Not even good enough to write for Bike Biz.

Carlton Reid is high in the chain of command at Bike Biz magazine. A magazine based at the cycling industry in the UK. The mag makes for a largely boring read, concerns itself with commuting, electric bike promotion, dream road set ups, half hearted consumer advice (which obviously this being an industry mag the general public will never see) and insulting local bike dealers. Carlton comes in the shop quite often and he ropes us into fitting high end cable sets to his MTB or retrofitting an Xtra-cycle to his ride. About 18 months ago he asked me to write an article about a fixie tool and in exchange for the article I could have the tool. Hmm I thought that sounds like a lot of work for a tool I don't particularly want. I decided to give the article my best shot and collard a pretty good photographer for the pictures, thinking who knows he might ask me to do something in the future more worth my while. Anyway I emailed him the finished article, he seemed surprised it was of such quality and said he would definitely run it with a few minor tweeks. Carlton even asked me to submit a kinda CV/manifesto of myself so they had some background on me. I was fine with all of this as the magazine is very broad in scope and my style is a little angry for all tastes. However the article never saw the light of day, fine I thought, what difference does it make? But I felt a little dicked around and more to the point I put myself out for a magazine I had zero faith in the first place. Now Carlton kinda hangs his head and pretends not to recognise me when I say hello. Cycling is a weird world.

Here's the unedited article, it's probably of little interest as I say I wrote it with the broadness of the Bike Biz readership in mind.

The Pedro's Trixie tool reminds me at first glance of those ugly sharp and largely useless pressed sheet metal multi tools you get free with every department store bicycle. This is obviously of better construction and is reflected by the £18.99 price tag. Pedro's have an ecological ethos and create all of their products with preservation of the environment in mind. I'm thinking that when they tempered or heat treated the steel of the Trixie tool that they did not plunge it into whale blubber for it to cool.
The Trixie certainly feels solid and reminds me of laser cut BMX dropouts. The edges of the tool are super precise and defined. The 15mm wrench end of the Trixie is fairly self explanatory and fits my track nuts perfectly, the curved back of the handle sits in my hand comfortably and doesn't slice my palm like the aforementioned multi tool giveaways.
The most appealing part of this tool is the lockring wrench. If like me you ride brakeless fixed you have to have a certain trust in your lockring. It is your only way of stopping. It is inevitable that the lock ring will eventually come loose leaving you careering down the road desperately trying to get your feet in the tyres and come to a stop before you hit a bus. Tightening a track cog on the roadside is easy, just stamp down on your cranks. Tightening the lock ring however is a bit more of a challenge. The Trixie fits perfectly around my stainless steel Surly lockring and makes the ideal roadside quick fix getting you back on the road and in the direction of home.

The other features of the Trixie include a stepped 10, 9, 8mm wrench which appears to work well. A 5mm allen wrench which looks misplaced here and spoils the overall shape of the tool. My allen wrench didn't sit in my stem bolts securely and looks slightly malformed. The last feature of the the Trixie is a bottle opener for those mid ride brewskis.
Lastly the Trixie comes with wing nut bolts to mount the tool to the bottle boss mounts on your frame. Here the major flaw lies, firstly mounting this tool to your frame will look disgusting and ruin the simple aesthetics of your bike. Secondly for a tool marketed at track bike riders, most track frames don't have bottle boss mounts. Thirdly if you leave this tool wingnutted to your frame and then lock your bike outside of Heaton Perk coffee house while you sit rinsing the free WIFI and drinking watery Americana's in the cosmopolitan atmosphere, the Trixie presents a would be bike thief with all the tools necessary to steal not only your wheels but also your forks, stem, bars and seat, definitely an oversight in Pedro's design.
Providing you don't have this thing mounted to your frame I think it is an extremely well made tool that will sit perfectly in your tool bag. It is definitely the best solution I have seen for loose lock rings while on the road. The Trixie tool from Pedro's comes highly recommended.

Photos by www.loveandsweat365.tumblr.com