Peer behind the service counter at most bike shops and you’ll see a Park Tool workstand. There’ll be a waist-level tool tray on the stand, and unless it’s already in the hands of a mechanic, the triangle-shaped AWS-1, which features a 4-, 5- and 6mm hex wrench, will likely be one of a handful of tools resting in the tray.<\/p>\n
While many general tools are too general, this one is specific and functional enough for excellence. It’s useful enough to be taken for granted, one of my hallmarks for a real Cool Tool. So many maintenance and repair jobs on bicycles involve these three hex wrench sizes that it’s easily the most used tool in the shop.<\/p>\n
Details that make this tool great include a grip-friendly ball in the center (I own an older version without the ball, and it’s not as comfortable to hold and also provides less leverage) and color-coded rings at the base of each wrench, so the user can quickly choose the correct size.<\/p>\n
I still use my Craftsman T-wrenches when I need a hex with more leverage, and particularly on an 8mm crank bolt, which the AWS-1 doesn’t cover. I also use a great set of Pedro’s L-wrenches with a ball end on one side for offset access. But the convenient Park Tool AWS-1 is so much my mainstay that it doesn’t ever get put away. The company’s website also hosts an array of helpful repair how-tos<\/a>.<\/p>\n Handiest bike tool<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[85],"tags":[1350],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3756"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9265,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3756\/revisions\/9265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}