The ESSENTIAL Tools Every Home Bike Mechanic NEEDS!

To kick off our maintenance series, we are going through the tools that we think you should have if you want to start fixing and servicing your bike at home! We stress that no matter what tools you get its worth investing in good quality ones, theres nothing worse than stripping bolts or damaging components on your bike.

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what’s up guys it’s Sam at Cycle Technology to kick off a little maintenance section of the YouTube channel that we’re going to start doing where we’ll be teaching you the basics of uh fixing your bike whatever that may be and moving on to some more complex stuff We’re going to start today with some essential tools that you need to have in your arsenal if you want to start fixing your own bike Good quality Allen keys And notice I said good quality Allen keys cuz there’s lots of Allen keys out there And some of them are shin When I say good quality I mean from brands like Wira and brands like Unio and brands like Park Tool They all make good quality Allen keys Good quality Allen keys is not what you’ll find in the middle aisle at little or Aldi Okay those are the Allen keys you’re going to find yourself rounding bolts off with and then you’re going to come down and bother me with it and tell me you’ve stripped a bolt and I’ll have to drill it out And just just don’t do it just just reject the false economy and get yourself a decent set of Allen keys to start with if you want to fix your own bike And you may as well get the whole set cuz you’re going to come across it at some point Two 2.5 3 4 5 6 8 and possibly a 10 But it’s better to have the whole set just because of once you’ve got it you’ve got it And then you know that you’re not going to be short something when you come across that particular sized Allen key head on your bike good quality Torx bits or Torx wrench or Torx key whatever you want to call it Now you can go ahead and get a full set of these The same brands that I mentioned before with the Allen keys they will also provide you with a decent set of Torx keys Most likely the one that you’re going to have on your bike is a T-25 That is the most common one You’ll find it on things such as a rotor bolt Yeah So T-25 is the one that you should definitely have Uh T10 and T15 as well you might come across if you’ve got Stram brakes for instance Um but if you want to just buy the full set go ahead If you just want to buy the one specific to your bike do that But again the key is good quality and then you won’t be rounding the heads off bolts and causing yourself a whole headache situation If you’re into fixing things at home anyway the chances are you’ll have a set of pliers like a needle-nose set of pliers and the sort of wider grippy pliers I don’t know what the real name is Um but in addition to that for fixing bikes you’re going to want to get some proper cable cutters These are specifically for cutting the inner cable gear cable brake cable for instance and the outer cable as well They’re very sharp and they give you a nice clean cut on the end so that the cable doesn’t fray If you try and use things like these which are great for cutting off zip ties and other little things um they’re not great for cutting cables and they’ll often smush up the end of the cable and and make it difficult for you to fit it and it probably won’t operate properly So decent set of uh snipping and cutting tools that are specific for each job on the bike also a shank Next up again something that you might have if you’re a bit handy Um screwdrivers Decent ones Again ones that aren’t going to knack of the heads on your screws and bolts and things on your bike These are JIS standard park tool Um cross- headed one and flatheaded screwdriver as well But we’ve got a bunch of different ones in this drawer of all different shapes and sizes because they appear on bikes in all different shapes and sizes So decent set of screwdrivers also necessary So if you start with those basic tools and watch some maintenance videos you watch ours great Watch someone else’s whatever man If you’re fixing your own bike and enjoying it that’s that’s fine by me I’m I’m happy I’m happy that you’re doing just that Um so start with the Allen keys the Torx keys uh some decent cutting tools some decent screwdrivers You’re going to be able to do quite a lot with those things Um but if you’re then going into doing like deeper maintenance on your bike and you’re going to learn more and more some other things you want going to want to get things like a bottom bracket tool Now there’s an insane amount of bottom bracket tools out there This is some of them That’s some of the bottom bracket tools and ebike lockering tools that you can get Probably just get the one that’s specific to your bike like this internal BSA one or the external BSA one there Some of the most common ones that you’ll find Uh a chain whip and cassette lock ring removal tool if you wanted to take your cassette off Um chain tools as well other things that are quite important to have if you’re going to be do starting to do work on your drivetrain A decent chain tool and some quick link pliers And honestly there are more tools than than like we don’t even have all the tools here but this is how many tools we do have It’s it’s insane There’s just it just goes on and on and on and on So you know it depends how far you want to go with it but start with the basics and if you find you’ve got a knack for it and you enjoy it then start moving on to some of the more specialist tools and probably just get what you need for your bike cuz you can spend thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds getting absolutely everything but you don’t need it Or you know if you’re if it’s a shop that’s close to you a bike shop like ours we don’t mind people popping in and borrowing a headset press or a bottom bracket reaming tool for instance So you don’t need to get those really expensive specialist tools Just start with the basics whatever you can afford and work your way up But yeah hopefully you’ll tune in for the next video where I’ll be teaching you some of the basics of bike maintenance starting off with um aligning brake calipers and indexing gears Cheers