ROTAE TECH TYRE LEVERS REVIEW

A CHEAP TIRE FITTING BUDDY

Review by Robert Johnston

If something can make my life easier and cost an insignificant amount of money, I’m an instant fan. The Rotae Tech Tyre Levers tick those boxes, let me tell you why.

THE LAB

Oh great, another waste of plastic tire lever I hear you mutter…look again. The Rotae Tech levers have a trick up their sleeve – a bead clip on one of the levers is designed to lock your tire bead in place during installation, leaving you with the second hand free to wield the other lever and pop the remainder of the bead onto the rim. Made from a blend of Nylon 6 with 30% glass content, the Rotae Tech levers are designed to be stiff and strong enough to tackle the toughest tire beads. Adding to their feature list is a pad spreader and valve core tool on the other end of the regular lever, which could come in handy in the workshop.

The Rotae Tech Tyre Levers are designed and manufactured in the UK, and come with a price tag of £8.99/$17 for the set. They’re even backed with a lifetime warranty, so may just be the last levers you ever need to buy. They’re available to purchase from their website for UK customers, or can be found at various international distributors, from the US to Germany and Singapore.

THE DIRT

To put it simply, the Rotae Tech Tyre Levers are really helpful, acting as a third hand to hold a bead securely and let you focus on getting more bead on rather than keeping the existing bead in place. This speeds up the tire fitting process, and saves a few swear words along the way. The material had me mildly concerned for durability initially, as it’s not the stiffest out there, but it proved to be plenty stiff to fit some particularly tight tires without issue, and even when I was careless with my technique, they still took the abuse. The pad spreader is effective, fitting both two and four-pot brakes just fine and doing a stellar job, and the valve core tool is a good fit, though I didn’t find myself choosing the Rotae Tech lever over a dedicated core tool too often.

My only negative comment, and it’s one that I think is unavoidable, is the larger volume the Rotae Tech Tyre Levers take up compared with two “standard” levers, which renders them unlikely for most to carry with them on a ride. So, they’ll likely live in the workshop rather than in your pack, but all being well that’s likely where they’ll be required the most often anyway. Overall, at £8.99 they’re a solid addition to any toolbox, and would make a neat and genuinely useful gift for any keen cyclist. The lifetime warranty is pretty damn awesome too.

The Wolf’s Last Word

Effective and cheap, the Rotae Tech Tyre Levers are a very useful addition to any cyclist’s toolbox.

Price: £8.99/$17
Website: Rotae-tech.com