Park Tool THH-1 Sliding T-Handle Hex Wrench Set

The Park Tool THH-1 Sliding T-Handle Hex Wrench Set might be pricey but these are excellent, professional quality tools with features to make bike maintenance a little quicker and easier, and to help remove rounded bolt heads.

What you get here are eight hex keys in the most common sizes for bike maintenance – 2mm, 2.5mm, 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, and 10mm – and a wall-mounted holder to keep them on.

> Find your nearest dealer here

Each hex key is a combination of chrome vanadium and S-2 tool steels and has machined, chamfered tips. The dimensions of the keys vary from 125mm to 305mm in length, with the T-handles measuring from 65mm to 145mm.

The T-handle can slide through the head at the top of the main body of each key, so you can adjust it to give you greater leverage or greater access, depending on what you're working on.

I used the tip at the end of the main body of the key most of the time, but the T-handle tip comes in handy when there's less space – if you have a wedge-type seatpost clamp you access from the top of your bike's top tube, for example, and your saddle height is quite low. The tips are high quality and show no signs of wear after a couple of months' use. I certainly don't expect durability to be an issue here.

> Read our review of the Park Tool THT-1 - Sliding T-Handle Torx Wrench Set

One useful feature is the blue anodised aluminium Speed Spinner – a loose-fitting sleeve that fits around the body of each key without sliding up and down it. You can hold the Speed Spinner firmly between your thumb and forefinger and the body of the key can rotate inside.

This comes in handy for getting long bolts in and out quickly. You know when you loosen the bolt that holds your headset top cap in place, for example? The first half turn takes a little effort but sometimes you have loads of thread beyond that where there's very little resistance. The Speed Spinner allows you to hold the tool in place and just give the T-handle a quick whirl. Job done.

The other useful feature is the integrated Strip Gripper, which is the twisted black tip on one end of the T-handle that's designed to remove oversized and rounded hex heads. You've never rounded the head of a hex bolt? Don't tell fibs, we all have, and it can be a right royal PITA.

The twisted design is an established feature of many extractor sets, and it's often enough to loosen a bolt that a standard hex key can't shift. Some heads are rounded beyond its capabilities, but it's always worth giving it a go before resorting to anything more drastic.

The hex keys come with their own mount so, as long as you put them away, you'll be able to find the right one quickly when you need it, rather than wasting time rummaging around at the bottom of a toolbox. The mount has a rubbery finish and you can fix it to a wall, bench, or whatever else is convenient.

The size of each key is given on the tool body, and a little plate in the centre of the mount tells you the sizes too. I'd have thought it would be more useful to have the sizes printed next to the relevant holes in the mount, but you're probably able to pick out at least the most common ones by eye anyway.

You might baulk at paying £110 for a set of eight hex keys, and there's no doubt that it's a significant investment, but I'm a big believer in buying the best tools you can and making them last. You could go online and buy an S-2 tool steel hex key set for far less, but bear in mind that features like the sliding handle and the Speed Spinner sleeve are bound to raise the price, and you're getting an integrated rounded bolt extractor set too.

For comparison, the Silca HX-Three Travel Essentials Kit we reviewed is £35. They're high quality but don't have the features of these Park Tool keys.

The Silca HX-One Home and Essential Travel Essential Kit is £125. The eight hex keys come in a beechwood box with an adaptor for using six Torx heads and four screw heads.

> Beginner’s guide to bike tools

As well as being available as a complete set, you can buy the Park Tool hex keys individually at prices from £13.99 to £17.99 each, depending on the size. This means you can just get the sizes you need or, if you do go for the complete set, replace any that you lose or damage.

All in all, the Park Tool THH-1 Sliding T-Handle Hex Wrench Set is a top-quality offering. If you're just an occasional bike tinkerer, perhaps tools like this are overkill, but if you're into your bike maintenance and you like to have excellent equipment that's built to last, that's exactly what you get here.

Verdict

Professional quality hex keys with integrated extractors for rounded bolt heads