I am irritated at myself for forgetting my Rule.

"If lacking a special tool means you have to send a bike to the bike shop, always buy the tool and do the job yourself. You may spend a little more, but you'll have the tool, usually it will pay for itself the second time you do the job."

This time I needed to overhaul my bottom bracket, it is an old Stronglight, I don't have the 23.3mm puller, so I took my bike to the shop. It will be $32 to overhaul. Turns out the tool costs $55. So unless I will never need to remove an old Stronglight crank again, I should have bought the tool.

Do you agree with this Rule? Are there cases where you do not? Do some tools not pay for themselves despite a reasonable amount of home use? Facers perhaps?

Tool junkie here,so not qualified to comment. But you also need to factor in the LBS **** up factor.

I'm a tool junkie as well, but you need to ask yourself how many Stronglight BBs you anticipate servicing. If you use it once and then it sits on the shelf there is no economy there. If you do one every few months it might be worth the investment.

EDIT: On the other hand if you kludge something and **** up an irreplaceable part, or hurt yourself you will wish you had invested in the tool.

Do you have enough of a relationship with the shop that you can bring the bike in and ask to borrow their tool on the spot? Or instead of paying $32 for them to do the overhaul, pay them $5 to just pull the cranks?

You could have bought the tool, used it and resold it for a 30% discount, thus costing you 1/2 of the LBS rate.

Kind of like what NJ people will do with their generators when the lights come back on. You can't believe how many generator returns show up at HD and Lowe's after a storm event.

Also, when it comes to power tools, I suggest you pay a little more for the real Professional grade bench and portable tools. They run without burning up and you can drop them and they still work. The only bad thing today is that the battery packs don't last forever on cordless tools and can be costly to replace.

I have a good relationship w/ the shop, they were willing to interrupt their work and pull the cranks for $5, but I didn't want to walk the bike home or risk damaging the cranks by riding them loose. So it seemed most expedient to have them overhaul the BB.

It is not just, or even primarily, the money that bugs me. If I'd bought the tool, I would have another tool, and a chestful of tools is a sort of psychological security blanket for me. And if I'd pulled the BB at home, I'd have inspected the threads, evaluated and treated any rust inside the shell, maybe applied framesaver, put O-rings on the spindle, touched up any paint nicks, etc etc. I'd have done a more complete job than the bike shop's very good mechanics will do, through no fault of theirs.

So, now I am going to buy the damn tool. The worst of all worlds - I pay for the BB overhaul and I buy the tool. But I got a lesson.

Sadly, you are also a tool junkie........................get used to it, 12 step programs don't work.

Fortunately my Park crank tool is the double sided one from days gone by, I should eb set if a Stronglight bike crosses my path.

Have you considered these? https://www.spacycles.co.uk/products....=m2b0s173p1273

I like working on my bikes and value the experience. Even if it costs a bit more, it's worth it to me. Plus I don't have to take the bike to the LBS, explain things to them, be without it, pick it up, and then be disappointed with what they did or didn't do or screwed up. When I do it, I know the quality of work...and what's going to get done about it if it's wrong.

It appears that you have five French bikes, via your signature. I don't think you'll suffer much for forking out the dough for the tool! I'll bet you'll use it a lot...

A man cannot ever have too many tools or books.

I spent 47 years working on office machines, everything from typewriters to med sized computers and everything connected to them. When I went away to school, I always checked the back of the service manual for special tools, and immediately ordered them. I cant tell you how many time over the years I had to go out and help other guys in trouble because they didnt have the right tool.

Bottom line here is the right tool makes the job at hand easier to do. And in some cases impossible to do without them.

if I had foresighta Campagnolo 3380 completetool case
would be in the living room as a coffee table display Case.

But:Have you Priced Frame Tap Cutters for BB's Lately?
for non Frame builders that can deduct the cost,
depreciation schedules..
it is an extravagance..

Bianchi Girl.. NB the other side fits TA, as experience has shown,
but there is a Stronglight Crank that uses a 3rd specification.


But as I work in bike shops often, I just do the personal work off the clock..

wish the drill press was not relegated to the Dank Basement, with the Troglodyte..

The Force is strong with this one.

My sentiments exactly. Plus I am a tool junkie.

Our parallels are eery.

I was kinda ticked when I bought two Phil Wood tools. They weren't cheap when added to the cost of the BB. However, now that I have completed my home shop tool kit, I don't regret getting Phil's stuff. Having a good set of tools grows on you. bk

Yes, I am a tool nut.

The double-ended Park tool is 22.0 x 1.0 on one end and 23.0 x 1.0 on the other for TA cranks, not the 23.35 x 1.0 for Stronglight cranks. It may thread in, but you run a high risk of stripping the threads on the arm because the extractor will only be loosely engaged. From Sutherland's 4th Edition:

I love tools, was a mechanic/service manager for over 20 years but my own bike has never been serviced by anyone but me since 1972. No, I don't agree that rule always holds - there are too many variables/exceptions. If you don't have a back-up bike, wheel, etc, a tool can be purchased immediately, you have the knowledge to do the repair properly, will spend less time to get the tool and fix the bike than to have the shop do it, and you expect to have the opportunity to use the tool in the future, then absolutely you should buy the tool. Changing one or more of the above situations could change the equation toward having the shop do it.

Here's another roundabout solution: Buy a pair of utility cranks, so you can ride to the LBS, have them pull your specialty ones, then you put on the cranks for which you have the appropriate tool, then you can ride home securely with your specialty cranks in your back pocket (and if you're quick enough, and the LBS mech looks away for a second, maybe that 23.3 puller could be in your front pocket...)

$32 at the shop buys you insurance that they won't mess it up, or if they do, they'll make it right. Or at least it should be this way, at better shops.

Other side is that you could buy the $55 tool, mess it up somehow, and they you're out the tool, part, perhaps bike, and time you have into the repair.

/\ +1

I've messed up more than once attempting a repair because it wasn't as easy at it looked. If you buy a fork truing stand or a left-handed Hungarian axle wing extractor there's no guarantee you'll get any good at using them. At least the shop boys and gals get plenty of practice.

I'm the n-th tool junkie in this thread, however, I think I'm also reasonable: I never use components that need nonstandard tools - so I don't use any Campagnolo components, unless they are standards-compliant. For instance, I have a Campagnolo BB, because it's just a normal BSA, square taper BB. The only non-standard component I have ever bought, is a Shimano Octalink BB + crankset. However, I have the Park Tool dual-function crank puller tool - the one that supports both square taper and Octalink axles.

No proprietary component enters our house, ever.

(By the way, I also fabricated some of my own tools.)

To be honest, my experience is that 99% of the LBS workers are more clueless than I am. I've only met two LBS guys in real life, that know a thing or two better than me. The rest are poorly trained monkeys.

To a certain extent I buy the tool. I'll have my local shop face BB's and head tubes that's about it. I cant justify a $300 facing tool for something with marginal benefits. I've had 1 headtube faced in 16 years.

I agree. They usually employ amateur racers that are doing the OJT thing. They do eventually learn the trade, just in time to either be picked up by a pro team or leave the business altogether. I bought a "restored" Torpado from one such person. Now he's working as a grease monkey at a oil change place. I assume that the low pay finally got to him! BTW, the Torpado was essentially a real mess of goofed up parts. The one thing the guy did was to put on quick releases for the center pull Universals. That was a nice touch. Otherwise, I go to the one shop that has "old guys" to work on the things that I can't possibly do myself. I had a fixed cup on a Peugeot that wouldn't come off and needed the threads chased. I refuse to purchase $500 in tools to do a job that will rarely come my way.

How are the cringeworthy mechanics going to get any better if you keep not bringing your bike to the shop...?

The smart mechanics find that they have a low BS tolerance in relation to the hourly rate they are paid and find something else to do, until all you have left are an ever revolving cadre of on the job trainees.

Yet most would begrudge a talented, experienced mechanic the wages they should demand.

After all, why should you pay someone to know what they are doing when you can kludge your own repairs at home...