THE DAYS of bodged roadside repairs might be on the wane thanks to ever more reliable bikes and the prevalence of impossible-to-fix electronics but there’s still plenty of reason to carry a basic toolkit.
Being left stranded is a pain at the best of times, but knowing that you could get yourself going again if only you had the right tool makes it a dozen times worse.
The problem is that there’s so little space under the seat of the average bike that you’re going to have to be picky when it comes to selecting the tools to take with you. These are the essentials that we’d recommend.
If you’ve got other ideas for must-have tools worthy of that precious under-seat real estate, please let us know in the comments.
10. Pliers
A pair of pliers can be an invaluable resource and if you’ve got space it’s definitely worth including some. The choice of needle-nose or standard is down to you – each has potential advantages. One interesting alternative is a set of mole grips, which you can use as normal pliers in a pinch (pun intended) or as a clamp, perhaps to hold broken components together for some MacGyver-level bodging.
