Tool kit?

[oiselette]

I'm gearing up for my first big tour. My current road tool kit is just your standard fix-a-flat items: levers, patch kit, tubes, pump. I know that I need more when I'm out on the road and away from a LBS. I've been researching multi-tools and many of them seem overkill, but I'm afraid of going too sparse.

What are your recommendations for multi/single tools? I would like to be as self-sufficient as possible on the road. And I know the "bring what you know" ethos-I'm signed up for some bike maintenance classes and will be doing lots of testing and practicing with whatever tools I plan to bring. Overall, I'd like to wean myself away from dragging my bike into the LBS all the time while at home, as I know that won't always be an option on the road.

Thanks!

[staehpj1]

It depends on the bike, but for my bike the following works well:

2 - 8mm/10mm wrenches (one open end and one box, both ignition wrench sized)
1" stub of an 8mm allen wrench (used with 8mm box end)
Spoke wrench
Tire levers
Swiss army knife
Multi-tool (a very basic one)
Chain rivet tool
Cassette removal tool (Unior)
Tire pressure gauge

If you need to pack or unpack the bike for the plane or train a pedal wrench is needed.  A 15mm cone wrench will suffice if the pedals are not super tight.  The Park Bicycle Tool RW-3 Headset Pedal Wrench Combo is another option.  It is a short stubby wrench.

[whittierider]

This topic covers it.

To your tire-repair tools and supplies, I would add booting material.  I carry a couple of narrowish scraps of Mr. Tuffy tire liner cut with the edges rounded and feathered, and a couple of wide pieces.  If you get a big cut in a tire, you can boot it, and if you do it right, you can restore all of the tire's original strength and dependability, for the rest of the tire's natural life.  There's no need to glue the boot in.  The air pressure will keep it in place, sandwitched between the tire and tube.  For the extreme case, I have a worn-out but undamaged piece of an old tire, about 2"x3", with the bead cut off, and again with the edges rounded.  I sure could have used that 11 years ago when we got a front blow-out on the tandem, on a new tire.  It ripped nearly a 1" hole right down the middle of the tread.  Fortunately, I had just read about the dollar-bill trick.  American paper money is quite tough, being 50% cotton and 50% linnen.  It works temporarily in a pinch, and I think I used two dollar bills folded over for that one, inflated to half pressure, and babied the tire for the rest of the ride.  If I had had the piece of old tire, it would have been full-speed again to complete the ride.

By the way, all of the catastrophic or near-catastrophic tire failures I and my family have had were on new or nearly new tires, meaning there was a manufacturing defect.  One of them didn't even have 20 miles on it yet.  Now I've learned to spot the tell-tale signs of a tire pulling apart from the inside, the S-bend and bulge, before getting to the point of a blowout.  I feel more confident in a tire after it has gotten a few hundred miles on it without a problem, and I feel safer  with a booted but known-good tire on the front than a brand-new tire there.  This comes from buying and maintaining somewhere near 200 tires for myself and my family over the decades.  We have ridden booted tires tens of thousands of miles with never a problem.

[johnsondasw]

In addition to the items mentioned above, I bring a new spare tire--and I've used it.  A little duct tape and a few zip ties have also come in handy.  My leatherman (has pliers on it) is repeatedly useful.

[bogiesan]

I would like to be as self-sufficient as possible on the road. And I know the "bring what you know" ethos-I'm signed up for some bike maintenance classes and will be doing lots of testing and practicing with whatever tools I plan to bring.
Thanks!

Multi-tools are convenient and cool but they are merely marketing successes, too. A quick inventory of your nuts and bolts and a trip to Sears will provide you with all the hex heads and sockets or box wrenches you need. Add an appropriate Letheraman or just a pair of pliers to your chain tool of choice and that might be all you need. Oh, a good clear vinyl bag is great to keep your tools in one place and visible.

KNow how to use your chain tool.

ONe thing about multitools, everything is one place, hard to misplace an allen wrench in the grass if it's on the tool. But you can also just wrap some reflective or bright red (or fluorescent orange) electrical tape around your tool handles, too.

If you shop for individual tools, beware cheap tools that can chew the edges off your nuts and bolts.

david boise ID.

[CastAStone]

just a thought;

if you have an old bike lying around, after you buy your multi tool and before you leave, disassemble and reassemble your old bike, all the way down to the frame (you can leave the crankset on). Its worth it, and much less expensive and less of a waste of time than a basic maintenance class because its all hands on experience. Anything you need to know about how something goes back together you can find on parktool.com or sheldonbrown.com.

Nothing can compare to hands on experience.

[DaveB]

Multi-tools are convenient and cool but they are merely marketing successes, too.

I pretty much agree with one exception; Park's MT-1 "Dog Bone" multitool.  It has 3,4,5,6 and 8 mm hex wrenches, 8,9 and 10mm box wrenches and a small flat screwdriver, weighs less than 40 grams and costs about $10. Better yet all of the larger hex wrenches are oriented so you can get some real leverage.  I once used mine to retorque someone's loose crank arm and it got them through the rest of the ride.

The MT-1 paired with a small light chain tool and a proper size small spoke wrench should do almost any roadside repair that's feasible.   

KNow how to use your chain tool......If you shop for individual tools, beware cheap tools that can chew the edges off your nuts and bolts.

+1 on both accounts. 

[Galloper]

The Topeak Survival Gear box is one of the best multi tool items you can buy, in addition to a good range of tools it includes tyre levers, a tyre boot and puncture repair kit.   The only thing it's missing is a power link.   It even has spoke keys and comes with a neat fixing to strap onto a frame tube,

Another useful addition is some duct tape or electrical tape.   You don't need a whole roll, just take a few turns.

It's been mentioned before but I believe it's worth repeating, take a spare pump

[rvklassen]

Multi-tools are convenient and cool but they are merely marketing successes, too.

I pretty much agree with one exception; Park's MT-1 "Dog Bone" multitool.  It has 3,4,5,6 and 8 mm hex wrenches, 8,9 and 10mm box wrenches and a small flat screwdriver, weighs less than 40 grams and costs about $10. Better yet all of the larger hex wrenches are oriented so you can get some real leverage.  I once used mine to retorque someone's loose crank arm and it got them through the rest of the ride.

The MT-1 paired with a small light chain tool and a proper size small spoke wrench should do almost any roadside repair that's feasible.   

I find the MT-1 is great for lots of things, but there is at least one hex bolt I could not get to with it.  I don't immediately recall which one.
If you do get a multitool or set of hex keys, I recommend finding one you can handle rather than looking online.  It's easy to underestimate the size/weight from a picture.

[Tourista829]

Carry some extra allen screws for your racks and water bottle cages. (for that matter any screw that is on the bike) I would go 1mm up from the size they recommend. Always have a daily checklist to go through prior to the start of the day. It wouldn't hurt to carry a 15mm pedal wrench too, from Park. 

[whittierider]

It wouldn't hurt to carry a 15mm pedal wrench too, from Park. 

Fortunately now a lot of pedals have a 6mm allen-wrench hole in the end, so the big pedal wrench is no longer necessary.  And with the way pedals are threaded, it is not necessary to get them very tight-- just snug.  Precession forces cause the pedals to tighten in normal riding.  It would be a big understatement to say that precession forces dwarf the more-obvious freezing-up unscrewing forces.  People's left pedals kept unscrewing themselves until manufacturers put a left-hand thread on the left pedal.

[Tourista829]

Whittierider, I am of the old school and although one could use the proper sized allen key to tighten or loosen a pedal, if you could apply the correct amount of torque, I still carry a 15mm pedal wrench. The wrench has always worked for me. Inspite, of what you said, I have been on 2 new bikes, where the right pedal has fallen off, both of them stripped the threads, requiring a new crank. (one was my  Breezer Uptown and the other a new bike, on a test ride)  I guess that all manufactures haven't used counter threads and that quality is not what it use to be. A simple precheck, prior to the daily ride, might have prevented this from happening.

[staehpj1]

It wouldn't hurt to carry a 15mm pedal wrench too, from Park. 

Fortunately now a lot of pedals have a 6mm allen-wrench hole in the end, so the big pedal wrench is no longer necessary.  And with the way pedals are threaded, it is not necessary to get them very tight-- just snug.  Precession forces cause the pedals to tighten in normal riding.  It would be a big understatement to say that precession forces dwarf the more-obvious freezing-up unscrewing forces.  People's left pedals kept unscrewing themselves until manufacturers put a left-hand thread on the left pedal.

Recommended torque is in the neighborhood of 28 ft-lbs and they usually come off harder than they go on.  I have a hard time imagining taking pedals off with a 6mm allen wrench.  It sometimes isn't all that easy with a long pedal wrench (15mm open end).  Some pedals take 8mm or even 10mm allen wrenches.  That seems a lot more reasonable to me.

In my experience it is pretty hard to damage a pedal or crank arm by over-tightening, but easy to have the threads fail if under-tightened.  I've see a few fail this way.

[whittierider]

I've see a few fail this way.

Were they maybe just not greased?  Or maybe they didn't have the washer?  I was a mechanic in a bike shop for a couple of years and never saw any such failures.  The bikes in our garage have a combined total of about 120,000 miles, all with the pedals just snugged up with a wrench but not very tight, and they have no evidence of any problems.

[Tourista829]

Interesting, I had to laugh, I was testing. It was funny that I was on an electric bike, down in Fort Lauderdale and the bike was their top of the line bike from Germany after such a big build up the pedal fell off.  Thanks for the advice . I will take off the pedals and re grease them.