Tire Levers

Tire levers are the cheapest tool in the workshop and the one a working mechanic uses most often. Get them right and tire jobs are unremarkable; get them wrong and you end up with a pinched tube, a scarred carbon rim, or a tire that won't seat because the bead got twisted on the way out. The 1657 is the everyday plastic pair that lives in the drawer, in the saddle bag, in the bench rail; it's the lever we reach for first.

Each pair is glass-fibre-reinforced plastic with a broad working tip that doesn't scar a carbon rim bed. Glass-fibre reinforcement is the property that lets a moulded plastic lever flex without breaking under load; the alternative (unreinforced plastic) snaps the first time it meets a real tubeless bead. The 1657s have the flex to walk a bead off without giving up the leverage that gets the job started.

The pair is shaped to interlock for storage; two levers nest together to half the volume in a tool roll or saddle bag. The spoke hook on the back end is what makes one-handed lever work possible. Once the first lever is under the bead, the hook drops onto a spoke and holds the bead off the rim while a second lever walks the rest of the way around. Available in red, black, green, and orange so a workshop with multiple kits can colour-code by bike or by mechanic.

Specs

• Material: Glass-fibre-reinforced plastic
• Broad tip (carbon-rim safe)
• Spoke hook on rear end
• Interlocking pair for storage
• Available in red, black, green, or orange
• SKU 1657

Built in Zreče, Slovenia

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and sponsors professional road and mountain-bike race teams. The 1657 isn't forged steel; it's moulded glass-fibre-reinforced plastic, because that's the material that fits the job. A workshop tool's construction is matched to its load profile, not picked for marketing-grade material claims. Plastic stays gentle on a carbon rim bed where a metal edge would scar; the glass-fibre reinforcement gives the lever the flex-and-strength balance that a tubeless install asks for. For the cases where the plastic lever's tip is too thick to fit under a really tight bead, the Metal Tire Levers 1657/2A pick up the job; the two products together cover the working range of tire-and-rim combinations.

Pro tip from our mechanics

The most common pinch-flat we see in the workshop comes from the install side, not the removal side; a lever twisted deeply under the bead pinches the tube against the rim wall and creates a slow leak that shows up the next morning. The right motion is a shallow lift-and-walk; hook the lever shallowly, lift, slide along the rim, repeat. Our How to remove and install a bike tire → walks through the full removal-and-install sequence with the lift-and-walk motion shown step by step.

FAQ

Are these levers safe on carbon rims? Yes — that is the reason they are plastic. The working tip is broad and moulded, so it spreads load across the rim bed instead of concentrating it on an edge the way a metal lever can. The glass-fibre reinforcement is what lets a rim-friendly plastic lever take real bead tension without snapping. If you own carbon wheels, a plastic pair like the 1657 is the default tool; the metal pair stays in reserve for the beads plastic can't reach under.

Will they handle a tight tubeless bead? Usually. Glass-fibre reinforcement gives the 1657 the flex-and-strength balance a stiff tubeless bead demands, and the broad tip walks a bead off without twisting it. The honest limit is entry thickness: on a very tight rim-and-tyre combination the plastic tip can be too thick to slip under the bead at all. That is the handoff point to the Metal Tire Levers 1657/2A — thinner entry, more point load, so save them for when the plastic pair genuinely can't start the job.

What is the hook on the back end for? It hooks a spoke. Lift the first section of bead off the rim, drop the rear hook over a spoke, and the lever holds that bead off by itself — freeing both hands to walk the second lever around the rest of the tyre. It turns tyre removal into a one-person, no-fumbling job, which matters most at the roadside when there is nobody to hold anything.

Do the colours differ in anything but colour? No — red, black, green, and orange are the same glass-fibre-reinforced lever in different mouldings. The colours exist for colour-coding: a shop can assign a colour per mechanic or per travel kit, and a rider with multiple saddle bags can tell at a glance which pair belongs where. Every pair interlocks the same way for storage regardless of colour.