Bike Tools to have as a Home Mechanic

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0:00 intro
0:20 allen keys (Pedros)
3:20 pliers, cutters (Knipex)
4:30 chain checker
6:00 disc brake piston tool (tyre lever) rotor trueing tool
8:00 torque wrench
10:40 bearing press

you ready yeah what’s your name all uh my name is Nick Vier I’m from backyard bike shop and I’m going to show you six tools that you should have as a home mechanic uh if you can work in your bike at home obviously there’s variations of different ones so I’m going to show you a few different ones and then kind of just bit of pros and cons um the first section is going to be Allen Keys you need a good set of alen keys you can work in your bike if you’ve got something that’s bad quality you’re just going to run bolts and damage things so as a as a basic thing uh you can start with something like a multi tool I love this I use this more than any other tool in the workshop at the moment uh it’s from Pedros uh and it’s got all the the main Allen Keys you would need to work on anything and a T25 for a lot of the modern bikes but a good quality one of these is a must have that’s probably the first tool you should invest in if you want to diversify you can buy fancer stuff ver for instance do these the hex plus sixes they’re really good um there’s a lot lot of videos online explaining about how they’ve shaped them slightly differently uh and they’re just a lot less likely to round any bolts um I like that the color code as well so it’s easy to get hold of um Off the Wall without having to check what number I just no rate is six uh they also have the ball WIS on that side that’s a dangerous thing if you’re not used to using them I’d suggest not using that too much it’s good for getting it angles but you still need to be careful uh because you can really damage a bolt if you don’t do it correctly version of things are the more what they call a t- bar shaped alen key these are really good but obviously it’s these are just extra stuff you don’t need it uh if you got a multitool you can do most things These are nice to have afterwards uh you can even go Mega specialist these from Pedro the pro bit driver is really good um that’s really good for adjusting uh limit screws on red railers they’ve got a few different bits in there it’s just easy to work in like more like a screwdriver it’s not something you would use to tighten up a stem more anything like that it’s a bit more Precision like I said these are it’s more of a pro tool you don’t really need it for home mechanic but but if you’re going to get one yeah it is nice um I also have my Abby Shram tool which is easy when we working on Shram cuz it’s got all the main bits that I need to work on them already pre-installed um would you choose a different Allen key to put in your pocket for a ride other than what you’d use at a in a home mechanics space multitools for on a ride has got more things on it that you need so some of them have chain Breakers mine’s got a plugging tool it’s all nice to have um they tend to have shorter bits to them as well so uh this is what I use on my bike um it works it works really well but if you’re going to start doing actual maintenance at home on a bike some of these parts are really small you need know so it’s still definitely at home worth investing one of these as your everyday thing um there’s a lot of stuff if you’re going to assemble Ikea furniture you can still use this that is yeah so one for home one for on the bike one for the bike generally obviously if you can’t justify the extra cost you can still get away with it but I’m just saying like in in an Ideal World second set of tools is a really good set of pliers SL Cutters spend the extra and buy set of noex they will just last a lot longer than anything else uh we’ve used everything from Park Tool all the the main cycling Brands we’ve even tried the non- cycling Brands like Draper they’re good but these are just miles apart uh if you could have only one by that cuz you can cut things and it works in set appliers if you can justify the cost I would buy pair of side Cutters as well and a set of cable Cutters um these are just really good for cutting your cables cut them really clean so you don’t have to worry about them fraying um and they also have a bit to crimp your your end caps with so if you have an end cap stuck that on your end of your cable you can just stick it in there and then that’ll just Crump it perfectly and essentially make sure it doesn’t fall off but yeah uh I can’t recommend these enough the um so so so so good this next one is really a short one but it’s just really good there different brands uh par makes good ones uh quite a few people make them this is the Pedro version chain Checker this is a must must must must have uh most people who take the bikes in for service and they get a Mega shock where they need to replace a chain cassette uh chain rings and things like that is due to the chain being overly stretched if you measure your chain and catch it before it stretched too far um you could just save yourself so so much money uh because you should be able to get three or four chains to a cassette if you cat them early enough if your chain stretches too far so damaging your cassette it starts wearing out your chain rings and then when you put a new chain on it it just doesn’t work anymore so that is yeah that is a key key bit of uh sorry that’s a key key tool you should have uh it’ll save you quite a bit bit of money in the long run what I do like about the Pedro one is that it also has a tool on the back for it’s what you need to take off chain ring bolts uh on on quite a lot of the older bikes where you need to hook the chain rings at the back to keep them in place you can buy dedicated tools that just do that so something like this bman one that does the same thing but obviously that’s just integrate it into your chain Checker it also has a chain hook which is quite nice if you’re going hook the chain together to help you uh fit split links and things like that next one is the for everybody with uh disc brakes uh if you got disc brakes you need a tool for two things you need one to if you take your wheels off every now and then I suggest resetting your pads so you need a tool that fits in between the two pads and then pushes them all back the Pistons back in um it’s also quite good if you’ve got a seized or sticky pistons you can hold the the non-sticky one in place while you move the other one um a tie lever does the job perfectly uh obviously it’s versatility being a tie lever as well that works quite well I would suggest not using screwdrivers even though you can get away with it it’s it can damage your Pistons um Abby does quite a nice one which is a quite a verstile tool so it’s got the spatula style end for Levering out the um disc brakes uh it also has a rot to triwing Tool um and then this one’s got a bottle open attached to it as well so when you finish fixing your bike and you need to open a bottle be or something like that celebrate that’s not a bad Tool uh if you want to go fancy shm brought this out that slips in between into the caliper and then you put a training p and then you can just twist this and it evenly pushes the Pistons side obviously you don’t need it as a home mechanic uh but it’s nice to have um bman as a similar tool as well but essentially just different size break color ERS drop them in and then essentially Just Wind them steadily open um but yeah like you can get away with the tie lever uh but yeah you need a tool for for contest brakes you need something that’s going to help you open up the Pistons in E the next one which is we get a lot of phone calls I’ve seen in the past where somebody has stro the Vault and they tell you that they know exactly what a set amount of talk feels like and I’m just going to say that’s just not possible possible um if you don’t know and you’ve not done this for years and even if you have done it for years every now need to check a torque wrench this is probably one of the most expensive tools you would buy to use at home there’s a range of different ones you can get so I use this for instance all day long which is really nice um I’ve got a 4 newm 5 new 6 newm so that that’s just a set talk um there’s no setting it it just works you click it on but if it’s just for stems and things like that that works really well but if you only going to buy one to do a lot of stuff in your bike you might want to invest a bit more in something a bit more substantial so look at the torque rating a lot of torque bolts on your bike are going to be ranged from about 4 newon M up to anyway up to 50 for your cassette or chain set um this one from topic is quite good because it’s digital and you can just set the torque to whatever you want uh comes with a set of attachments do you want to tell everyone about your thumb strength um trick we run a competition in the shop actually to see who can get the highest talk rating and no one’s beat you up there not yet but I think it’s from years of fting tires so essentially that’s on seven new me not and then see who can with one hand get it to beep um got up from there what’s your record 12.2 I’m sure there’s loads of people that they can beat that but no in the shop yet um I think James is struggling to get up to six that’s a really good one cuz that one will measure from four all the up to 80 Newton M so if you’re just going to buy one that’s worthwhile uh if you want to buy something fancier you can go to VI so this is a bit more precise uh but that will only go from 2 to 12 new M so you wouldn’t be able to do sets or chain sets with that um this one’s quite good because what it will do is when you hit a certain torque it disengages itself so there’s no way you can over talk something so even though the the topic one will be when you get to the torque rating if you still put power through you will go beyond um the actual torque limit uh this one you can also switch on and off so if you just want to use it as a normal ratchet uh you can just turn it off so that’s but that is very expensive um and if you buy one of these you’re going to need a second one with a larg range if you want to use it on cassettes and uh on stuff like uh crank bolts finally if you’re really really getting into it which for most people I wouldn’t recommend uh take it to your local bike shop because um unless you know what you’re doing if you bit of practice but there’s loads of variations every Hub bottom rack going be different but start looking into bearing tools uh and some of them cross over to different stuff so you can get a very basic bottom bracket tool depending on what bottom bracket you’re on so it won’t just work for everything this will be more specific to your bike uh but something like that uh you could just fit over bottom bracket cups that one works on t47 and this one works on BS most BSA so Shimano sh inur BBS and you can just essentially use it as a lever to screw in or screw out your bottom bracket uh if it is a screw in type or if it’s something like a torque type where they screw together that works really well um you can also buy something similar to this which is the Enduro uh BBT 007 there’s uh Wheels manufacturer makes it a really nice one as well that have used over the years um and what this does is it does a bit of everything you can use that for bottom bracket you can use it for Wheels uh in some instances depending on fit you can use it on your pivot bearings they generally come with a range of different adapters for different bearing sizes um they will also work with press fit bottom brackets to price them in um that’s just really good little kit spins quite nicely it’s quite satisfying actually um but yeah that’s a good bit of tools uh they’ve just released a new one which is a bit more in depth and that spins on bearings over there binds you can get shorter handles and longer handles so these just pull out you can swap them out if it’s in tighter spot uh just really nice but a kit other versions would be uh like this so like I said that just basically it’s a fancier one of these um but if you need more leverage if your bottom brackets are seizing in or tighter that’s just a really nice better of kit but like I say Park Tool makes some nice ones um all the different bot bracket manufacturers tend to have their own versions as well uh that works really well um but I think that should be a last the last bit of tools you buy after you figured everything else out on your bike um there’s probably quite a few others but these are just the main ones I could think of today