The Speed Triple didn’t come with a center stand in 94/95 so although you can retro fit one I have opted to use a paddock stand. This saves the bike being on the side stand all the time (as they have a habit of bending !!) and gives the left hand fork seal an easier time so cutting down on the chance of having to change them..

I have a Micron paddock stand, it has rubber cups to support the swing arm, not ideal as the can be a bit of a fiddle to get past the under-slung rear brake. I’m used to that now so it doesn’t bother me too much. I find in use it is easier to prop the bike more upright (not too vertical, you don’t want it toppling over !!) with a block of wood under the side stand, this helps to locate the stand and when you come to lift the bike doesn’t have so far to go to sit in the right hand cup.

Wow see that side stand…how bent is that, see side stand upgrade to cure it !

It makes it easy to use on your own this way just locate the left hand cup, adjust the right hand cup so the swing arm will fall into it, steady the bike with one arm and push down on the paddock stand with the other to lift the bike… when taking it off the stand align the wood with the side stand to make the lean less pronounced as it comes off the support.

Now see the spindle that the rubber cup mounts through the paddock stand with Well you can take the rubber cup out of the stand and push the spindle through so it protrudes towards the bike. This can then slide into the 12mm hex in the eccentric chain adjuster, a good method for chain adjust lube cleaning etc. It won’t allow rear wheel removal but does stop the rubber cup from fowling the under slung rear brake and or the rear sprocket !

I use a similar method to use a paddock stand intended for use with bobbins, by sliding the two 12mm allen keys that come in the tool kit into the hex holes in the eccentric adjuster. Again I deploy this to attach the swing arm strap on the Abba Skylift thus enabling a complete lift as pictured down the page.

Apologies for the mad man of the woods look I’m sporting there…!

I have another stand that I use for maintenance mostly…It’s an ABBA Superbike Stand. This fits into the allen head bolts for the swing arm, the stand has milled fitting kits for each bike so the fit is correct, and also so you can just buy a new set of bosses for any new bikes and still keep using the stand.

This stand is very handy as it allows me to remove both the wheels at once if I wish, you can also remove the forks/yokes etc and a fitting kit that mounts onto the foot rest hangers allows you to remove the swing arm too.

I use it with a trolley jack if I want to remove the front wheel, they do sell their own bespoke stand to assist with this function but the trolley jack is better cheaper and has more uses.

Well the stand itself splits into two, the main section slides in on the left hand side of the bike with the other side sliding over the end to reassemble the stand from the right…remove the swing arm end cap covers and the spring clips from the end of the axle bolts..

Raise the extendable handle and pull the bike forwards up onto the stand…

And here we are in use with a trolley jack supporting the bike under the sump with a block of wood..

As is the way with most of us sooner or later you have a yearning not to be scrabbling about on the floor doing jobs on your bike ! Having had good service from my Abba stand I was pleased to see an option from them that could tick this box a bonus being I could use all of the Abba adapters I already had that would fit the Speed Triple…so welcome the Skylift

As you can see basically it’s the original Abba stand connected to a foot support with a 3 ton jack ! It’s quite versatile, you can have front up, back up or all up like here.

Another must have these days apparently is a front wheel chock, I have one and it makes one man tie down of the bike in the van a breeze

It grips the front wheel well enough to keep it upright whilst I fanny about lashing it down.