You are seriously remiss if you don't have one of these 3 arm 4/5/6 Allen key wrenches. I have used mine since 22 years ago when I got a modern bike, these things take massive torque. Good for both threaded and not stems, brakes of all kinds, racks, some new pedals, seat bolts.
I carry more stuff than anybody. LOL. So lots of redundancy.
7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 1/2"/ 9/16", 15 mm or 6" crescent for my CCM, metal tire priers, tube, individual Allen keys too.
Tour bike has every tool I ever need. Easily 5 lbs.
Those looped together Allen key multi tools are useless.

Like this one, but get a better one. >> https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ventura-T...-6-mm/13012559
The Park tool one has a too bulky center.

...I used to catch my own smelts, but in recent times I have outsourced this labor. I am profoundly shamed.

And if you don't have a lot of experience with torx fasteners, be aware that it is surprisingly easy ( cf. socket head cap screws a.k.a. allen screws ) to inadvertently select the size of torx bit that is one size undersize. It feels quite snug.........until you try the next size up and it fits...

Always try the next size up, just in case.

Your bike list says MTB and gravel. Do you only do those activities near home? My MTB/gravel (yes, they are both the same) takes me miles and miles away from home. I live in a major metro area but I can draw a circle of 60 miles radius and there will be dozens of spots where a phone call isn’t possible…no cell service. If I expand the circle to 200 miles there are thousands of places where there is no cell service as well as places no “taxi” is going to come to. The map I posted covers 42 miles and, except for some areas on either end (about 5 miles each) it is a dead zone. The route is one of the toughest 4x4 drives in Colorado as well. Even 4x4 trucks find it a difficult route.

And that’s not a unique situation in Colorado….mountains or plains. If something breaks out there, I have to fix it or figure out how to get myself out of the situation. A credit card is useless. I don’t carry roughly 5 lbs of tools for fun. I carry them so that I can self extract if needed.

Y-wrenches work okay in a shop but they are seriously limited even there. The Fix-it-Sticks I linked to above make up a T-handle wrench that fits more bolts more easily on the bike. They have two different styles with either permanently bonded bits or magnetically held bits. I use the magnetically held bits and have a good select of bits that fit the bolts on my bike.

There is zero chance I would use magnetic bits in a ditch somewhere. They do not stay in place and easily disappear. . They stick in the screw almost every time.
I did use them OK in my cabinetmaking job.
The shaft nub is 1/2", seriously negating tight spot use.

Yep. I put the bike on the stand and went through from front to back, writing down every fastener/adjustment and finding a tool that would reach/fit/be effective. I evaluated the likelihood of a problem with each fastener/adjustment. After this exercise, the commercial multitool was replaced with an optimized collection of discrete tools, not so much to save weight but to make sure I could get 'er done.

Since my bike needs an exact length of chain, I carry some spare links in the tool kit, too.

That's a good way to approach it.

My experience has been the tools I carry often aren't used to persuade my own bike to start working again, but instead are needed for a friend's bike, or a new rider in the group, or someone along the road or path adjacent to a 10-7 bike who asks, "Hey, do you have a _______ with you?"* So the kit is slightly more expansive.

*If the question includes the terms "frame straightening tool", "dropout alignment tools," or "arc welder", then I have no shame in saying "Sorry, not with me."

Well I’m not in the habit of using tools of any kind in a ditch. But most of the magnetic bit holders I’ve used have strong enough magnets that they don’t fall out. It could be better magnets are used in high quality tools.

As for the width of the shaft nub, it’s a bit narrower than 1/2” and certainly not much wider than a Y-wrench and certainly fits in tight spaces better than the Y-wrench does.

I have a unknown brand bike multotool in my rando bike toolkit. It has a chain tool, allens, a couple box-ends, spoke wrench. I've used most of it over the years, and while not as user friendly as shop tools it got the job done. Supplanted with tire levers, patch kit, 4oz sealant, tubeless plug tool with in-built presta tool. Finally a tiny non bike multitool with blade and needle nose pliers. The latter for extracting sharp bits embedded in a tire. I've used this kit to fix stuff in very remote situations. Patience and persistence are also critical tools.

OTOH, my fixed gear commuter kit consists of tire levers, tube, allen and CO2. Walkable shoes take care of the rest.

There is a risk of bit loss in field use, but fortunately quality bits aren't too expensive. Not much problem at all with bit retention in a good ratchet handle. Thinking back, I've actually lost more handles than bits. And painting them fluorescent orange helps a "bit", although heavy use results in not a lot of orange remaining, but a small spot goes a long way in terms of conspicuity. And the larger sizes are lighter than the corresponding wrench.

As for tight spots, I find the ratchet/bit combo to be superior in some cases to a standard wrench (see photo).


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8b943d460.jpeg


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...0ef4994bc.jpeg

The rage of set ups posted vary from bike packing to a trip to Starbucks. On my fat bike I rarely ride where a phone call will save me. But on my road bike it is quite the opposite. The road bike I have two hex keys, a computer screw driver, patch kit, tire levers and CO2. The fat bike I carry a full kit plus things to deal with cactus quills. A fork for flicking off cholla and pliers for pulling larger quills are in the kit. Full times when a cholla pear gets picked up by the rear tire then comes around to attach to my calf.

Most of my bikes I use a Crank Brothers M10 with no need for a different tool really. Sure would I love to redesign it a bit, yes absolutely but for most things it does the job if needed.

My new toolkit for my main commuter was custom built using bits I might need at some point mostly odd stuff I wouldn't find in a normal multitool and most of the actual multi tools that did bits weren't quite what I wanted.

Snap-On 1/4 Mini Bit Ratchet, PB-Swiss and Wera bits, Magnetic 3D printed bit holder from Reitz Industries and a Muc-Off Rainproof essentials bag. Along with a few other things in it.

ooh. want that.

i don't understand. what do you do with the ferret, if you don't mind me asking?

I cycle all over the place, miles from home, the car or civilisation, often where there's no phone signal. If I hit something irrepairable, then I'm looking at a walk of $x miles back to the car or $y miles until I encounter a phone, where $y is likely to be less than $x. Whether it's because I get reception, or pass somewhere with a landline, or flag down a passing car or whatever.

In that case, my 5g credit card and 1g $20 bill will get me whatever I need at the time (taxi, food, spare parts if I'm incredibly lucky).

I limped about 12 miles back to the car after an my knees gave up on me during a ride in the summer, and had I had the chance to phone for help I'd have taken it but phone signal is terrible once you leave towns here.

Absolutely, I always ride with tools to handle the common stuff, a credit card and a £20 bill. If nothing else the credit card will get me a cake at a cafe stop.

I am in the habit of riding all over the US far from Colorado. Who am I going to call if I need someone to pick me up? I can’t call my wife or my children if they are 2000 miles away. I have no family or friends close by. Being able to fix my own bike sufficiently to keep me moving down the road is an important skill I have honed over decades. Failures of a kind that would keep me from riding have been few and very far between but I’m still ready if something happens that needs to be fixed or needs to be MacGyvered to get me to where I can work on my own bike.

If I’m in the backcountry, I make sure that not only do I have the tools to fix any reasonable problem but I also have survival gear.

I don’t go without riding without a credit card or phone but I’m realistic about the need for other tools for those not infrequent times when there is no “taxi, food, [and] spare parts” even remotely available.

I find it a little hard to believe that you would walk 12 miles with bad knees when riding a bike is far easier on knees than walking, in my experience. At the very least, you can coast down a hill without pedaling which is way easier on the knees than walking down that same hill is.

For 95% of my long and short rides my standard carry is a PB Swiss tool. It has a "full" sized Allen key with an adaptor that the other tips plug into, plus usable tire levers. The tool is exceptional quality for what is essentially a real tool not a "multi-tool". I'm not dissing multi-tools, I have a few of them and like a couple. It's just that the PB Swiss is so good that it works like a full-sized tool. The PB Swiss hex bits don't round-out hex bolts like other lesser quality tools can. The only downside is they aren't cheap, but you get what you pay for.

An added benefit is that you can order separate bits from PB Swiss to tailor to your specific bike. The bits are around $3.00 bucks a pop though.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1864794a2d.jpg

There are large parts of the US where there are neither taxis or phone service

got two of them like them a lot. kind of spendy but its good to have full size wrenches instead of the stubby ones on multi tools.

Roughly, do the weigh more, the same or less than a standard multi-tool?

PB Swiss publish 91g weight, so roughly the same as a standard multitool, though they typically don’t include tire levers.

That looks nice…But if a person also wants a chain tool, then a full-size conventional multitool will end up weighing about the same.

Koyote, true, but how often do you actually use a chain tool on the road? I've been riding for 50 years and can't think of one time I broke or twisted a chain where I required a chain tool. Having said that, I might break one on the next ride ;-) I do carry one on long rides though, you know, just because...

However, how often do you use hex bits, Torx, Philips and tire levers? For me, it's about half of my on-ride repairs or adjustments. The other half is changing tires for a tube repair. That's why I opt for professional quality (and fitting) tool and bits. That's what PB Swiss is.

The only other tool I carry in my under-saddle bag is a Park spoke wrench. Those tools, two tubes and a Park patch kit is my standard carry and it all fits into a sweet Silca Mattone bag. I'll gladly sacrifice a few extra ounces to have a good quality tool that I know won't round-off a fastener. I can't say that about most of my multi-tools, and I have a few really good ones but their hex bits don't fit tightly like the PB Swiss does.

FWIW, I only carry a single Allen wrench, tire levers, tube and patch kit on my fixed and single speed bikes.

As a side note, a number of years ago I bought a set of the PB Swiss Allen wrenches. Oh man, I got spoiled. Once you use a PB Swiss even a Bondhus doesn't quite compare.

I hear you. I've never needed my chain tool. But I still feel a need to carry one. As soon as I eliminate it from my kit, I'll break my chain.

Ditto.

My legs were cramping up every time I hit the slightest difficulty, so I'd cycle for a while then get off to walk up the hills, then back on the bike and so on. In terms of time it was probably a 50/50 split of walking/cycling.

I've been carrying this Topeak multi-tool since the mid 2000s.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3881b71b0.jpeg


It's very compact, and there are no pointy bits that could puncture a spare tube. The rotating head means it can be used as a screwdriver or a wrench.

It was discontinued years ago, as all great products are. if I had to replace it, I'd probably get the Ratchet Rocket Lite DX:


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ae4b43fd9d.png

The ratchet is overkill for roadside repairs, but the ratchet handle can be used as a screwdriver. Still, quite a bit bulkier.