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 Truing Stand 1689 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 is the official technical partner of multiple World Tour and downhill 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 →