Posts
4
Joined
1/21/2016
Location
Beverly Hills, CA
US
Edited Date/Time
7/21/2017 5:46am
Hi everyone! My name is Michael, I'm a long time VitalMTB reader, and recently podcast listener (love all the interviews).
I’d like to share with you the project I’ve been working on for the past two years - it’s a toolkit that mounts on a mountain bike - the ToolB. It's quite the opposite of the current trend of 'hiding' tools in the bike', so I figured some of you might be interested in it.
I wanted to mountain bike without a backpack on shorter rides, but still have a toolkit for trail-side repairs. Since I couldn’t find a toolkit that met my requirements, I decided to design my own.
I rode with a prototype toolkit during all of 2016 biking season. I even raced a few XC races with the prototype toolkit. It turned out to be a great idea. I worked on refinements and updates for a full year and have done preliminary testing with a 2nd pre-production prototype.
I’m pretty happy to say that I found two contract manufacturers in Massachusetts (where I live) who vetted for the ToolB design - so it will be made in the USA.
I launched the Kickstarter last week, and thought some people here on the VitalMTB forum might be interested. There are still some limited spots left for the super early bird and early bird tiers, and I would definitely appreciate any support to make this project a reality! Questions and comments are welcome, and thank you!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/178980990/toolb-the-toolbelt-for-y…
I’d like to share with you the project I’ve been working on for the past two years - it’s a toolkit that mounts on a mountain bike - the ToolB. It's quite the opposite of the current trend of 'hiding' tools in the bike', so I figured some of you might be interested in it.
I wanted to mountain bike without a backpack on shorter rides, but still have a toolkit for trail-side repairs. Since I couldn’t find a toolkit that met my requirements, I decided to design my own.
I rode with a prototype toolkit during all of 2016 biking season. I even raced a few XC races with the prototype toolkit. It turned out to be a great idea. I worked on refinements and updates for a full year and have done preliminary testing with a 2nd pre-production prototype.
I’m pretty happy to say that I found two contract manufacturers in Massachusetts (where I live) who vetted for the ToolB design - so it will be made in the USA.
I launched the Kickstarter last week, and thought some people here on the VitalMTB forum might be interested. There are still some limited spots left for the super early bird and early bird tiers, and I would definitely appreciate any support to make this project a reality! Questions and comments are welcome, and thank you!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/178980990/toolb-the-toolbelt-for-y…
One of the reasons I chose leather is because of its impact-absorbing properties. I wanted to make certain, that if for some reason the toolkit got hit by a rock, or the bike got dropped, or anything like that, the tools in the toolkit would not dent or scratch the bike itself.
A few of the other reasons I chose leather is that it holds shape very well, is flexible but doesn't stretch (negligible stretch), and is a very durable material (has been used for thousands of years for shoes, saddles, bags, even armor).
And of course I also wanted it to look good, and I tried! This second prototype looks quite different than the first!
I spent a lot of time engineering this toolkit, the devil is in the details! Hopefully I communicated some of the design decisions in the Kickstarter.
Quick update -
I decided to add a bonus to all reward tiers - each one will now include a beautiful, laser-engraved, leather bookmark
International shipping has been lowered from $35 to $25. Also, the $109 reward tier has been opened up to international shipping!
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