Tips for working on bike without a bike stand

pack your trainer.  Convienient work stand and easy way to warm up pre-race.

either that or hang the bike by the seat on the hotel shower curtain rod.  Usually that rod is strong enough to support 5 or 6 bikes.  Don't ask how I know that...

Don't work on your bike the night before a race.

Seriously, make sure your bike is ready to go at least a couple of days ahead of time. The only work you should be doing to your bike is putting the race numbers on it and maybe pumping the tires. Anything more than that is asking for trouble

I've got one of the bike racks that fits inside a trailer hitch. I built a receiver for it in my garage out of 2x4's. So I just put my bike rack in the receiver and hang my bike on it like I was going for a road trip... works great.

Good point! Of course some races we have to fly or ship our bikes to, and need to reassemble them, sometimes without the aid of an LBS. A workstand would come in handy.

I usually don't fly with my bike, so your point is well-taken.

I have built three or four bikes from the ground up without a stand. They lean against walls, or saw horses, or whatever. I can usually get the shifting to work just by holding the rear wheel off the gournd with one hand and pedaling with the other. Occasionally, I will have an assistant to hold the wheel up, and this helps. When I have had to work on bikes in hotel rooms, I usually put some papertowels or newspaper down to protect the carpet. I am a big fan of "shop towels on a roll".

If you have a MIG welder, square metal tubing(?), old vice-grips, metal round tubing the diameter of your top-tube or better yet your seat post, and duct tade you can do what my uncle did. (one hell of a run on sentence eh?)

Once you have welded a stand (shown below) with the square tubing. weld on the vice-grips. then in the jaws of the vice-grips, cut the round tube in half and weld each piece to the jaws of the vice-grips. Put duct tape on the inside of the round tubing to protect the bike an ta-da!

(bike holder.bmp)

 I do this too!  Works out very well. 

Hang the nose of your seat on the nose of the ironing board.  Most every hotel room I've stayed in has an iron and a board in the closet.

It's a little tricky/unstable, but might work.

Alternatively, go buy a shower curtain rod.  The kind that telescopes and then you twist it to lock it in place.  Narrow part of the room by the door should be narrow enough for it to fit.  Then hang your bike by the seat from that just like in transition.