Review: Hama double kickstand

Ok, I haven't been posting much recently because I've been travelling a lot.  I'm actually a fair bit behind, but after Berlin I ventured to the Netherlands to visit a friend.  Over the course of about a week I was in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Delft, on the way out from Rotterdam I went to a shop in Rotterdam Central railway station which sold mostly travel goods and snacks etc. and to my surprise they had a section of bike doodads - how Dutch!   I ended up picking up this Hama branded double kickstand for my Raleigh Superbe for €15.

  The kickstand itself is pretty similar to most other double kickstands, the base is cast and machined out of aluminium, and the feet are plastic and adjustable.  The spring loaded red buttons are pushed in and then you slide the feet in or out, the buttons fix the feet onto notches at about 5mm intervals on the legs which give you quite good fine adjustment.   I adjusted mine so it kicks the front wheel up about 5cm off the ground, if the front basket is loaded the rear wheel will be propped up which allows the cranks to turn freely - useful for maintenance.

I sort of already knew this, but the annoying thing about this style of kickstand is that when the front wheel is off the ground the front end will twist around causing the bars to hit the top tube.  On some bikes you will see a steering stabiliser which is basically a spring attached to the underside of the top tube to the backside of the fork which stops this from happening - it is light enough to prevent interfering with the steering though.

When retracted the kickstand stays out of the way about 15cm off the ground, hopping off some kerbs I have noticed it will sometimes catch but generally it's not a big deal.  The location of the red buttons is somewhat just out of the way of the cranks and doesn't interfere with the chaincase at all, it sits right below it.

The original kickstand that came with it was a Pletscher ESGE side stand type, which was perfectly functional, however when the panniers were completely loaded up it would tend to fall over to the side, even on flat ground.   In the picture above, the panniers are full with a toolbox on the back full of tools, approximate weight is about 20kg.  The kickstand keeps it nice and upright, the old side stand would definitely fall over, particularly with the weight so high up above the centre of gravity.

Pretty happy with it, however the stance of the feet could be wider.  Considering it cost €15 it was money well spent.

Update Jan 2013
After having used this for a while now, I'm finding that the stance of the kickstand is a bit too narrow.  If the load is a little bit off centre or the ground isn't all that level the bike may topple over.  Other kickstands like the Hebie double kickstands have a much wider stance which I assume would help with this a lot.