We found ourselves sighing over the Birzman tools and finding excuses to pick them up – you know, just to think about what we might do on the bike. The quality is simply superb, right down to the beautifully ergonomic design of the handles, which sit perfectly in your hands and make mechanic-ing a thing of pleasure.
The kit lacks a chainring tool and a Torx wrench set but these are easy to add to the box as it has plenty of space for extras. Its open design isn’t as eye-catching as that of other cases where the tools are neatly laid out for you but it’s more versatile when you want to add more items.
There are some great extras in the form of a hammer and a ratchet spanner that fits the cassette tool, internal bottom bracket tool and 6/8mm Allen keys. It’s a joy to use something this well engineered. But the real genius addition is the clam setup tool for disc brake pads.
The Allen keys are L-shaped but the best of that type we’ve used – long enough to reach into corners and with a ball-end option. Birzman do make T-shaped Allens; we’d strongly consider using this set as a base to build on and then adding them, along with other tools, at a later stage.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.
