Camilo

My favorite tool is the one that I remember where I put it down.

GamblerGORD53

I've found half a set on the highway, one at a time. I quit picking them up. LOL.

Schweinhund

So when I use an impact wrench to take a freewheel off I take it you'd disapprove? Maybe not, it can be the correct tool sometimes..

RubeRad

I've heard a mindfulness tip, that you should take a tick to look at things whenever you put them down, and it will help you remember where you put them. I'm not good at it though. When I get going on a bike project, there's tools flyin all over the damn place (and still I progress at 1/10th the speed of a professional)

Just think how amazing it would be to work on a bike with an assistant whose only job was to hand you tools, like a surgical nurse!

cyccommute 

After many years of being mother at my local co-op and many decades of doing the same in at my work in a laboratory, I always put the tool back where I took it from after I use it. Far too many people think that “put down” means the same as “put away”. It’s a minor inconvenience when it is a tool but a major hazard when it’s a deadly chemical.

RubeRad

Yeah, if the stakes were higher (like if I was in a co-op where others would also bear the consequences of my disorganization), that would help me remember to be more organized.

smd4

If you had ever used a bike stand, you would want one.

RubeRad

Stands are nice for a lot of things, but to put wheels into (vertical) dropouts, gravity-assist is more useful, and high-torque wrenching (like BB stuff) requires at least some of the bike to be against the ground.

HillRider

No it isn't. It allows fine adjustment of the cable tension and minimizes the need for the cable adjustment barrels on the frame or derailleurs. Most brakes need no tools to hold the cable tension.

smd4

None of that is true.

smd4

You most definitely don’t need “fine adjustment” to tension derailleur cables. You do need such precision, however, when adjusting brake cables.

Eric F 

Funny that you say there is no application, and also give an example of one. I have pliers in my bike tool box because I find need for them on my bikes often enough to keep them close by. A recent one was loosening a stuck valve stem nut on a tubeless wheel.

smd4

My example doesn’t involve the use of pliers as a substitute for the proper tool. Yes, funny.

Eric F 

My favorite tool is a mid-size, mediocre-quality phillips screwdriver that I've had for about 40 years (I probably got it from my dad). It doesn't get a lot of use on current bicycles, but it's been part of multiple toolboxes supporting my different hobbies over the years. To anyone else, it's significantly unremarkable. To me, it's significantly sentimental.

I also enjoy the satisfying click of my torque wrench.

RubeRad

So you put wheels into forks while up in the air? Pulling the wheel up into the dropouts with one hand while screwing in the quick-release lever with your other hand (and holding the backside of the quick-release still with your third hand)?

smd4

Of course I do. You make it sound impossible.

Eric F 

Hold the wheel by the hub, not the rim, and it's pretty easy without needing to grow a 3rd arm. With a disc brake wheel, once you get the thru-axle into the hole, the rest is easy.

smd4

Exactly. Hold using the axle or quick release.

RubeRad

? That's some pretty amazing grip strength to be able to hold the quick release and force the opposite end of the axle up against the fork! I prefer gravity assist of letting the fork just rest on the axle

smd4

You’re kidding, right? Or is it that you just don’t know how to install a wheel on a bike that’s in a stand? I assure you, it’s done tens of thousands of times a day in bike shops all over the world.

veganbikes

RubeRad I gotta agree with smd4 on this one people do it all the time. It is more of a pain to bend over and install a wheel than just doing in the stand. There are occasions when I do let it go to the ground if there is an issue or if the wheel is truly super heavy like on some of the cheap online fat e-bikes but that is not often.

smd4

You can even do it with the rear wheel, with the added complication from the chain and rear derailleur!

I know….mind—> blown!

RubeRad

I'm not kidding, I can't imagine what the hand positions would be to make that work, such that you don't need to reopen and reclose the QR once it's back on the ground to let the axle slam home

smd4

And I can't imagine why this operation is so difficult for you to grasp.

If the bike is in the stand and the wheel is off the front fork, with the QR installed, I simply grasp the QR nut in my left hand, the QR lever in my right hand, face the fork and guide the tire past the brake calipers and insert the axles into the dropouts. The axle doesn't need to "slam home;" it's easy to position each end all the way in the dropouts when the bike is on the stand. Then I close the lever. If the lever is too tight or too loose, I can adjust the nut with my left hand. Seriously, this is one of the easiest things you can do and is one of the things that makes owning a stand so nice.

My front wheel weighs 2.36 pounds, so not much strength is needed. It's far more difficult and cumbersome to hold a bike by the stem on the ground while trying to line up the axle with the dropouts by grasping the tire/rim.

RubeRad

Oh, two hands on two sides of the QR, I never thought of that. That seems to me like pushing up with two hands on the fork would lift the bike, I guess my stand is not strong enough to hold still, I was picturing using a hand to hold the bike down