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Bike Perfect

Lifestyle

Guy Kesteven

Feedback Sports Team Edition Tool Kit review – a bike fettler's delight

GuyKesTV Shimano

Feedback Sports are famous for their excellent workstands and bike stands but they also do an increasing range of neatly designed workshop tools. The Feedback Sports Team Edition Tool Kit adds these to their own versions of essential servicing equipment – including some nice niche items – and puts them in a tough, easy to use but compact, workshop syncing TPU ‘book’.

The book style case makes storage easier than a hard case, it's handier to use when open too (Image credit: GuyKesTV)

Design and specification

Starting with the book design, it’s a winner straight away compared to hard plastic cases in terms of space efficiency. The elastic loop mounts are easier to use than a press fit plastic tray and it means you can move the tools around to suit your own preferences. There’s even a drop down flap with some spare loop sections to let you add extra tools.

The TPU construction is tough and easily washable with a satisfyingly chunky zip but with no hard corners or sharp bits to mark stuff it shares storage with. Feedback Sports also provide a short two-piece shock corded ‘tent pole’ that you can slot across the top to keep the book open and hang it from a workstand via the fast lock handle and two shaft straps. There is a bit of a transition going on at the moment though as kits currently on sale need a longer strap kit to fit the oversized pipes of Feedback’s latest Pro Mechanic HD workstand, but you’ll get compatible straps going forward. The kit I’ve been using since spring also gets the older disc rotor straightener and chain tool which don’t have the latest ‘eco plastic’ upgrades, so double check exactly which version you’re buying if that matters to you.

There are loads of really well designed tools in the kit but the locking cassette pliers are a particular pleasure to use (Image credit: GuyKesTV)

Performance

For those wondering what’s actually in the kit, I’ll stick a blatantly cut and pasted list in the Tech Specs at the bottom of the page. The short version is that’s it’s not just extremely comprehensive, but that it’s got some real ‘I never knew I needed one of those so much’ pieces. These include the excellent scissor style cassette ‘claw’ that’s far less knuckle endangering to use than a standard chain whip. It also works with the latest 12-speed SRAM/Shimano blocks and even 13-speed for Campag gravel enthusiasts. The double ended pick is a regular grab for cleaning out cleat bolts/hooking cables/hoses through and it’s great to have a proper Schraeder valve core remover for shock and suspension purging. The long, metal reinforced tire levers are great for heavy duty carcasses or people who haven’t bothered reading the instructions for Cush Core tire inserts. They also include piston push wedges for accidentally pumped disc brakes. Core pieces like the BB/cassette tool and pedal spanner, magnetic tip screwdrivers (including Shimano preload cap) and separate fat handled 6 and 8mm Allen keys/hex L wrenches reinforce the top quality ‘Snap On’ style workshop feel of the kit.

The 6 and 8mm are the only separate hex keys you get though, as 2 through 6mm and the Torx keys are packed into Y wrenches. There’s no 8 or 10mm open ended spanners for disc brake hose fixtures either, so you’ll have to slide one of those into one of the spare elastic spaces. I’d rather be adding a few items I might already have to a kit than paying for obsolete ‘filler’ piece like cone spanners or multi spanners which still haunt some tool kits though. The cost of the separate tools comfortably exceeds the kit price even before you add the $55 ‘book case’ and it’s a bargain compared to other comprehensive sets too.

The Team Edition Tool Kit is designed to strap onto Feedback Sport's range of excellent workstands. You'll need extra long straps for the HD version though (Image credit: GuyKesTV)

Verdict

Feedback Sports Team Edition Tool Kit isn’t quite perfect, but in terms of being a very comprehensive, up to date, easy to use home or on the road workshop set up it’s the best I’ve used. The quality of tools and neat extras represents the kind of lasting commitment to doing right by your bike that you’d normally associate with exchanging vows in front of weeping mothers too. Just make sure you put an 8mm spanner on the wedding gift list and maybe some separate smaller hex wrenches if you don’t like Ys.