As a rider, I’ve always enjoyed optimizing and tinkering with my bike. Even when the gains are small, I find pleasure in exploring my options and making selections to best suit my goal. It’s a part of my brain that I find difficult to turn off at times, which is how I spent an afternoon before my flight to the Life Time Sea Otter Classic optimizing my travel toolkit.
First, I want to mention that I don’t have a standard travel toolkit. Depending on the bike I’m traveling with, I adjust which tools I bring. Secondly, unless I’m traveling as a mechanic, I only bring the tools necessary to pack and unpack my bike. I’ll bring a compact torque wrench, just in case I need to make any adjustments; aside from that, I keep it very minimal.
This is not an in-depth guide to traveling with your bike, but I want to make one quick suggestion, especially if you also want to use a minimalist travel tool kit. The bike you plan to travel with should be in pristine mechanical condition. It shouldn’t have any nagging mechanical issues that you’ve been putting off fixing or, worse, any bolts on the edge of stripping or rounding out. I travel with only the tools I need because I’m confident in my bike. This means any issues have been serviced well before a trip, and I ride the bike enough before packing it up to know the problems are fixed.
In this quest for the ever more minimal setup, I spent the afternoon scouring through my seldom-used parts and tool bins in my basement. I was looking for a way not to bring a heavy, bulky 8mm hex key. I need an 8mm hex key to install and remove pedals, but I find my preferred options from Silca to an absolute honking chunk of metal that feels like total overkill to do just one job.
For hex keys between 1.5mm and 5mm, I generally prefer a set of short PB Swiss hex keys. They’re compact yet still provide plenty of leverage for these lengths. For a 6mm hex key, I’ll bring a standard-length one because I find the extra leverage appropriate for tightening thru-axles. The ideal solution for the 8mm hex is a conversion socket that fits over the 6mm hex to make it into an 8mm. This saves exactly 90g from my travel kit.
Realistically, that’s 1/5th of a pound. Besides being small and convenient, I wouldn’t think twice about flying with an extra 90g if I were packing a road bike. But when packing a mountain bike, it becomes very easy to hit the 50 lb bag weight limit for overweight baggage, especially if you want to pack any additional riding gear into your bike bag. At least, that’s how I’m justifying these decisions to myself.
Trust me, I know I could just bring an 8mm hex key, but that’s not how my mind works. Now, a few options exist for the 6mm to 8mm hex socket. Probably the easiest to find is from Topeak, which sells it as a replacement part for its multi-tools. Another option is a PB Swiss 470M adapter, which uses a 5mm hex as its base. The downside of this adapter is that I would then bring both a full-size 5 and 6mm key. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but luckily, I had an old Topeak multitool in one of my drawers from which I could take the adapter.
Even though I’ve flown with my bike more times than I can count, I still find it an experience where I constantly find little efficiencies, small hacks, or workarounds. It’s an area where different riders take a variety of approaches. I’ve traveled with friends who will use the multi-tool in their saddle bag to put their bike together and with others who fly with a full complement of tools and spares (just in case).
I love nice tools, so my natural predisposition would lean heavily towards bringing a complete toolbox if it weren’t for the airline weight limit on bags. So instead, I’ve settled on traveling with the most optimized and minimal tool kit I can get away with. However, since all my pedals use an 8mm for installation, this little socket will always make the cut.
Test Editor Dan Chabanov got his start in cycling as a New York City bike messenger but quickly found his way into road and cyclocross racing, competing in professional cyclocross races from 2009 to 2019 and winning a Master’s National Championship title in 2018. Prior to joining Bicycling in 2021, Dan worked as part of the race organization for the Red Hook Crit, as a coach with EnduranceWERX, as well as a freelance writer and photographer.
