Fabric CO2/Lever Kit

The CO2/Lever Kit is part of Fabric's new range of tools and accessories to sit alongside the saddles and bar tape the company is better known for. There are some clever design ideas here, as you'd expect from Fabric, but in use it's not quite as good as I'd hoped.

Pair the kit with an inner tube and you're pretty much set up for any puncture fixing shenanigans that may crop up. You have two tyre levers, two gas cartridges with a foam sleeve and an inflator head, plus a couple of silicone straps should you want to attach it all to your seatpost rather than carry it in your pocket/saddle bag.

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The tyre levers are pretty good: a decent size to offer plenty of leverage on stubborn tyre/wheel combinations, and with large hooks on the rear for locating the first one around a spoke while you slide the second around the rim.

They took some abuse and showed no signs of being brittle even when seeing some big loads to remove a tight clincher tyre. The full radius lip hooks easily under the tyre bead without being sharp enough to damage anything. And for easy storage they click together.

The silicone band for the seatpost fits a range of diameters and kept the kit secure on both alloy and shiny carbon seatposts for the majority of the time. Really rough sections of road would see the kit bounce around a bit, but nothing alarming. It didn't leave any marks on the seatpost either.

Compared with the Topeak Airbooster and VEL inflator heads recently tested, the Fabric isn't as easy to use. The VEL and Topeak just push on, with the gas expelling under pressure; release and it stops, with the secure fit allowing for quick one-handed operation. Your other hand can push down the tyre, stopping the valve from pushing away from the inflator.

The Fabric is different, it still pushes onto the valve so you need to apply pressure there to keep it on, but you need to use your other hand to turn the knob that controls the flow rate of the gas. If you are using a tube without a lockring you have to kind of juggle everything to stop the valve disappearing up into the rim, especially if it's a short one because the alloy spacer on the head will bottom out on the wheel. If it becomes detached from the valve you just end up spraying CO2 everywhere other than into the tube.

Saying that, the idea of a control knob is a good one, allowing you to keep the flow rate low to begin with, to make sure the tyre is seated correctly, before giving it the full monty and pumping the tyre up to pressure. If you run your tyres soft and only use half a cartridge, you can close it off, storing the rest of the CO2 for another day so the fabric becomes more cost effective.

The head will only work with threaded cartridges and once screwed into position they don't leak at all, plus they can be used on both Presta and Schrader valve types without changing the head setup at all.

> Check out our guide to the best pumps and CO2 inflators here

A welcome feature is a foam cover for the cartridges. If you've never used CO2 before, you soon realise that if you let the gas out at a rapid pace the cartridge will become very, very cold to the point where it will freeze to your skin – not nice. If, like me, you don't wear mitts when riding, something like the foam cover is essential.

In terms of value, I think £20 is a reasonable ask when taking the kit as a whole. The BTwin we recently tested was only £8 including a cartridge, but the inflator head design here offers a bit more with regards to the control knob. Plus you've got to take into account the levers, straps and a couple of cartridges too.

Overall, I like the idea of the Fabric kit, but with so many out there that are just so much easier to use, I think it could do with some refinement.

Verdict

Some intuitive design ideas but a bit of a clumsy feel