Customer Review: Park Tool PK-2 Tool Kit Review

In this customer review, Bill Nelson talks about getting his own Park Tool PK-2 professional tool kit set up in the garage. Take a look!

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My first step on how to become a home bike mechanic, with help from Worldwide Cyclery. 

Over the past several years, I've put a lot of miles on my old hardtail Specialized Rockhopper. I try to ride it daily and find it frustrating when I need to take it into a bike shop for repairs. The biggest annoyance is to drop it off at the bike shop and having to wait three or more days for it to get fixed. That’s way too long to be out of the saddle and too minimize this downtime I decided to collect my own bike tools and learn how to fix bikes. While making a list I realized the individual prices of each tool can get expensive and that Park Tool sells a wide variety of tools in kits for much less.

From further research I decided to go with the Park Tool PK-2 Professional Tool Kit. This tool kit has most of the tools I need to do basic repairs. After setting up my workbench, my first maintenance project, albeit simple, was replacing the Rockhopper’s chain and adjusting the dérailleurs. For the chain I used the CC-3.2 Chain Checker to verify the chain actually needed replacing, which it did. Then to remove it I used the MLP-1.2 Master Link Pliers on its Sram Master Link. To install the new chain, I measured the length of the old chain and used the CT-3.2 Chain Tool to remove the extra links on the new chain. Installing the new chain was a breeze.

Then I adjusted the front and rear dérailleurs. Starting with the rear derailleur I used the PH-5 P-Handle Hex Wrench to loosen the shifter cable bolt and the SD-2 #2 Phillips Screwdriver to adjust the high and low adjustment screws.

To adjust the front derailleur, again I used the PH-5 5mm P-Handle Hex Wrench to loosen cable clamp bolt and then the NP-6 Needle Nose Pliers to pull the cable snug to correctly align it to the high gear chain ring. Once the cable was securely tightened I used the SD-2 screwdriver to adjust the high and low settings followed by a half a turn on the cable’s adjustment barrel.

My next project will be to replace shifter cables and maybe repack all the bearings. Using these tools from Worldwide Cyclery, plus viewing the “how to” videos from the Park Tool’s Web site makes it fun to do your own repairs.

My next purchase will be a wheel truing stand; maybe the Park Tool TS-8. I’d like to start to maintain, and maybe build, my own wheels. Now I can keep my bike tail ready with minimal downtime.

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