Things have changed a little since I originally wrote up my full size tool kit in late 2020, and my minimalist tool kit a couple weeks later. The changes are not big but when you are talking about risking your ride turning into a walk – especially in rough, remote terrain – its worth bringing up the things I have changed.
The Core Kit Items
Unless noted otherwise, the changes here are the same for both my full and minimalist kits. Lets run down the main players on the small kit first, so you don’t have to go and refer to another article to get the complete contents.
The Patch Kit
As I noted in 2020, Rema Tip Top cold-vulcanizing patches have been the gold standard for decades. And that is before I started using them in the 1970’s. They are essentially unchanged today. If you just want to buy what you need, then the Rema Large Touring Kit is the way to go. At present its a whopping US$7.15. However, I do it a little differently. I take an empty Costco pill bottle with its locking lid, and then I add a slew of my own patches, along with a snip of special sandpaper and a much larger tube of cold-vulcanizing goo. This gives me a more capable patch kit in a better, stronger container. It is not the no-brainer that just buying the pre-made kit is, though.
Spare Inner Tube(s)
If you can find the room, carry them. Patching a holey tube should be your first try at a repair, but its entirely possible you will hit something that will effectively destroy the tube. My last flat was exactly this – loaded coming back from the grocery store, at night and in freezing weather. I had everything but a spare tube on hand and, faced with a very large tear, in the end I had to call a friend to go buy a ‘good enough’ tube at the local Wal Mart and bring it to me. Half-measures always end up biting me so I am carrying tubes again.
The Tire Levers
As was true in 2020 so it stays true now: After trying many alternatives, the Park TL-6.2 tire levers are the ticket. You can see them rubber-banded to a patch kit bottle above. They’re superior because they are metal, with a sturdy-enough-to-withstand-use plastic coating.
A Tire Patch
The Park TB-2 Tire Boot remains the standard and one is always found in my patch kit just in case. This is just a great big gooey patch meant to be applied to the tire and not the tube. You use one of these if you have some kind of major slit in the tire casing that gives it the tire equivalent of a hernia.
Hex Wrenches
A stubby set made by Bondhus metric wrenches is in most of my kits (some of the bigger ones get a long set). These are made of high quality tool steel and inexpensive. You don’t need a whole set so if you want to shave weight or save space, you can buy these individually or just buy a set and include only what you need. However an extra piece of steel can be a handy pry bar. You never know…
A Pocket Knife
A pocket knife is one of those just-in-case items that has no specific job, but can come in REAL handy in so many ways. A Kershaw Shuffle is a good quality, inexpensive folder that incorporates flat and Phillips screwdriver bits. A.G. Russell’s Featherlite One Hand Knife is lightweight and handy for only about US$35, and their ‘Simple 3″ Lockback‘ is a bit less than half that price. Or how about a Slidewinder for ten bucks? Substitute in a multi tool for greater functionality (I saw a Leatherman Bolster on sale in a local Costco recently for only $39.95), but that is expensive and could make your tool bag a bit crowded.
Needlenose Pliers
I carry these outside my toolkit, usually somewhere I can grab quickly. The idea is if you hear that awful hiss-hiss-hiss sound as your tire rotates around a nail or similar, you stop the bike, jump off, grab the pliers which are in a quick-grab place and pull out the offending nail. Speed counts on this particularly if you have tire sealant like FlatOut waiting to do its job once the nail is removed and you spin the tire.
Its entirely possible the needlenose pliers can be done without depending on how you feel about the first item on my New Stuff list below.
New Stuff
Knipex Wrench/Pliers
7 1/4″ (180mm) size is my favorite for a bike tool pouch, although I also have the two smaller sizes (150mm and 125mm). The 180’s are ideal in my opinion. Small enough to use on a rack bolt, big enough to use on a pedal, or even an axle bolt.
These tools are spoken of in hushed tones by the folks who have been turned onto them, and I’m no exception. Think of them as a kind of super Channel Lock style of pliers, except they are optimized so you have much finer graduations in your ‘channel’ widths, the jaws always stay perfectly parallel and you can really clamp the bejesus out of these things, so much so they can be used like an adjustable, open ended crescent wrench. A 10″ / 250mm set lives permanently in my car and is great for bolting stuff like trailer hitch bits down tight.
This tool takes up the same space as the former adjustable crescent wrench and is more usable since it is a pair of strong pliers as much as it is a wrench.
Be warned, though. The little buggers are freaking expensive. But if you are a tool geek, you’ll love them.
A T25 Torx Wrench
Over time, the T25 Torx wrench has gone from something only Magura used on their brakes to a sort of alternate standard among manufacturers. Particularly when it comes to brake rotor bolts.
As much as I hate to admit it, the T25 is a better tool socket than a simple hex. Formerly only kept in my bigger tool kits, Since my Squeezy seatpost clamp also uses a T25 on my Apostate I’m officially carrying one in even my minimalist kits.
Battery Powered Pump
A couple of years ago I began championing the use of a portable air compressor that could be slightly modified to run off your existing ebike battery. I still have 4 or 5 of them, and I have never had one fail. However after reading some success stories, and my own research, I’m ready to say I have found a couple of models that are worth relying on.
About a year ago I started doing remote beach runs where there is no land access for miles along the route. You either climb up the beach cliffs and leave your bike, you go swimming, you turn back or you reach your destination. No one’s coming to get you because nobody is out there and your cell phone doesn’t work. Since my ride to the jumping off point was a few miles of paved shared-use path, followed by a bunch of deep sand and then more pavement home, I found I now needed a pump that could be used routinely and regularly rather than emergency-only. So I started looking at pumps and their reviews.
I found out pretty quick that many pumps advertise long life but when you dig into exactly what battery is inside, you find there’s not much there under the hood. Maybe 800 mah. For a pump that has to inflate two *fat* tires at least once and probably twice during the ride, AND have enough left over in case of emergency, I wanted some serious juice in the battery pack.
I decided to try out the CycPlus A8 pump, which had good reviews and published their battery spec. Not 500 or 800 mAh. 2500 mAh. Thats the biggest I could find in this class of small portable pump. What remained unanswered was whether the pump was reliable and whether or not – like lumens on headlights – the claimed battery capacity was remotely believable.
After a lot of use without any failures, I can say it has proven to be reliable. I literally can’t run the battery down in use on a given bike trip. The same has proven true with its companion model, the cheaper, lighter A7 model that trades the alloy pump casing for plastic.
The A7 is also narrower and longer. When I needed a pump for The Apostate, I wanted it to fit in my handlebar bag. I found I had to go with the A8. The A7 was too long to fit in my chosen handlebar bag. Not the biggest deal in the world. The A8 fits perfectly and the weight on the bars is not noticeable.
A7 on the left, A8 on the right. Comparative sizes are not quite to scale. Pic on the right is a little smaller than in reality compared to the A7.
Hockey Pucks
Most useful if you have a two-legged center-mount kickstand. A couple of regulation hockey pucks underneath your kickstand effectively puts the bike up in the air for service on either wheel. Ridiculously handy. Also if you are parking your fat bike on sand, the enlarged puck under your single kickstand leg can mean the difference between the bike staying up or sinking. Call this an optional item but if you can spare the space one or two pucks can be a huge convenience.
Gone But Not Forgotten
This is what was once in the toolkit but is now gone/replaced.
Wrenches
The Knipex pliers take the place of the adjustable crescent wrench.
CO2
Now that I have an on-demand air compressor, I can kiss goodbye this ancient, single-use technology. That means no more cartridges stashed everywhere I can find a place to fit another one, and no more cartridge head
Manual Backup Pump?
I’ve worked with the battery powered pumps listed above enough to oftentimes cut the umbilical cord to my backup hand pumps… but if I can carry one without too much difficulty I will. This is one habit that is very hard to break for someone like me who is so invested in having redundant backups.
Needlenose pliers?
I think the Knipex will also do this job, but my US$9 needlenose pliers are often out in the open in a MOLLE slot outside one of my packs. I don’t know for sure if I want to hang a US$60 set of fancy German workmanship out in the same way. So long as I have the space I’ll keep the needlenose’s on the payroll. But really if we’re being a weight weenie, I can find a way to safely secure the Knipex’ and get rid of the pliers. Or attach a multi-tool to the exterior of a bag perhaps and make my emergency tire pliers handy thataway.
Well thats pretty much it for the tool kit. Not the most exciting topic… until something breaks and you’re sitting on a rock trying to fix it.
Ride on…
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