Rehook has received the Innovation gong at the Queen’s Award for Enterprise 2022 for its Original and Plus tools that are designed to help you refit your chain when it drops off the crankset, all while preventing your hands from getting mucky.
The Queen turns 96 today, and so it's only fitting that the award winners have been announced on her birthday; and Rehook are among those to be recognised, having been creating and developing unique tools and accessories for cyclists since 2016.
The inventor of Rehook went on to secure £50,000 in funding in 2019 on Dragons’ Den in return for a 25 per cent stake in the business from the show's Deborah Meaden.
The brand says it has grown consistently at around 40%-50% revenue growth over the last five years, saying it has begun plans to push heavily into Europe and the USA in 2022.
Rehook claimed its original tool could tool could get your chain back on your bike in three seconds, without any mess. The unique patented design has a hook on the end to pull the chain into place, and the handle is designed to keep oil and dirt away from your hands and clothes.
“It can get into small gaps that fingers can’t reach and makes a multitude of chain related tasks and jams much simpler to resolve,” says Rehook.
This simple but effective tool costs£12.99.
“The design of the teeth is perfect”, Mike Stead concluded when he tested the tool for us. “If you're prone to dropped chains, having it handy could de-stress the operation considerably – and it only has to save one badly-greased jacket or jersey to have paid for itself.”
The £26.99 Rehook Plus adds two tyre levers, two spoke keys (3.23mm and 3.4mm), two hex keys (5mm and 6mm), three box spanner cutouts (8mm, 9mm and 10mm) and a Phillips (PH1) screwdriver.
Mike also reviewed the Plus version and wasn't quite so impressed, concluding: “Turning it into a multi-tool seems a no-brainer, but the letdown of the Rehook Plus for me is the execution – the 90-degree bit insertion and rotation-blocking tyre lever make most jobs aside from stem bolts difficult or even impossible.”
The Tyre Glider tyre lever is another one of the brand’s unique tools, and this one is well-suited to removing or fitting most tyres on most rims, easy or stubborn.
“The Tyre Glider is the first genuinely innovative cycling tool I've seen in a long time - not just an improvement, but completely new thinking,” said our reviewer. “There are some caveats around technique, and I'd like to see the hook portion be sharper to get under tight beads easier, but for most tyres on most rims it should be fine.”
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22 comments
The last time my chain came off, it was because I had put the inner chain wheel on the wrong way round and the gap was too big by a few mm. It got stuck between outer and inner. I just donned my surgical gloves and janked it out with the mantra not to change down before I got home.
On the plus side, I have plenty of practise on removing the cranks for cleaning/maintenance of the chainwheels.
I received one of the original versions of this as a gift.
It does its job very well but I've probably used it a handful of times at most. I don't take it with me on rides as dropping my chain is a very rare event and it just takes up space.
Even when working on my bike I seldom use it unless it's directly to hand.
It's good but just not used often enough to warrant purchasing it again if it broke.
Does it work better than adjusting the front derailleur to the full opposite of which way the chain has gone and walking the bike rotating the pedals?
Well done to the people behind this product.
However I can't imagine pulling one of these out in front of the local mountain bikers.. I'd never live it down.
Here's my 'invention'
Wait - that's a bike stand? No, it's part of a bike rack. No, it's a dog distraction device / a tyre lever / a personal defence weapon.
Swiss army knife / multitool since before the neolithic. I'm amazed it's not on kickstarter with a few stripes painted on it.
https://youtu.be/-fQGPZTECYs
Winner winner chicken dinner. Niche product I'll grant you.
As a sufferer of dropped chains on my folder particularly when I head to the smaller end of the rear cog- one day I'll try and get to the bottom of why - this will do nicely, and stop me having to blacken my hands or look around for discarded bags/paper/leaves/anything to help put the chain back on.
Fair play to the guy, but honestly I don't get it!
I'm also not sure that I have a need for the original Rehook, but the Tyre Glider is a game changer. After moving to tubeless on my gravel bike and ending up with blisters on my thumbs trying to seat a very tight tyre, I purchased a Tyre Glider after seeing positive reviews. It works!
I can relate to difficulty breaking the bead off a rim. But I've come to the conclusion that difficulties I've had getting the final inches of bead over the top of the rim (12 o'clock) when mounting a tyre are always down to me not pushing the bead fully into the well at the bottom (6 o'clock). Sorry if that reads like pushing a monk down a hole at vespers.
Hey, Sriracha - leave that Bede alone.
Didn't work for me and scuffed up my wheel decals. Three Schwalbe tyre levers do the job - designed to mount Marathon Plus tyres and more than happy to take on a GP5000.
Congratulations Rehook! I was given one a couple of Christmases ago and thought great, another novelty cycling tool that'll sit at the back of the toolbox and get given away ten years later, now it's the second thing to go in my jersey after spare tubes, proved its worth on numerous occasions. I know people on here have said "just use your hands or a stick", but when we spend hundreds on gloves, jerseys and bar tape a tool that prevents them getting covered in oil is very handy - the extras on the Plus model work well for me too.
May be I'm just lucky, but dropping the chain has been a very rare occurance for me, and everytime it has happened I have been able to use the front derailleur (with some slow gentle pedalling) to get it back on and all done without stopping or slowing to a halt too!
What do you do when you're out on a ride and you use it? Is the inside of your jersey pocket filthy?
Probably but what the eye can't see...
How stupid on several different levels. a) don't lose your chain, it's usually incompetance. b) use your hand or something handy instead c) lets go and buy another gimic that is a solution to a problem that isn't there and d) what a waste of resources and energy making such a think plus all the time, money and effort in flogging it. I'll even include the electricity to run a website in theis. The extra flash version is even worse. If you are incompetant enough to need this tool how the devil are you going to work out how to use a spoke key. Thats beyond the wit of most cyclists anyway. Those sockets. By golly they are really common on most bikes are they not? Really I dispair of the world at times although I do applaud the makers for being clever enough to con so many people.
I true my own wheels. I've built wheelsets. I've built a number of bikes for friends from the frameset up. I find this a handy tool. If you don't like it that's fine, I don't really see why you need to be so rude but doubtless it satisfies your ego. If you don't want to buy this tool maybe invest the money saved in a good dictionary and learn how to spell incompetence, despair, gimmick, or maybe a guide to using apostrophes correctly. It's unwise to call other people stupid when your very writing betrays your own "incompetance". Night night.
Cheers Rendal, you've paid for this and you like it. Real world test.
I always have a few pairs of gloves for stuff like this, but that's me. Rohloff mostly these days, and I have only ever let the chain slack off so much that it has come off the once, just to find out how far I could push it. In 3 years.
If you lost it or broke it, Rendal, would you buy a replacement?
I would I think, not sure it would entirely justify its place just for chain throw alone, something I might do once every few months - though it's won me friends with other riders! - but also useful (the plus version) for the extra tools and tyre levers, if you add a couple of allen key head hex bits it more or less eliminates the need for a multitool and tyre levers whilst taking less space than a set of the latter. Handy in the workshop too for reseating the chain after replacements or repairs, of course one can do that with lots of tools but it's nice to have a specialist tool that does it perfectly and with zero risk of damage.
I'll put you down as a "no" then.