Originally Posted by
dingledangles
Fair enough. I ordered a multi-tool (Alien II, $30), some lube (White Lightening, $8), and degreaser (Finish Line Speed, $11). Can't afford a stand just yet though. If all goes well, the $50 I spent on this stuff will last me several cleaning and lots of repairs as opposed to 50 bucks every few months.
A little late. but here goes:
If you want your money to go as far as possible, treat bicycle-specific maintenance equipment with a high degree of suspicion.
Sure, there are some tools not found outside the bicycle trade, and I may on a good day be persuaded that the load case of a bicycle chain is sufficiently unique to actually merit a custom compound.
But there's no way anyone is going to be able to convince me that bicycle-specific degreaser is going to do a better job than a generic degreaser from the auto parts store.
Stuff like that are often referred to as "boutique" items. When compared with generic mechanical maintenance equipment there's often a considerable markup on them, particularly considering the very vague supporting evidence as to why they would do a better job.
I'd say that it's mainly a comfort thing. If it's bought from a bike store, and it has a pic of a bike on the bottle, it's gotta be the right thing to use on a bike, right? No further evaluation required.
For those with really cramped living conditions there's a small advantage in the container sizes as well. If you pick up bearing lube somewhere else you may get a whopping big can that you'll have to hold on to for years and years. Whereas the bike specific lube may come in something the size/shape of a tootpaste tube, that you're actually able to finish within a foreseeable time.
Multi-tools I think of as a preferable option to cussing, clawing and biting during a roadside repair, but I rarely, if ever, reach for them at home. If nothing else, they're smaller and offers less leverage than the "real" thing.
Can't say anything about your specific item, but the quality isn't always that great. I've watched at least three multi-tools shatter during use.
What I've done for my commuter is assemble a tool kit from the regular hardware shelves instead. I've picked just the tools I need, in a smallish size and that's it. It's not as neat as the multi-tool, but IMO more reliable and more useful.
Given that I had a stash of tools at home to start with, it ended up costing less too. The required Allen keys for instance I just had to dig out of the mixed pile rattling away at the bottom of a toolbox. I think IKEA contributed to some of them...