Combination wrenches in the bike shop: when you reach for one

Hex and Torx fasteners dominate the modern bike, but a working shop still reaches for an open-end wrench almost daily. Pedal axles use 15 mm flats; some crank-arm bolts use external 14 or 17 mm hex heads; cable-stop adjusters and lock nuts on older builds use the same flat-faced geometry that combination wrenches were designed for. A complete bike-shop toolkit includes a combination-wrench set; short, long, or ratcheting, depending on the work.

This is the framework we use to decide which combination wrench earns its space.

What “combination wrench” means

A combination wrench has two ends: one is an open-end (the U-shaped jaw that slides over a fastener from the side), and the other is a box-end (the enclosed ring that drops over the fastener from above). The two ends are the same nominal size, so the tool covers both access patterns for a single fastener.

The trade-off between ends:

• Open-end is faster to engage and disengage; it can be slipped onto a fastener that’s blocked from above. The contact is on two flats, which limits the torque you can apply before the wrench rolls off.
• Box-end engages on all six flats (in a six-point design) or twelve points (in a twelve-point design). That gives more torque capacity and less risk of rounding, but you have to drop the box over the fastener from above, which doesn’t always work.

A complete wrench set should have both ends in every size.

Where combination wrenches earn their space in bike work

• Pedal axle nuts. Modern pedals use 15 mm flats on the axle (the inside of the pedal body). A 15 mm open-end with a long handle is the standard tool. We sell a pro pedal wrench for this specifically; for the rare backup case where the pedal wrench is mid-disassembly, a combination wrench in 15 mm covers the job.
• Older crank-arm bolts. Before hex-head crank bolts became standard, external 14 mm and 17 mm hex heads were common. Service-station work on older bikes still encounters these.
• Some BB lockrings. External-toothed lockrings need a specific tool, but the BB shell sometimes has flats that take a combination wrench.
• Cable stop adjusters and lock nuts. Older cantilever brakes and some V-brake bosses use small flats (8–11 mm) that take a small combination wrench.
• Seatpost binders on some frames. Where the binder bolt is external-hex rather than internal-hex.

Short, long, or ratcheting?

A bike shop benefits from owning at least two formats of combination wrench:

Short-handle wrenches

Shorter overall length, which means they fit into tighter clearance scenarios. The short-handle 8-piece combination wrench set covers 8 to 22 mm in compact form. Use when the workspace is constrained; between a frame tube and a component cluster, in a deep recess where a long handle would hit the frame.

Long-handle wrenches

More leverage and a longer reach into deep recesses. The long-handle 8-piece combination wrench set covers the same 8–22 mm sizes with the extra length. Use for stuck or high-torque fasteners (pedal axles, large lockrings).

Ratcheting combination wrenches

A ratcheting box-end on a combination wrench gives you the spin-speed benefits of a ratchet handle without losing the open-end. The forged ratcheting combination wrench set covers 15 sizes from 8 to 24 mm, with a 72-tooth ratchet that delivers 5° engagement; fine pitch for constrained workspaces.

IBEX open-end (ratcheting open-end)

Unior’s IBEX wrench is a hybrid: an open-end that ratchets. The IBEX combination wrench set is the right answer when you need the access advantages of an open-end and the cycle speed of a ratchet. Particularly useful on cable-stop adjusters and stuck fasteners where a box-end can’t be lifted over the workpiece.

A note on 6-point vs 12-point box ends

Twelve-point box-ends engage the fastener at twelve points (every 30°), which means you can fit the wrench onto a fastener at twice as many angular positions as a 6-point box. Faster in tight workspaces.

The trade-off is the failure mode: 12-point contacts the fastener at corners, which can round soft alloy nuts. For high-torque work on aluminum or titanium fasteners, the 6-point box is the safer choice. The short and long combination sets we sell use 12-point box ends; appropriate for the typical bike-shop fastener mix, with the awareness that for very high-torque alloy work, 6-point sockets (driven by a ratchet) are the better tool.

The crowfoot exception

A Crowfoot wrench is a specialty open-end wrench head with no handle of its own; it’s designed to be driven by a 1/2“ square-drive torque wrench. The Crowfoot’s job is delivering torque to a specific fastener that a normal combination wrench can’t reach because of the surrounding geometry.

In a bike shop, the most common Crowfoot use is torquing the chainring lockring on e-bike motors that use proprietary lockring patterns (Shimano STEPS, Bosch Gen 2 systems). The Crowfoot in 32 mm and 36 mm sizes fits these patterns and lets the torque wrench reach the lockring through the motor case.

Length, briefly

Length on a combination wrench is the lever arm. Doubling the length doubles the torque you can apply at the same hand force. That’s why long-handle wrenches earn their space for high-torque work and why short-handle wrenches earn theirs in tight spaces; the trade-off is geometric, not strength-based.

For a complete shop, own both. For a starting toolkit, the long-handle set is the more versatile single purchase.

Care, briefly

Keep the open-end jaw faces clean; debris in the jaw creates contact at the wrong points and rounds the fastener. Wipe the wrench after work with cleaning solvent and a drop of oil; the chrome finish doesn’t need more than that.

Made in Slovenia, since 1919

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and is the official technical partner of multiple World Tour and downhill teams. The combination wrench line is one of the older product families in the catalog, evolved across decades of European workshop feedback. The IBEX ratcheting open-end profile is a Unior original; the 72-tooth ratchet on the 160/2 series with a slide-button reversing mechanism is the European-workshop pattern that has been refined into its current form. Forged from billet, hardened and tempered, trivalent-chrome finished. The same metallurgy applied across short-handle, long-handle, ratcheting, IBEX, and Crowfoot formats.