A few months ago, I decided to jump on the wide-rim bandwagon and get some new wheels for my road bike (GT Forte Ti). After looking at various wheel builder’s websites (hoopswheels, psimet) as well as Craigslist/eBay, I realized that I could save a lot of money if I build them myself. After all, I’ve done a fair bit of wheel truing and re-lacing over the years, maybe the time has come for me to make that jump. So I scoured the internet for deals on rims, hubs, and spokes/nipples, and over the course of a couple of weeks, managed to find all those parts at good prices. Long story short, I ended up building up two sets of wheels because I found a ridiculously good deal on rims and figured this way I could outfit both my Tricross and my Forte with new hoops. Once I had all the parts laid out, I was so excited. I went with 1x (f; 20 h), 2x (r; 24 h) on both sets of wheels, and had them laced up over a couple leisurely evenings. I did not have a truing stand at the time, but was able to get them fairly round and straight, within a few mm. When I got to the final tensioning step and checking for dish, however, I realized the limitations of using the upside-down bike as a truing stand. Since I was building up wheels using brand new parts, I decided to take these 80%-finished wheels into a shop to have them perform the final steps with their pro-quality tools and years of wheelbuilding expertise. In the end, I think if I had at least a truing stand I could have been able to build the wheels up completely on my own. The amount I spent on shop labor to finish the wheels off for me could have paid for an entry level truing stand, but I was happy with my decision to take them to the shop because I wanted to have confidence in the build quality.
More recently, I have had incidents with the rear wheels coming out of true on my commuter bike. I have an Axiom Streamliner rack on the back of my Raleigh One Way. The rack works great, and is light weight and supposedly able to support 50 kg. The majority of the time, I commute with an Ortlieb City Roller pannier (basically a smaller version of a regular Ortlieb pannier, designed for front fork racks but also works well in the rear). Since I tend to travel light on my commute, the pannier remains relatively empty during my commute, and depending on how far forward/backward I hook the pannier onto the rack, the rear-most corner of the pannier sometimes flops around if it’s not carrying enough mass. On occasion, typically over exceedingly bumpy terrain, the floppy back end of the pannier will touch the spokes on the rear wheel, causing a frightful but usually-harmless moment. Such moments are rare enough such that I would forget that they even occurred by the time I get to my destination. During the most recent case, however, enough of the floppy pannier corner swayed into my spokes to pull my wheel out of true. Combined with the fatty tires (Continental Speed Ride, 38 mm), rubbing occurred at the non-drive side chainstay. At the time I thought that perhaps my lug nuts were not tight enough and that the wheel had slipped in the dropout. It was an annoying squeak but it did not seem to pose a serious risk of rupturing the sidewall. After I got home, I repositioned the wheel in the dropout, thinking I’ve fixed the problem. I also checked the wheel for lateral trueness by pulling in the brake calipers. It didn’t look too bad, and I made some minor adjustments with the spoke wrench.
However, after a handful of short rides on the bike since, I still notice the tire rub at the non-drive side chainstay. Perhaps the wheel was out of true slightly, too minute to notice using the upside-down bike as a gauge, but enough of a problem to cause my fat tires to rub. Usually in a case like this, I would just take the wheel to a co-op or local shop and have it taken care of for $5 within 30 minutes, but I live in Menlo Park now, and as far as I know, no bike co-ops exist in the area. Also, shops here charge quite a bit for service (understandable, as retail rent is high), and even if I don’t mind paying for the labor, the thought of bringing my wheel to a shop after work, in traffic, and then having to pick it up again another time, probably in traffic again, discouraged the idea. So, seeing how this should be a quick and dirty truing jon, I looked on Craigslist for affordable truing stands. My logic was that if I could find something under $50 on Craigslist, that’d be more worthwhile than shelling out $20 or more to get it looked at at a shop.
As my luck would have it, someone on Craigslist was selling a barely-used truing stand (made by Minoura, called the Workman Pro). I did some internet sleuthing for user reviews, and found that, indeed, it was an entry-level tool that should not be compared to pro-quality tools such as the Park TS2. However, I figured that I was just going to use it for the occasional truing job and not trying to build wheelsets at a high volume, and that an entry-level truing stand like this Minoura should be adequate. That, and the fact that the wife would not be happy to see me drop $250+ on a professional level bike tool that would get used less than once a month.
Upon picking up the truing stand and setting it up, all of the comments and reviews I have read were confirmed. The stand feels a little flimsy/finicky, with some play where you ideally want things sturdy. However, after some inspection, I was able to recalibrate the centering of the stand, and with some practice in technique, I was able to make it useful. Compared to an upside-down bike, I noticed two things. First, the amount of precision offered by an actual truing stand is remarkable. Being able to make fine adjustments to the lateral gauges were nice, but I was most appreciative of the ability to gauge radial hops/flat spots, and the more precise centering (yes, I know you could and should always flip the wheel to check centering/dish regardless). However, the second thing I noticed was that the upside-down bike was actually a lot more sturdy. Every little touch of the wheel on the truing stand can cause the wheel to hit one of the gauges/calipers, requiring a much softer touch when making minor adjustments.
Even with that somewhat significant weakness, I was able to do a much better truing job using the stand than using an upside-down bike. I learned pretty quickly to use a light, feather touch when spinning the wheel on the truing stand, and I was able to make both radial and lateral adjustments to two rear wheels that had minor issues, issues that were barely noticeable under normal riding conditions (e.g., no rubbing, no brake shudder/squeeze).
Overall, the Minoura Workman Pro is an entry-level truing stand that is not perfect, but it gets the job done for the recreational bicycle enthusiast/amateur home mechanic. I feel pretty confident that I can build solid, quality wheels using this truing stand (and checking tension manually). The one advantage it has over pro-quality truing stands is that it folds up compactly for storage, which is very helpful in my case as our apartment is pretty small.
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