Pocket Wheel Truing Tool

The truing stand stays on the bench. The 1753/6 goes in the saddlebag or the seatpack, and it's the answer to a wheel that goes out of true forty miles from anywhere.

The 1753/6 straps to a seatstay or a chainstay and provides a fixed reference against which the rim's wobble can be seen. Adjust the indicator inward until it's just touching the rim sidewall through a full rotation; the high spots will tap the indicator, the low spots will gap it, and the lateral deviation becomes visible to the eye in the same way a brake pad would have indicated it on a rim-brake bike. The difference is that a disc-brake bike doesn't have a brake pad near the rim to reference against, so the 1753/6 supplies the reference the modern brake configuration removed.

We say “possibly one of our favorite tools” about the 1753/6 not because it's the most clever piece in the wheelbuilding catalog; it's not, the Spoke Tension Meter 2.0 and the Pro 1689 wheel truing stand take that crown; but because the 1753/6 has saved more rides than any other tool we make. Adventure rides, gravel rides, bike tours, enduros, multi-day stage races: the wheel that knocks out of true on day one of a five-day trip is the wheel that ends the trip unless you can put it back true on the side of the trail.

Compatibility

• Wheels: any standard rim profile.
• Frames: any frame with seatstays or chainstays (which is all of them).
• Brake types: works alongside rim brakes (redundant) and disc brakes (essential).
• Required: a single spoke wrench sized to the wheel's nipples. The Spoke Wrench 3.3mm and 3.45mm bare-handle wrenches are the natural trailside companions; pair with the 1753/6 in the saddlebag.

Specs

• Strap-on mount to seatstay or chainstay.
• Manually-adjustable indicator (no calibration required).
• Compact, kit-pocketable form factor.

Built in Zreče, Slovenia

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and sponsors professional road and mountain-bike race teams. The 1753/6 isn't a workshop tool; it's a trail-side tool that exists because the modern disc-brake bike took away the brake-pad-as-truing-reference that an older generation of mechanics took for granted. A small piece of equipment, solving a specific problem that didn't exist twenty years ago.

Pro tip from our mechanics

Practice trailside truing before the trip, not on the side of the trail. Mount the 1753/6 on a wheel that's true, then on a wheel that's slightly out of true, and notice the difference in how the indicator behaves through the rotation. The skill is reading the tool, not just having it; a 1753/6 in the saddlebag of a rider who's never used one is a dead weight when the spoke breaks. The full truing workflow (the parts you can transfer from bench to trailside) is in How to true a bike wheel →