I had an aftermarket kickstand that was too short. Here’s a way to add a tough-as-shoe-leather extension that should last forever.
My Mongoose Envoy received a much-needed upgrade to its kickstand when I upgraded to an Ursus Jumbo, whose much-wider (18″) leg platform keeps the bike stable on uneven pavement or when it was heavily loaded.
The stock Envoy stand works well unless you have 100 lbs of groceries loaded up. Do that and .. oops you gently bumped the bike! Over it goes and boy does your life suck. You’ll have to unload the bags, stand the bike back up, uncrack the eggs and load back up again. Same deal happens when parked on an incline.
The Jumbo solved this problem given its obvious mechanical advantage.
… until I put some big poofy 26×2.8 Vee Speedster tires on the bike, which raised the frame up probably a full inch; maybe more. That meant of the two legs that Ursus kickstand has, only one of them was on the ground at any one time. At first it was kind of fun to be able to lower the stand and roll the bike around, or out of my way with ease. Then I saw what a bad idea it was on a sloping driveway. The bike was happy to tip over. For a cargo bike that will be loaded, that has to change.
A couple of methods presented themselves. The first was to lower the stand by shimming the base. While I would have been able to find a longer M10 bolt to do the job, making a shim that will actually work is a lot more complex than just throwing in some washers and calling it good. Absent a mill and some billet to do some custom fabrication, shimming was a no-go. So, since I can’t make the base longer, that leaves only the legs. I had to make them longer.
Shoe Goo… To The Rescue!
I should be brought up on charges for that header. Couldn’t help myself, and besides its true. Shoe Goo is a shoe repair tool that is essentially replacement shoe leather. Or shoe adhesive to hold your precious Converse All Stars together after they came apart. Or both. For you shade tree mechanics, if you think of it as a hard rubber equivalent of JB Weld … you have it down.
So what I decided to do is to stick my kickstand upside down in a vise, block off the bottom of each leg with some painter’s tape, fill the resulting cup with goo and let it dry. Peel off the tape and I’ll have a longer kickstand with a new, tough-as-nails rubber foot.
It turned out to be a bit longer than that, and took quite a bit more time to cure. But layering on a bunch of goop to the bottom of the kickstand is the short version of what I did here. And best of all, it actually worked.
Time For Plan B
What you see above is only the first attempt, using green painter’s tape. And while it worked (see photos sans tape) it became clear just by looking at it I could expand the ‘foot’ to a much greater size if I taped off the base and poured in more goo. You can see this in the last two photos where the tape has been removed. the foot of the Jumbo has essentially a large hole in it that you can further tape off, then fill in. this time you need to tape halfway up the leg as that hole runs thru to the front of the stand, and your tape will provide a deep chamber for the goo to fill and harden into.
This time I used silicone tape, which I discovered by accident does not stick to Shoe Goo! Knowing that, I was able to use a scrap of tape to help sculpt the slowly hardening-but-still-pliable glob of goo. That matters because as this stuff dries – and then cures – it shrinks into itself. You will need to come back every couple of days to apply another layer. And when at some point you call the job done, you will want to let this material sit for at least another five days.
So if you are doing the math here, that means this is going to take time. I spent a total of about two weeks applying, filling again after it shrinks down and then letting it cure so its stable with a bike standing on it.
Is it worth the trouble? Well, I spent about $8 on two of the big tubes of goo and another nickel or so on a length of black rubber mastik tape around each foot to pretty them up. When I was done, I had a kickstand that completely solved my problem, and I can expect to be able to use for the life of the bike. If you want, Shoe Goo comes in a black formula that will have a matching look… but it costs more than double what the clear stuff does.
If You Do This…
I felt my way thru this project and learned as I went. The way YOU want to do it is skip the first stage with the green tape entirely. Use the silicone tape to wrap the entire foot. Wrap snugly at the bottom of the channel you want to fill, and as you get to the top – the actual extension to the base – do not wrap that tight, just do it loosely and make sure the tape wrap adheres to itself. Then inject the goo with a narrow nozzle (there are kits out there that have them) deep into the channel you just created, filling it from bottom to top until you have a single large ‘sole’ wrapped in the silicone tape.
Then, walk away from it for 24 hours. Add more goo as it cures and shrinks down. Use a scrap of silicone to pat down the added goo so it forms a nice smooth surface. If it seems solid, remember thats just the outer layer and inside its still like jelly. I went on a week’s vacation after I thought I had it done and it was pretty solid.
So… Wait it out. the results are worth it.
The new foot is raised about 1/2″ and easily capable of more. 
This now-solid rubber is a single piece going thru to the bottom on the other side.
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