Why Antique York Racks Are Stupid

[murphyreedus]

The only thing they are good for is displaying to other people that you are willing to spend way too much money for a non-functional object from the time before people knew how to make quality things. It's basically a classic car prior to being restored. Sure, it can get you where you want to go, but you spent way to much on it and it works like crap.

The York rack is unstable, costs 3x the price of a Titan cage, provides insufficient space, damages bars, and is made of angle iron offering no form factor. The only benefit it provides is that it looks like the ones that people used to use.
Many other "old-fashioned" things have benefits beyond just looking old.

Are we talking about buying a vintage York rack, or are we talking about having a new rack made in the 'York" style out of C-channel? Those are two very different things. An old York rack is worth no more than $150 to me, but I still think it would be cool to own one. I certainly wouldn't pay $800 or whatever is being charged for the Rip racks.



All that said, I just shoved a yoke down in my basement for the winter, so now I have no more space available for an archaic, non-functional, wobbly PoS rack until Spring.

[Allentown]

Are we talking about buying a vintage York rack, or are we talking about having a new rack made in the 'York" style out of C-channel? Those are two very different things. An old York rack is worth no more than $150 to me, but I still think it would be cool to own one. I certainly wouldn't pay $800 or whatever is being charged for the Rip racks.

Both. The prices I've seen mentioned for the old ones is $150+, and the quotes people have mentioned for new ones are well over $800. I personally don't care about lifting history, so even if I had room I wouldn't take a York rack for free. I'd rather use the space for pretty much anything else. And there is no way I would pay to have one made when a Titan is infinitely superior and less than half the price.

[mgil]

@Cody and @murphyreedus are true scavengers of this stuff and they see them pop up on CL for $200 from time to time.

I'd agree that, given the space, it would be cool to have an old rack as a conversation piece and to maybe hold some bars and prop cameras up on. But I ain't got that space and have no desire to build an overpriced replica.

[Cody]

Are we talking about buying a vintage York rack, or are we talking about having a new rack made in the 'York" style out of C-channel? Those are two very different things. An old York rack is worth no more than $150 to me, but I still think it would be cool to own one. I certainly wouldn't pay $800 or whatever is being charged for the Rip racks.

Both. The prices I've seen mentioned for the old ones is $400+, and the quotes people have mentioned for new ones are well over $800. I personally don't care about lifting history, so even if I had room I wouldn't take a York rack for free. I'd rather use the space for pretty much anything else. And there is no way I would pay to have one made when a Titan is infinitely superior and less than half the price.

I had a thread back in Egypt that has since been rippened where I posted York racks from the Atlanta market (out of the generosity of my heart for the fools that romanticized all things old). I probably posted a half dozen in two years or so just from within ~2 hr radius of my residence, all for $150-200 list (which means there's room to haggle).

They pop up frequently enough that there is no reason to pay more than that for one, and buying new or having one fabricated is only for a fool. As mentioned before, they are really a poor design, and not at all competitive in price. There are literally a dozen brand new and superior racks for $350-450 shipped to your door. If you buy used, you can get 7g commercial racks with weight storage for $250-600 pretty regularly, all of which are infinitely superior to the antiquated York racks, and cost $1500-3500 new.

[Allentown]

Yeah, I probably blended the price of used ones and new ones. Edited. I remembered seeing someone get quoted something insane, >$2K, to get a new one made. That's getting close to commercial-grade rack with storage and platform prices for something that is best suited for a conversation piece or storage.

[DirtyRed]

Regardless, get over your ex. Jesus.

I took umbrage, along with others, that a 80 year old York rack design was promoted as inherently superior in both design and cost to manufacture/procure well before being banned. Seeing that it was a topic of discussion again, I simply wanted to speak my peace on the matter and reiterate what had been covered, and probably deleted.

Part of this is trying to have an honest conversation about training. Part of training is good, safe, and reasonably priced equipment. It's a worthy topic of discussion nonetheless.

It will come as no shock to you that DR, renown the world over for his positive outlook on literally everything, might have recommended a more positively oriented approach. More of "here are a bunch of hashtag #BallerSwag racks at reasonable prices" and less "this one rack sucks butt." It would be more useful to those in the market for a new rack, and you could still have thrown in a bit at the end that compared them favorably to wobbly ghetto-York racks. Instead of doing it pretty much the exact opposite way around.

[mgil]

TIL: Dirty Red is Deepok Chopra

[Allentown]

@DirtyRed didn't read my thread about starting a garage gym that does exactly what he suggests, and doesn't even venture into bashing on old York rack designs.

[mbasic]

DR can't believe Olympic lifters are squatting from shitty stands, and the Chinese using two end tables. . . . .says they should be using decent equipment (I assume cages, and racks).

Not really related, but what is it with olympic lifting clubs and having incredibly shitty equipment for important things like squats? This is technically an Olympian, squatting close to failure out of a chintzy rack she has to daintily bring the bar back to because it's a piece of shit I could easily hold over my head and isn't held to the floor in any way.

It's not even dumb ass Americans. Look at this shit from the Chinese. He's backing NEARLY the kind of weight DR can squat for one onto wobbly jerk-block-looking pieces of shit. These "people" have built giant ghost towns just to have something to spend money on, and they can't find the money for a fucking Rogue rack? But whatever, if they kill themselves doing this stupid shit, less competition for the rest of us.

But then doesn't understand why people shit on a 80 year old York/Rip rack that the Pharaoh thinks is the best thing since sliced bread,
but it wobbles all to shit, and wants to turn into itself a parallelogram . . .

. . . as opposed to buying a modern decent rack/cage at a 1/3 of the price?

[mgil]

@DirtyRed has a good point, being that if the idea is to have a forum that talks about strength-related stuff in a positive manner, it would've been better to have a comparison/offerings thread and then shit on the old York rack at the end.

[DannyP]

My leather bomber jacket is worse in every practical way than one made from modern miracle fabrics -- not as warm, too heavy, too expensive, hard to clean, etc. But it's cool.

I don't own a Harley, or a York/Rip rack. But I understand why someone would want one.

Why are we mocking people who like old-fashioned things? Isn't this forum full of people who smoke actual tobacco instead of vaping non-carcinogenic nicotine, and write with fountain pens?

Tobacco aside, most of the "old vs. new" debate has far more to do with functionality/practicality than fundamental safety.

A suit of armor is wayyyy cooler than kevlar, if you're choosing something to display in your foyer. But if there's a chance of actually getting shot at, and you want to have any hope of a) running away and b) stopping any bullets that hit you from damaging the majority of vital organs, the modern bulletproof vest is probably a wiser option.

[cwd]

Tobacco aside, most of the "old vs. new" debate has far more to do with functionality/practicality than fundamental safety.

A suit of armor is wayyyy cooler than kevlar, if you're choosing something to display in your foyer. But if there's a chance of actually getting shot at...

To be fair, steel plate armor defends very well vs swords, spears, and arrows. Better than a modern bulletproof vest for the original purpose.

We can make a similar argument for the old York/Rip racks, in that one of the original design goals was to support isometrics. If for some reason you are still into isometrics in the 21st century, you might prefer the old design.

[DannyP]

To be fair, steel plate armor defends very well vs swords, spears, and arrows.

Not if you get knocked off of your horse...

But today you're far less likely to be on horseback, and far less likely to encounter a skilled archer or swordsman (unless it's some "Night at the Museum" shit).

[mgil]

Bump for Texas Strength Systems charging $1200 a pop for copies of this stupid fucking design under the guise of “SS Equipment”.

[Cody]

Bump for Texas Strength Systems charging $1200 a pop for copies of this stupid fucking design under the guise of “SS Equipment”.

Wow. Not even powder coated.

[Wilhelm]

Bump for Texas Strength Systems charging $1200 a pop for copies of this stupid fucking design under the guise of “SS Equipment”.

Wow. Not even powder coated.

Powder coating is for pussies.

[Cody]

Bump for Texas Strength Systems charging $1200 a pop for copies of this stupid fucking design under the guise of “SS Equipment”.

Wow. Not even powder coated.

Powder coating is for pussies.

The more I think about this being a real product, sold by the people that make chincy power racks out of sign posts, the more I think "what in the actual fuck..."

I swear that they're just trolling people now.

[mgil]

If it isn’t already immediately clear from this thread, $1200, plus shipping and no bench (and I think @KOTJ has mentioned TSS padding not being great on Alan Thrall’s bench at Untamed) included, this is a shit deal. Rogue, Legend, EliteFTS, whoever is cheaper and made in the USA. Fuck, even TSS sells a six post rack with built in storage for $200 less than that York clone. Rip and Reynolds should be embarrassed.

[murphyreedus]

They could have at least given it a cool pullup bar and some actual j-hooks. Modernize it a little.

I'll wait for the Titan clone.

[mgil]

Yeah, $1200 for fucking bolts as hooks.