Crane Bell E-Ne Revolver - Stealth Black

The Crane E-Ne Revolver bell has a lovely tone, its unusual rotary mechanism means you can fit it wherever on your handlebar suits you best, and it's very nicely made with a machined aluminium clamp and a brass dome.

Japanese bell maker Crane is renowned for the volume and tone of its bells, and the E-Ne Revolver is no exception. When you turn the outer knurled ring it produces a sequence of multiple cheerful ching-ching sounds that are as polite a way of announcing your presence as I can think of, and certainly a lot better than the single 'ping' of many cheap bells with a conventional striker.

> Buy now: Crane Bell E-Ne Revolver for £30 from Brick Lane Bikes

The musicality of the Revolver's tone comes from the dome being made of brass, though that's not obvious because it's painted black. Other Crane models are available in less sombre tones, but I think what Crane's doing here is keeping it low-key because this is a bell that lends itself to stealth deployment.

The great thing about this rotary design is that you don't have to prod a lever to make the bell ring, so you can put it anywhere on your handlebar, left or right, above or below. On my round-town flat-bar bike I put it under the bar, next to my thumb, so it's really easy to actuate.

The only thing that limits your placement options is the 25.4mm, 10mm-wide hinged aluminium clamp, which comes with a rubber shim for 22.2mm bars. Crane suggests you just use half of it if you're fitting the Revolver to a drop bar's 23.8mm section, but if you want to fit it by the stem on a bar with a 31.8mm centre, you're out of luck. Crane really needs to offer a version with a 31.8mm clamp.

The clamp's held closed by a single dome head M4 screw that takes a 2.5mm hex key. I'd prefer a Torx head at such a small size – they're less likely to cam out and get damaged – but that's a minor niggle. In fact, to persuade it to fit over the bar tape at the end of my handlebar I fitted a longer bolt with a 7mm hexagon head and that also worked fine.

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Given that you can get a single-ting basic bell for two quid, £31.27 for the E-Ne Revolver is undeniably expensive. While there are spendier bells, there aren't many, and they're even more esoteric, like Van Nicholas's £85 titanium bell or the £49.99 US-made Spurcycle bell.

With the Spurcycle you're paying for high-precision US manufacturing (which is why lower-quality Chinese copies are a third the price) and the Van Nicholas bell is titanium with all the extra material and machining cost that implies. The E-Ne Revolver's price comes from its being made in Japan and being, well, generally really nice; it's a lovely thing that Just Works and feels like it'll carry on doing so indefinitely.

Verdict

Easy-to-use bell with a really nice tone