcheting feature that kept everything from sagging. Plus, the lever for the part that clamps on the frame is a bit of a pain to use. I can only rotate the lever so much before it becomes impossible for me to lock it in place, and the darn thing is almost always in the way of the frame! On my Bontrager, the clamp just used a simple knob on the front that I rotated until it was tight enough, and it was never in the way of the frame.
With all that said, I still like this Park Tool work stand well enough to keep using it for the foreseeable future.
Also, at the same VW show, I bought this 1930's Ford spare tire cover for $20. Figured it would make a great set of fenders for a fat tire bike!
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