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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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4 comments
I don't think the Park Tool THT-1 Torx wrench set is a torque wrench set.
Yeah - but torx is obviously the plural of torque, so you're getting more for your money.
For the home mechanic, how often does the torque wrench need to be reclibrated?
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?