Best torque wrenches 2026 — tighten your bike’s bolts with precision and avoid overtightening

Forget guesswork when doing up your bolts with our pick of the best torque wrenches

by Rebecca Bland

Sun, Jan 11, 2026 14:53

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For beginners, a torque wrench might seem like overkill to have in your home mechanic’s arsenal. But in reality, using one could save you a lot of money at the workshop. Getting the bolts on your bike as tight as they need to be and no tighter is important for safety as well as efficiency.

Best budget torque wrench: Merida Adjustable Torque Wrench

Best compact torque wrench: Park Tool ATD-1 Adjustable Torque Driver

Best torx bit torque wrench set: Park Tool THT-1 - Sliding T-Handle Torx Wrench Set

Best overall torque wrench set: Pro Bike Tool 2-20Nm Torque Wrench set

Best portable torque tool: Silca T-Ratchet Kit + Ti-Torque Kit

Why? If you don’t tighten them enough, then you run the risk of the bolt coming undone. If they’re too tight, then there’s the danger of causing serious damage to your bike and, as a result, to yourself. Over-tighten a seat clamp, for example, and you could ruin a carbon-fibre frame.

Bike-specific torque wrenches provide just the range of tightness most commonly found on easily-damaged parts like seat post and handlebar clamps.

Click-type torque wrenches are the most common kind, alerting you with a click when you’ve reached the set tightness. And the best torque wrenches come with factory certification and can be returned or recalibration so you know they’re doing the job perfectly.

Here’s our pick of the best torque wrenches for the cycling home mechanic. If you want to know more about how we select products to appear in our buyer’s guides, head to this article on how road.cc reviews products.

The best torque wrenches

Birzman Torque Driver 5Nm

Buy now for £20.99 from Tredz

4, 5 and 6Nm versions

Four useful bits included

Can undo without doing damage

Unmistakable torque overrun indication

Magnetic bit retention

Compact size

Not the lightest

Not colour-coded, so difficult to pick right value if you have several

Price

At under £25, it’s hard to look past this simple Torque Driver from Birzman. It’s pre-set to 5Nm so no risk of accidentally leaving the wrench at the wrong setting and overtightening anything.

It comes with four bits, and reviewer Mike called it “a good choice for accurate home and workshop use.”

Read our review of the Birzman Torque Driver 5Nm

Best of the rest

Feedback Sports Range Torque and Ratchet

Buy now for £100.73 from Amazon

4, 5 and 6Nm versions

Compact clearance for bottle cages etc

Multi-functional for undoing and tightening without removing

Every bit you’re likely to ever need

Wide 2-10Nm range

Not the lightest

No internal storage for bits on a ride

Small scale that can be tricky to read at first

The Feedback Sports Range Torque Ratchet is a lightweight, compact tool for working on your bike while adhering to ever-more-critical torque settings. Made from premium materials with a price tag to match, this may be the perfect Significant Event Present for the cyclist in your life.

It has a wide 2-10N·m range and includes every bit you’re likely to ever need. It’s intuitive to use, and multi-functional for undoing and tightening without removing. The fine ratchet and compact clearance makes it ideal for bolts in awkward places.

Read our review of the Feedback Sports Range Torque and Ratchet

Merida Adjustable Torque Wrench

Best budget torque wrench

Buy now for £22.99 from Mountain Mania Cycles

Decent range of sizes to tighten with (handily stored in body)

Good grip for tightening

Need a spare hex key to adjust torque settings

A no-frills T-shape handle design, Merida’s Adjustable Torque Wrench is the perfect tool for quick and easy bolt tightening. It has three torque settings – 4, 5 and 6N·m – and with the 3, 4 and 5mm Allen keys, as well as a T25 Torx key, it’ll cater for most common bolts on a bike. Neatly, all keys bar one are hidden inside the case. It’s a good price too.

The chunky T-shape handle makes it easy to hold the torque wrench firmly, and its relatively stubby nature means you can tighten bolts easily without worrying about the key slipping inside a bolt head.

Adjusting the level of torque is easy – a dial on the top allows you to do this on the fly – although we found it slightly ironic that you need a separate 6mm hex key to adjust it, which sort of spoils the ease of having everything you need in the one unit.

Read our review of the Merida Adjustable Torque Wrench

Park Tool ATD-1 Adjustable Torque Driver

Best compact torque wrench

Buy now for £63.12 from Team Cycles

Really easy to use

Most common torques and bits covered

Fiddly to get the bits from their storage

Most bike-fettling jobs that really call for a torque wrench require fairly low torque values, like the 4-6 N·m range of the Park Tool ATD-1.2. It’s quite expensive for a limited-function tool, but does what it does so well that it’s very highly regarded.

It’s gone up a little in RRP since we reviewed it, but still worth having in the workshop if you’re after something simple and precise.

Read our review of the Park Tool ATD-1 Adjustable Torque Driver

Park Tool THT-1 - Sliding T-Handle Torx Wrench Set

Best torx bit torque wrench set

Buy now for £101.99 from Amazon

Plenty of leverage and access to awkward areas

Top-quality materials

They’re not cheap

Torx bits aren’t as common on bikes as hex (or allen) bolts, but they do still appear in places like disc brakes and chainsets.

This set from Park Tool isn’t for the frugal among us, but will complement a decent home workshop setup. It comes with eight Torx wrenches, T6, T8, T10, T15, T20, T25, T30 and T40.

You also get the little holder that can attach to a wall or pegboard so you’re less likely to lose one. Note I said less likely, and not ‘definitely won’t lose’.

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

Pro Bike Tool 2-20Nm Torque Wrench set

Best overall torque wrench set

Buy now for £41.99 from Amazon

Ratchet makes quick work of tightening

Low min setting

Very useful extension bar

Good range of bits

Easy to use

Small scale is a little hard to read

‘Torque reached’ click is subtle

An oldie but goodie, the Pro Bike Tool Torque Wrench set got a solid 9/10 from us back in 2019 because its ease of use and extensive bits.

The set is ideal for the avid home mechanic, with a handy ratchet system and an extensive torque range (2-20Nm) which should cover most of what you’ll need to do for home bike maintenance.

Read our review of the Pro Bike Tool 2-20Nm Torque Wrench set

Silca T-Ratchet Kit + Ti-Torque Kit

Best portable torque tool

Buy now for £112.5 from Sigma Sports

High quality tools

Lightweight

Beautifully made

Expensive

The Silca T-Ratchet and Ti-Torque kit is a beautifully made, superlight, and multi-functional set of tools, made to the highest quality. The set comprises a ratchet handle; a couple of extenders to tailor the reach and leverage; six hex bits ranging from 2mm to 6mm in size; T10, T20 and T25 Torx bits; a Philips #2 bit; and the important part for our purposes, a torque-measuring arm based around a titanium spring.

Rather than setting the torque and hearing a click when you reach it (the method by which many torque wrenches work), you read the N·m indicator printed on the barrel of the tool. There is a risk of over-tightening a bolt, but with due care and attention, and slowly and gently applying torque, you should be fine. The wrench will measure between 2N·m and 8N·m, which covers all the areas of the bike that you are likely to need to tweak in the field, such as handlebar faceplates, stems and seatposts.

Read our review of the Silca T-Ratchet Kit + Ti-Torque Kit

Topeak Torq Stick Pro 4-20 Nm

Buy now for £124.99 from Tweeks Cycles

4, 5 and 6Nm versions

Actually useful case

Comprehensive set of bit holders

High-quality tools

Not the lightest

Ball-headed hex keys might be more useful than some of the exotic bit sizes

Expensive

If you’re after a high-quality torque set with more than meets the eye, then the Topeak Torq Stick Pro 4-20Nm might just fit the bill.

It includes 18 bits, an extender, a mini ratchet driver and a finger bit holder. All of this is reflected in the price, of course, but if you don’t have your own bits and need something to get you off on the right foot, it could be worth considering as an investment for your home workshop.

Read our review of the Topeak Torq Stick Pro 4-20 Nm

Things to know about torque wrenches

Why should I use a torque meter?

Reckon you’re too smart to trash a component by over-tightening it? It’s easily done. The mechanics at your local bike shop will tell you about people who’ve cost themselves a lot of money by getting it wrong. Torque wrenches aren’t exactly cheap, but buying one could save you a lot of cash in the long run.

You’ll also need a torque wrench to install some power meters so they provide accurate measurements, though this is less common than a few years ago.

The amount that you should tighten a bolt varies between components, so always check manufacturers’ recommendations.

This Shimano Ultegra crank, for instance, comes with the instruction: “Each of the bolts should be evenly and equally tightened to 12-14N·m by torque wrench”. The N·m stands for Newton metre.

What is a Newton metre?

If you’re wondering what a Newton metre is, it comes from the definition of torque. A torque is a rotational force. Force is measured in Newtons, as you’ll recall from GCSE physics. Torque is the force multiplied by the distance between the point where it’s applied and the centre of the bolt. You get a torque of 4 N·m by applying 4N to the end of a spanner a metre long, or — if you don’t happen to have a set of stupendously large spanners — a 40N force on a 10cm spanner.

The right torque for a particular bolt depends on what it’s made from, what the parts it fits into are made from and — if it’s part of a clamp — what the thing it’s clamping is made from, among other things.

Torque wrenches have become a must-have in the last few years because there’s so much carbon fibre and very light aluminium in modern bikes. Clamps around carbon components can easily do damage if over-tightened, so a torque wrench is essential if you’re handling such gear.

A torque wrench is also useful for big jobs, when you may not realise just how tight something needs to be. Square taper cranks, for example, typically need around 40 N·m, which is surprisingly hard to achieve without a long spanner.

What are the different types of torque wrench?

Different torque wrenches work in different ways, but one common type allows you to set your required torque by turning a knob at the end of the handle. You fit the appropriate head, then turn the wrench until a distinct ‘clunk’ tells you that you’ve reached the correct torque.

To maintain accuracy, manufacturers of adjustable click-type torque wrenches usually recommend you send the tool back to the factory to be calibrated after a certain amount of use: check the manual for your tool’s particular requirement.

If you can’t live without an LCD display, then there are torque wrenches that’ll feed your desire for digits. You can either read the torque from the display as you tighten the bolt, or set a target torque and it’ll buzz and flash a light when you reach it.

One other option is to use something like a preset torque tool. They allow you to tighten bolts accurately to a preset Nm, clicking when you’ve reached the required torque.

You might also run across a beam type torque wrench like the Park Tool TW-1.2, above. This indicates torque with a pointer that simply indicates how much the tool’s main arm has deflected as you turn the bolt. Beam wrenches are incredibly simple, very tough and don’t have to be sent back to the factory to be recalibrated. If the pointer isn’t on zero when the wrench is at rest, you just bend it until it is.

However, you can’t set the torque in advance and get a satisfying click when you reach it, so beam-type wrenches are now less common. That said, Park Tool have just reintroduced theirs.

bike tools for home mechanic, tools, torque, torque wrench

Rebecca Bland

Rebecca has been writing about bikes for four years, after a typically ill-timed career change pre-pandemic. She’s been riding bikes since she can remember, and fell back in love with them after realising it was faster, cheaper, and more fun than getting the bus to work. Nowadays she enjoys all kinds of bikes, from road to eMTB and is training her border collie pup to become a trail dog.

7 Comments

7 thoughts on “Best torque wrenches 2026 — tighten your bike’s bolts with precision and avoid overtightening”

Geoff H
February 17, 2025 at 3:02 pm
0
For the home mechanic, how
For the home mechanic, how often does the torque wrench need to be reclibrated?
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- Rendel Harris
  February 17, 2025 at 3:46 pm
  0
  The usual heuristic cited is
  The usual heuristic cited is once every 12 months or every 5000 uses, whichever comes first. Personally I can’t really see what the passage of time is going to do to a well-stored tool and so I work more on the basis of a number of uses; I probably only use my torque wrench 50-100 times a year so basically don’t really bother having it recalibrated apart from when I know the bolt has been tightened accurately, e.g. by a bike shop or by someone with a new/re-calibrated wrench I might test the wrench against it if it’s handy. Is this heretical?
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mark1a
February 17, 2025 at 4:35 pm
0
I don’t think the Park Tool
I don’t think the Park Tool THT-1 Torx wrench set is a torque wrench set.

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- mdavidford
  February 17, 2025 at 4:44 pm
  0
  Yeah – but torx is obviously
  Yeah – but torx is obviously the plural of torque, so you’re getting more for your money.
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froze
February 21, 2025 at 10:38 pm
0
The Silca is not that great,
The Silca is not that great, if you go online to Silca and look at the scale they use it is very poorly designed with the readings far to close together for any degree of accuracy. I noticed this at my LBS where I could see it better in live in person, even the store rep didn’t like the way it was designed, and that thing cost $125?
I had the store order a Lezyne Torque Drive Bike Multi-Tool with 11 bits because that’s the one that the rep uses at home, but you can add bits as you need them since any hardware/home improvement store sells those bits. The scale reading on the Lezyne is a lot better spaced, much easier to apply torque and get it correct. The Lezyne cost around $50, a full $75 cheaper than the Silca, and the Lezyne is better.

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Paul J
February 25, 2025 at 11:23 am
0
The good olde beam type
The good olde beam type torque wrenches are cheaper and *much* more robust, no less accurate (least, at common bike tool price points), easier to use to get a desired accuracy, often more flexible in range of accuracy, and don’t need to be recalibrated all the time.
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Jerm14
March 18, 2025 at 4:47 pm
0
Thanks for the Merida
Thanks for the Merida recommendation. Ordered it from Certini and it arrived the following day. As you say, it is a little odd that you need to use another tool to adjust it but it’s not a big deal as I would always have something else with me as you would not use it instead of a mulittool. It makes a really satisfying click – more of a clunk really.
I have a few others. The generic traditional type is good but I find it fidly to make sure I have the right settingand the click is too subtle. The little Topeak ones you use with another tool are good for travel but need one per torque setting. My favourite is probably the free one that comes with a Ribble bike which is a small one of the beam variety. It can be used up to 10Nm and its readings accord with my other ones. I don’t know if they can be bought from anywhere else but they are really effective and light.
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