As I’m building up my bike workshop, I realize that there’s a wide array of tools that are so bicycle specific that you can’t just “make-do” with a wrench and screwdriver. I know this is not exhuastive, but here’s a brief list of the few tools I’ve had to invest in. The cost spent on these will disappear over the next many many years, as I remember using my step-father’s bike tools from his childhood to repair my bike. I guess I can only hope that my girls will want to pull out the torque wrench and tighten something to a specific tightness.
- Torque wrench (off of ebay)
- Park CT-3 Chain Tool, since i couldn’t use the little version
- Park CN-10 Professional Cable Cutter
- Heavy Duty KENT pedal wrench
- Digital Caliper to measure all the different tube thicknesses
I recently discovered that the wheel that came with the Ross is a freewheel, and of course I didn’t have the tool to remove the freewheel (oh yeah, that was broken). I went to BikeNotBombs and just had them do it rather than invest in the $10 part. If i have to do it again, I can buy it then, but for now it works.
I already have allen wrenches, and could probably do with a better set of metric wrenches, but anything else I absolutely need?
UPDATE: The pedal wrench came and is pretty heavy duty, and it turns out to be an official Wal-Mart pedal wrench to be used only by the pedal assembly department. I wonder if this was stolen and resold or what? It’s solid steel.