Rehook Plus multitool

The Rehook Plus Multitool is an ingenious way to avoid getting grease all over yourself and your kit while getting a chain back on. Its other tools are just a bonus, if a somewhat fiddly and impractical one.

Chain retention has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, with single-chainring groupsets featuring shaped teeth and derailleur clutches, and more traditional twin-ring setups benefiting from better-designed mechs and chainrings.

Yet, with big tyres and wide-range 12-13 speed cassettes pushing chain angles ever further, the arms race to keep it all together is still in progress.

Getting a filthy dropped chain back on is never fun, and neither is the search for some grass, a cloth or a dusty gutter that still never stops you irrevocably smearing your nice new jacket with irremovable crud.

You could carry nitrile gloves, or poke at the thing with a stick, but it's a faff.

Enter the Rehook. Made in the UK and born out of a literal Dragon's Den after the founder received almost-unheard-of unanimous interest from investors, the original was a very simple affair – the unique 'rehook' tooth-jaw-hand-thingy that picks up the chain, on a handle.

No longer minus the plus

This £26.99 Rehook Plus adds two tyre levers, two spoke keys (3.23mm and 3.4mm), two hex keys (5mm and 6mm), three box spanner cutouts (8mm, 9mm and 10mm) and a Phillips (PH1) screwdriver.

There are no Torx bits, though, and if you're running a modern mech you may want a 3mm hex. As the bits are the standard size, you can swap one over, of course, but that's arguably missing the point.

Annoyingly, the design means you can only fit the bits (held in by magnets) at 90 degrees to the tool, and they're a good 20mm in from the end of the tool body. This means if you want to adjust a bolt or screw that's in a corner or up against something else – such as a seatpost bolt or mech – you're almost certainly out of luck.

Even with a bottle cage you're forced to remove and reinsert the tool every rotation as it fouls on the cage itself.

Storage wars

When stowed, the bits are covered by the blue tyre lever, so they're safe enough, but they have to be stored in a specific order for it to close over them. I was able to swap the Philips for a T20 Torx, retaining the 5 and 6mm hexes without issue, but there's no room for a pedal-friendly 8mm hex.

The 8-10mm box spanners are pretty much irrelevant on a modern bike, and suffer even more from the obstruction of the rest of the tool.

Strap on tools

The whole package is wrapped by a grippy 12mm-wide rubber strap with that can clamp the Rehook Plus to a frame tube. Whilst it stayed put during the test, the strap isn't that strong and the single attachments at each end aren't exactly bombproof.

The rehooking tool itself is a work of genius. Few tools have won a place so quickly on my bench as the Rehook, and having had it within reach for a month or two, I don't want to give it back. There will be inevitable comments along the lines of 'solution looking for a problem,' but until you've used it, don't knock the execution.

It doesn't matter how filthy the chain is – your hands stay squeaky-clean – though you may still want to clean up the tool, of course.

Value

As a standalone chain-reseating tool, the Rehook is without peer. The design of the teeth is perfect. If you're prone to dropped chains, having it handy could de-stress the operation considerably – and it only has to save one badly-greased jacket or jersey to have paid for itself.

Luckily for everyone, Rehook still sells the standalone chain reseating tool for £12.99.

Turning it into a multi-tool seems a no-brainer, but the letdown of the Rehook Plus for me is the execution – the 90-degree bit insertion and rotation-blocking tyre lever make most jobs aside from stem bolts difficult or even impossible. Meanwhile, the box spanners are pretty much irrelevant on modern bikes.

The basic Rehook tool remains the one to have, then. Bar the tyre levers, the Rehook Plus only adds features that are either severely restricted in use or useless on modern bikes – and that doesn't exactly justify a £14 premium.

Verdict

A brilliant chain-reseating tool with a far less successful set of extras