THE SHORT: It's hard to secure the bike stand tightly, and the risk of it falling makes me uneasy. However, if you must absolutely have it, buy at a physical store and not from Amazon. Amazon doesn't pack bulky, non-book items well before shipping, and the stand can arrive in a bad shape and/or with missing parts.THE LONG: The idea behind this bike stand is excellent, but the product itself could have been designed better. First of all, installing the stand is intuitively simple: [1] erect it, [2] adjust the extension tubes so the pole fits the height of the room, and [3] step on the locking stepper to secure the pole in place. However, getting it installed the way you want it is rather annoying; it's hard to secure the bike stand tightly between the floor and ceiling. After I erected the stand, extended the tubes, and made sure that the pole was perfectly perpendicular to the floor and ceiling, I stepped on the locking stepper. However, because it's so hard to to get the locking stepper into its locking position, I had to apply a lot of force. Doing that ended up moving the pole around, and when I finally got it into the locking position, the pole was tilted, no longer perpendicular to the floor and ceiling. (For safety reason, you do need to make sure it's perpendicular (that's common sense, I think). By the time I got it to work, I must have sweared at Topeak a zillion times. Getting the bikes on the hooks was also a pain for me because I have mountain bikes. I guess if you have light road bikes, this shouldn't be a problem for you.The part that made me give this product one star was that it fell on me and my cats. Luckily, they were fast and escaped safely. I wasn't injured, but all three of us could have been. I followed all the instructions when installing and made sure that both my floor and ceiling were solid. I think the extension tubes slid down over time. After all, the mechanism that keeps the tubes extended seems to rely only on simple clamping tension; there's no foolproof locking mechanism in place. The locking stepper doesn't help either. I know that if I just kick the bike stand lightly, it will fall. That really worries me because as my cats get bigger and bigger, they can knock it over if they bump into it fast enough. If Topeak could fix the extension tubes and somehow make the locking stepper a "locking pumP" (i.e., pump the mechanism with your foot to gradually tighten the pole into place, perhaps by incorporating a hydraulic system?), instead of a push-really-hard-once-to-lock mechanism, I think it would be a much safer product.Last but not least, Amazon didn't pack the item well when shipping. The package arrived in a bad shape with holes all over the box. And guess what, one of the screws went missing; it must have fallen off from one of the holes. I tried to contact Topeak to buy a replacement part from the company, but I got no response whatsoever. Fortunately (if you call it that), it wasn't a critical part. If you think the bike stand is safe enough for you and will buy it regardless of anyone's review, I think you will do yourself a favor if you buy at a physical store, not Amazon.
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