Are "Bike Tools" really different from "Tools"?

welcome back to Berm Peak I'm Seth and today we're  going to be doing something a little bit different   but kind of the same I have here  a whole bunch of bike tools and   I have them separated into three categories  right here here to our right are tools that   I'm not even really sure if they're bike tools  you probably have these in your shop I mean a bike   phillips head screwdriver probably doesn't need to  be a bike phillips head screwdriver now over here   to our left we have tools that are clearly bike  tools here's a tire lever and a spoke wrench and a   cassette removal tool you would be hard-pressed to  do your job without these tools now in the center   here we have tools that are sort of in between  could we find a suitable replacement for a cable   housing cutter how about a pedal wrench and yeah  a valve core wrench seems like a bike tool but I   think we can find a replacement for that so today  we're gonna go to the store we're going to see   what type of replacements we can find and we're  going to find out what type of bike tools you   really need and what tools you already have in  your shop you can sort of repurpose for working   on bikes these are cable cutter pliers maybe we  can do housing with these I suppose we could make   a cup press out of this okay so we went to some  stores and found a few tools and I also have some   non-bike tools that we can test out but the first  thing I want to look at are these two needle nose   pliers at first glance they kind of look exactly  the same and actually they cost about the same   these are good needle nose pliers they're made  by channel lock probably last a really long time   but immediately I can see some key differences  between them now aside from them just being kind   of a different size and shape these ones from park  tool actually have crimpers in them for crimping   the little cable ends onto bicycle cables now  could you do that with these by just squeezing   them sure but it's not going to do as good of a  job so a good set of needle nose pliers will have   sharp cutters and you should be able to cut  braided cable yeah these actually do a really   good job of that if you have a set of needle  nose pliers already you probably don't have to   get bike specific ones now I do like how these  are spring loaded it does have the crimpers in   them and it does have a couple of little spaces  in the plier for holding hoses and cables and   things like that they're just optimized for the  bike and because they cost the same if you're   setting up a real bike shop in your garage you  should get these but you really don't need them   now where things get a little trickier is when  you're dealing with cable housing so I got these   cable cutters from the hardware store this  is just the store brand it actually has two   little inserts for different size cable I'm  gonna see how it works on some cable housing now cable cutters are a little bit  different because they work sort of like   a parrot's beak so it shears the cable  and leaves a little bit of a cleaner cut i would say that it was easier to cut with the  bike specific ones there was a little bit more   leverage but the quality of the cut is about the  same these ones are spring-loaded it seems like   all the bike ones are spring-loaded which is kind  of nice when you're doing things quick in the shop   another thing I noticed is just from making that  one cut there's actually damage to the cutter   like these don't even want to open anymore like  I have to kind of like force them open because   they've been damaged so much from cutting  housing on brake housing specifically you   have a solid core here and so if you don't  get cutters that are sufficiently hardened   you're going to end up damaging them on cut number  one and that's not very economical no matter how   cheap they were so the next thing I want to talk  about are wrenches so these here are bike specific   wrenches why can't we just use a normal adjustable  wrench or just open-ended wrench for these things   and the answer is you probably could let's try it  so most pedals these days you can use a hex wrench   for but there are pedals that you need a pedal  wrench for see it's just got an open end right   there place it on the axis of the pedal now can we  use a normal wrench on that here's a 15 millimeter   wrench yeah no problem fits on great now the one  thing I would say is that yes if you have a set   of wrenches like this you're gonna be okay but if  you have a big fat adjustable wrench it's actually   not gonna fit in here it's not narrow enough and  even this wrench when I place it on the pedal   it's all over the rubber seal here it's pushing  into the crank arm it's just not narrow enough to   really get in there now what about spokes do you  need a spoke wrench all a spoke wrench is is just   a little u-shaped thing and it fits around the  spoke here and makes it kind of easy to turn but   why can't we just take an adjustable wrench close  it down really really small we can turn a spoke   with that right and indeed yeah we absolutely  can see the problem is you're only gonna be able   to turn it maybe a half turn at a time with this  much smaller easier to get in there you can really   make it spin around and get the spoke on a lot  quicker and so given what a set of spoke wrenches   cost I don't know if it's worth trying to use an  adjustable wrench it's just a lot more difficult   and you do run the risk of damaging your spoke  nipples nobody likes a damaged nipple now here   we have something that's very familiar to anybody  with a mountain bike and that is a valve core now   sometimes valve cores get damaged because a rock  hits into it you don't have a cap on it good thing   about valve cores is they're really inexpensive  and easy to change and you can see on the valve   core right here there's a little flat spot and  you can get a valve core wrench and take that   off very easy you just put it on there and you  just turn it and it's it's extraordinarily easy   to get in and out now can we turn this without a  valve core wrench absolutely and yeah I suppose   we could just use our little adjustable wrench  get it on that flat spot there and crank it down   it's just one little turn you got to do you  don't need to buy a dedicated valve core wrench   I think it's nice to have but I'm not going  to tell you you need to run out and buy one   so I wanted to bring up something chain tools  now almost every bike multi-tool has a chain tool   and even the ones that are like 15 20 bucks but  having a dedicated chain tool is really nice it's   much easier to use has a lot of leverage but these  days do you really need a chain tool really all we   would need to do with let's say a chain like this  is shorten it to size to fit the bike okay so this   is me trying to use non-bike tools to get this to  size and you use this set of little bolt cutters   should cut through this solid metal pretty  easy cut one side there the other side there   so the chain's the right size now but we have all  this extra stuff on it so we got to try and rip   that off so let's grab the needle nose pliers okay  I'm unable to get that off let's see if we can   use these little nippers to get in there and and  kind of pry it out no okay so i've got a general   purpose hammer and i've got a punch and let's see  what happens if we hit this pin here with a punch uh yeah it was kind of counterproductive all right  let's move up to the vice here get it on there and mission success we got the chain apart  now we'll put it the rest of the way on   the bike first we're gonna put the  chain on and to put the chain on   you don't need any tool whatsoever master  links can be installed by hand you put   the chain together and then you apply outward  pressure to put it on and then we just go boop okay so if we just go like this knocks our master  link in place and so now our chain is installed   and we didn't use any sort of specialty  tools and it was super easy right   yeah now let's say we want to get this chain  apart i've heard people say that they can get   master links apart with their fingers but you  can't you need master link pliers it's just a   set of pliers that has this nice little shape in  here goes in here you squeeze it and it pops your   master link out now actually master link pliers  can put the chain back together as well so here   you can see there's these little indentations in  the outside of the plier and you can pull outwards   and it'll actually pop the master link together  as well but do you need them can we just take   a normal set of needle nose pliers get them  up in there and pop the chain apart you see   if we put them in here the actual tips of the  pliers are too fat to get to the narrow link   maybe we can grab it here and push here now it's  pretty tricky now there is a hack to get your   master link apart if you don't have master  link pliers and it's with a shoe lace we'll   feed our shoelace through there get it around  to the other side we can take this shoelace and indeed it snapped the master link off I  like having master link pliers because I work   on bikes a lot but you can do it without it so  here's an interesting one a shock pump this is   for your front suspension your rear suspension  now the thing with the shock pump on a bicycle   is that it pumps a tiny tiny tiny bit at a  time because you want to get to a very precise   pressure and if you want to let some out it's  got this little bleed valve and it lets little   tiny bits of air out every time you push it so  let's see if we can use a normal like a electric   air pump to pump up our shock to 80 psi exactly  so let's see what happens when we connect this   okay so we're going to set this pump to 80  psi okay so shock pumps don't take very much   air and so this should happen very quickly  let's try it I'm going to press the button it went a little bit over it just happens  really quickly so it says 81 psi is in it   let's take off this tube and see how much air  escapes let's hook up the real shock pump and   let's see what pressure it's at yeah looks like  it's at exactly 80 psi so yeah I'm actually   pretty amazed at how well this works as a shock  pump now if you get down to this next fine point   I should hope you've started to accumulate some  bike tools now for headset bearings some bottom   bracket cups this is park tools press and it  appears to be a threaded rod with some handles   on the end and a couple of washers and so from  the hardware store I purchased a threaded rod   two washers one big nut and one small nut  over here didn't really cost us much while   this actually probably cost a fair bit so let's  say something quick and dirty like a headset cup   on an older bike you put the washer in here put  the headset cup down in here this would go on   top of the bike then you would just tighten this  nut to clamp everything together but you can see   the problem here the washers we have they're too  small it would actually go into the headset cup   and scratch it now you could find a bigger washer  but I have a fairly nice hardware store with a   pretty big selection and I couldn't find any  washers with bigger flanges than this now the   purpose made one has purpose-made washers not only  are they big enough to fit around the headset cup   but they're also nice and smooth these galvanized  washers are gonna leave all sorts of imprints in   this cup and probably damage it so I think that  cup presses are one of those situations where   coming up with a replacement is not really  worth it unless you have a machine shop and   you can kind of put something nicer together  so next let's talk about bottom bracket tools   so bottom brackets come in a lot of different  sizes and on newer bottom brackets there are   these little indentations that these tools fit  into perfectly so you can change out your bearings so the question is why can't you just grab this  with a channel lock as you know these fit any   part in the known universe you can use these  to just take anything apart with high precision   let's see what happens if we carefully  gingerly do it with this channel locking   oh what was that so that actually started eating  away at some of the aluminum right here so put a   big scratch in the bottom bracket cup still spins  smoothly I think I'm better off not using the rag   so I can at least see what's going on we'll just  concede that there are going to be some little   marks in this when we're done and okay it works  now the real problem with this is this is very   thin metal the shell that's around here and so  when you're squeezing it in two spots right here   you do run the risk of denting it inwards and  making it so that the bearings just don't work   at all I mean this wouldn't even spin that's why  it has these little dimples in it so that it can   be grabbed from all the way around and equal  pressure is put on the bearing cup but we were   able to squeak by in this situation will you well  I don't know is it worth trying it yourself that's   that's a decision you have to make so screw  drivers hex wrenches box wrenches for sure if you   already have tools you can use those in your bike  you don't have to go out and buy anything new but   if you're getting deep into bike repair like we  do on our flip bike series you're probably going   to need to pick up some specialty tools the good  thing about tools is if you get a good one it'll   last the rest of your life for instance this is  probably the best cassette tool you can get and   it's like nine dollars and you'll never have  to like jam needle nose pliers into the little   cap at the end I vote for making your life easier  and buying a few bike tools but hey you be the   judge we just demonstrated them today so as you  can see I'm wearing the new flip bike shirt it's   got the new flip bike logo and a whole bunch  of bike parts and so you're signaling to people   that you're into bikes good conversation starter  if you want it we have it in several different   colors it's on cognitivemtb.com left a link below  I hope you learned something today and if not I   hope you were at least entertained thanks for  riding with me today and i'll see you next time

Channel: Berm Peak Express

Views: 710,020

Keywords: do it yourself, diy, tools, home, mountain biking, cycling, outdoors, bike tools, bike repair, bicycle repair

Id: HRwA5uVYlGc

Length: 15min 15sec (915 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 20 2022