Put me in the minority of folks here in this thread - I can't stand Wald racks and baskets. This is not because of weight or snobbery towards utilitarianism. Personally, I think they're not heavy or strong
enough.
Wald uses the absolute minimum gauge of wire possible - note how
bark_eater's rack and other Wald racks run only two thicker wires to reinforce the weak construction - and their zinc plating barely survives a year before turning into a uniform layer of rust. Then they have those terrible handlebar J clamps (with Erector set hardware) which scratch handlebars by default. Given that most owners don't think to cut some rubber hose to go over the bars (which usually proves too thick for the J-clamp to bend around), the end result is a lot of gouged bars from owners fruitlessly attempting to tighten them so they don't slip (and since the J-clamps are just pressed onto the rack and not spot welded...they slip).
Need I mention that their rack support stays are too thin a gauge of steel for rigidity? Their absolutely infuriating multi-position axle holes make the problem even worse. I've lost count of how many of these stays I've seen mutilated (and sometimes MIG welded) on some beat local commuter bikes. You can literally destroy a Wald rack by simply bending both stays with your fingers then loading the basket. The stays begin to buckle, then the J-clamps shift, and the basket winds up shifting between these two points based on wherever the weight decides to takes it.
This isn't just based on my experiences. This is my observation of Wald racks I've seen servicing people of all walks of life. Sure, often the less fortunate happen to survive using their bicycles and these racks - using whatever means possible to keep the basket together - but a basket doing a necessary job for someone while falling apart is not a valid metric of quality. It is a sign that there's nothing better on the market in an affordable price range (and/or made + sold in enough numbers that it filters down to them).
As for affordability, I see quite a few of the bikes in this thread have Wald baskets mounted on top of $30-40 aluminum front racks that actually
do hold up. All of a sudden, the combination isn't so cheap!
Fact is, you can find a very similar - yet superior quality - basket on a Chinese-built LimeBike, which does everything a Wald does, without the quality compromises. Case in point, the Lime-B's have the same steel construction as a Wald, but with a powdercoated finish that tends to take more abuse before it looks completely shot. The upper half of the rack is secured to a thick steel bracket that doubles as a headset washer (no inverted J hooks), while the stays are a solid steel rod bent in an inverted U shape with flattened ends.
I've seen these Limes smashed and crashed a gazillion ways and as bad as they've been abused, the baskets still seem to survive enough to be used for their intended purpose. Sometimes they have to be bashed back into a general bucket shape, but they work.
The new E's have an aluminum version with the same support setup:
I'd respect Wald a lot more if they'd finally put out a decent product along these lines, rather than the same low-quality stuff they've been selling us for years.
-Kurt