These colourful spanners from Draper recently landed at BikeRadar HQ and I almost instantly forgot about the 15mm Runwell spanner that I fell in love with only mere weeks ago.
The memorably named ‘Draper Expert Hi-torq Metric coloured combination spanner set (23017)’ covers sizes 6-through-19mm and forms part of Draper’s ‘Expert’ range — these are tools that are “Made For The Trade, with the quality and features to meet and exceed the expectations of the most demanding professional user.” In other words, they’re more than suitable for the occasional bike-workshop fettlers of this world.
The coloured spanners have a lovely smooth finish and feel very high quality in the hand — while that might sound ridiculous, if you’ve fondled cheap and nasty spanners before, you’ll know what I mean.
The acrylic resin 'plating' feels pretty hardy and the spanners are yet to show a mark — despite plenty of handling and clanking about by the BikeRadar team.
Sizes are engraved onto either end of each spanner, making identification easy. If you’re one who thinks more visually, you may also find that in time you begin to remember the sizes by colour — our video producer Ben Healy has certainly found this to be the case with his similarly technicolour Wera hex keys.
All else aside, the spanners are just lovely things to behold — I now want for nothing more than a shadow board or a tool roll that I can pridefully display them on.
I know you’re all dying to know, but no, I’m not sure what my favourite colour is — I’m torn between the goth-black 19mm and the handsome turquoise 10mm, but I promise I’ll love all of them equally.
The spanners are priced at a very reasonable £49.92 / $73 and are available from DraperTools.com.
If you’re looking for a gift for the workshop-savvy cyclist in your life, I reckon this will be a very well received option.
Other colourful Draper tools
Draper also produces a range of sockets, torx keys and screwdriver bits to match the spanners and oh god we want all of it.
Sating my new found lust for colourful tools for the time being, Draper also sent through a set of hex keys to match the spanners. These are going to be part of an upcoming update to our legendary Allen keys test in the new year, so keep your eyes peeled!
