My Favorite Bicycle Tools

I am not a great fan of all-in-one bicycle tools.

Too often one or more of the tools is barely functional, and too often the other tools block easy use of the one you really need. At the other extreme, for the price of a nice bike, you can get a full set of professional shop tools.  Somewhere in between, here are some of my own favorite tools. Some are for shop use only, others only for on the bike.

• Stubby 1/4 inch Socket/Insert Driver. A short wrench handle that drives both 1/4-inch sockets and screwdriver-type insert bits. The one tool gives good leverage on any size of hex head, socket cap, phillips or straight-blade screwdriver bits, etc. 1/4-inch drive is a bit small for shop tools, but great on the road, and it takes a lot less space to add just a socket to the tool bag than to add an entire wrench.
• VAR No. 940 Crank and Chainring Straightener. A long handle on a head with two slots, one for bending chainrings, the other for bending crank spiders. Very handy for mountain bike maintenance if you're in an area with lots of logs.
• 5/6mm N-shaped Allen Wrench. Puts 5mm and 6mm hex keys on opposite ends of one long body, giving plenty of leverage and taking up less space than two wrenches. I carry two in my tool bag in case I need 5 and 6mm wrenches at the same time, or two 5mm, or two 6mm, all in the same space and weight as just two wrenches, not four.
• Cyclo Rivoli Chain Rivet Tool. Not a lightweight aluminum thing, but a good forged steel tool. I have had the same Rivoli with the original pin for close to fifteen years, and the one before that didn't break, it got stolen. The screw on the Rivoli has a finer pitch than some chain tools, so it may take a few more turns to push the pin out, but it has enough leverage for even the toughest chains. Not for use on those obnoxious Shimano chains, but otherwise a great chain tool.
• Eldi Compact Crank Extractor. 22mm only, with a built-in 14mm socket for crank bolts, works with bolted or nutted cranks. Cyclo also makes a very nice one at a reasonable price.
• Park Universal Crank Extractor.  This is the one I use at home, though it's a bit bulky for on the road. Why do I like it? It is inexpensive and does an excellent job, plus it still has the almost obsolete 23mm T.A. puller threads. That lets me use it on cranks whose 22mm threads have been stripped, after I re-tap the hole with a piloted reaming/bottoming 23x1mm tap. Stein makes a very expensive system for re-tapping cranks to 24x1.5mm, but it only works with their special extractors.  (Note this model has been downgraded to 22mm-only in current production.)
• Piloted 23x1mm Tap. Very few shops know these exist, and fewer still own one. At least 90% of aluminum cranks with stripped 22x1mm puller threads can be re-tapped in a few minutes, allowing the use of any T.A.-type extractor. The pilot shaft for the tap screws into any bolt-type bottom bracket spindle, meaning you can re-tap the crank while it is on the bike. Not only do you get usable threads, it hardly takes any longer than using a destructive flywheel-style puller.
• Cyclo Bottom Bracket Chasing Tap. An economical un-piloted tap for cleaning up damaged or painted bottom bracket shell threads. Very few people, even frame builders, really need one of those big fancy piloted tap sets, since most bottom bracket shells come with good threads that just need fixing up after the frame is built. For the average mechanic the tap is perfect for fixing damage from cross-threaded cups (if you catch them before they're threaded in very far) and for removing paint, rust, or thread locking goop from otherwise good threads.
• Thumbroll-Adjustable Pin Spanner. Heavy steel construction and a rigid turnbuckle-style adjuster let this one tool replace the whole range of Park pin spanners, and it's tough enough you can hammer on the handles to loosen freewheel body lockrings. I hate to say it, but I like this cheap Taiwanese tool better than VAR's adjustable spanner.
• Park Fourth Hand Tool. Like Hozan and Lifu fourth hands this tool will tension just about any cable, but it adds a locking device to free both hands, not just one.
• Hozan Cable/Casing Cutter. A beefy steel tool, not stamped sheet metal, that gives clean cuts on braided and twisted cables, standard and SIS housing, and is even rated for cutting 14g stainless spokes. No crimping slot, but I use an electrical contact crimping tool.
• Rohloff Caliber Chain Wear Indicator. A small chain wear indicator with no moving parts, made of hardened stainless steel. Sure, a simple 12" ruler will do a perfect job of measuring chain wear, but this is faster and I don't mind getting it dirty by measuring chains before I clean them. Plus it's small enough to fit in a seat wedge bag.
• Pamir Hyper Cracker. A simple little tool for removing freehub lockrings using the frame and drivetrain for leverage. Small enough to fit in any tool bag, and great to have when fixing broen drive-side spokes.
• Spoke Ball Spoke Wrench. The jaws of this wrench are small steel inserts that fully engage two faces of the nipple and wrap around to half of the other two faces -- it slips over the spoke then slides onto the nipple. This makes it less likely to round a nipple than a traditional Park style wrench. The body of the wrench is lightweight plastic with a good grip. The one wrench holds both 0.127" and 0.136" jaws. Paint one end orange so you can tell which is which faster.

This page written by Josh Putnam. Please feel free to email questions, comments, corrections, suggestions, etc.

© Joshua Putnam