Unior Pro Home Set - 1600CN Hand Tools

High quality tools like Unior's Pro Home set are a good investment. Buy cheap, buy twice. Worse, you might injure yourself or – heaven forbid – damage your bike if a cheap tool fails mid-job. The tools included in the Unior Pro Home Set are as good as you will find and should cover most jobs on most modern bikes, especially if they are disc brake-equipped. However, if you are looking for a kit to tackle a wide range of bikes and the endless variety of standards they require, you may need to start adding to this set pretty early.

Unior have been making tools at their Slovenian factory for nearly a century. They even make their own steel. All that experience shows in both the quality and the design of this selection, each one of which was a pleasure to use. Although the set includes 18 pieces, this actually amounts to 30 tools, because several have more than one function. Most important are the hex wrenches (a.k.a. Allen keys). These come as two three-way tools and a long 8mm wrench for shifting certain crank bolts and some pedals.

The three-way tools are typical of the design and construction of the tools in this box, being set into a tough, textured plastic-injected handle which is comfortable to use and well-balanced. Compared to individual wrenches they are quick and efficient to use – go round the bike once with the 2, 2.5 and 3mm tool and then again with the 4, 5 and 6mm tool and you will have checked and tightened most of the nuts and bolts on your bike.

There is a down-side, though, and it is a limiting one. On many bikes you will find one or two spots into which you cannot reach because the ends of the hex wrench you are using as the handle will foul against something. The problem is usually the frame or a wheel but I also had difficulties with bottle cages and disc brake mounts. Then there's nothing for it but to reach for another hex wrench and if you have to buy another set of wrenches, well, the value of the Unior kit is diminished.

The tools have been selected with disc-brake equipped bikes in mind. There's a little wheel truing gauge that fits onto your fork or seat stay with a Velcro strap for a little light wheel truing, a boon when there's no longer a brake pad to eyeball the rim against. Also included are a metal pad-spreader and a rotor-truing fork. Neither of these have I ever owned previously, having made do with a plastic wedge and bleed block and a small adjustable spanner respectively. Having said that, the pad-spreader has so far worked well without chipping the brake pad material.

However, I do have to question the inclusion of these nice-to-have-but-not-essential items ahead of what I would consider fairly basic kit such as a pair of needle-nosed pliers, or (for those of us rolling on Shimano hubs) cone spanners.

These choices don't matter too much if you only run one or two bikes and don't need cone spanners, but if, as Unior suggest, you want to use the toolkit in a professional mobile workshop they do become rather limiting. For a few days, I put away my regular, honed-over-years-of-useful-service, toolboxes and set about servicing bikes using the Unior kit only, seeing how far I could get.

The first job was to remove some pedals that required a flat spanner. The long 8mm hex should shift most modern road pedals; others need a long 6mm key but without a good, long pedal wrench some old pedals are never going to come off. My adjustable wrench, pliers and cone wrenches soon joined it on the workbench. A more surprising omission was a T30 Torx spanner, as many more chainrings are now coming with these rather than hex bolts.

While the screwdrivers are very good quality and long enough to reach into awkward corners to adjust mech limiter screws, I still found myself reaching for my favourite little screwdriver ('Old Red', as I never call it) which gives a more direct connection to brake spring tension adjusters and the like. It's also very handy as a general poking, prodding and picking tool.

The 1600CN Pro kit won't help you, either, with press-fit or square-tapered bottom brackets of which many still exist, nor pressfit headsets or old-school freewheels. On the other hand, the Hollowtech II bottom bracket spanner is brilliant, as is the cassette lockring remover. There's a special mention, too, for the cassette holding tool which works far better than a conventional chainwhip (but only for 11 and 12 tooth top sprockets).

All in all, then, take a look at the requirements of your bike and decide whether this kit cuts the mustard for you. If so, it'll be a worthwhile investment but for anyone needing more versatility there may be better choices.

Verdict

Lovely toolkit for the home mechanic, particularly if your bike is disc-equipped; versatility is limited though