The way wheel truing stands got cheaper but better over 15 years

I picked up an old Park Tool stand from a shop closing down in 2009. That thing weighed a ton but felt solid. Today I grabbed a $60 stand off Amazon that's lighter and has better pointers than that old one. It makes me wonder if we are just paying for brand names now or if the new ones actually hold up. Has anyone else noticed the quality gap closing on basic shop tools?

2 comments

2 Comments

allen.cole17d ago

Piggyback off that point about actually using the thing. Even a cheap stand that gets used weekly is way better than a top tier one sitting in the corner. The old Park stuff was overbuilt for home mechanics anyway, you don't need a stand that can survive a car running over it to true a 700c wheel. What really matters is if the pointers are actually accurate and the clamp doesn't slip, and most of the budget ones I've messed with are fine on both counts. The gap closed because the Chinese factories started copying the good designs and the materials got good enough for the job.

cameron68417d ago

Wait, is this really something to get worked up over? I mean, yeah the old Park Tool stuff was built like a tank but half the time the pointers were bent out of shape from the factory anyway. I've got a $40 stand from a random brand that's been sitting in my shed for three years and it still holds a wheel straight. The real test isn't the stand itself, it's whether you actually use it more than once a year or just let it collect dust.