Building a bicycle maintenance kit, in the order you will need it

• A good set of allen keys — Almost every fastener on a modern bicycle. Buy one decent set rather than three cheap ones: a rounded bolt head costs far more to remove than the tool saved.
• Tyre levers, patches and a pump with a gauge — The gauge is the part people skip and the part that matters most — correct pressure is the cheapest comfort and performance change available, and almost everybody guesses it badly.
• A chain wear gauge — A few pounds, and the single highest-return object in this guide. It tells you to spend £25 on a chain instead of £150 on a chain, cassette and chainrings.

• Chain tool — The first time you replace a chain. Many multitools include one badly; a bench chain tool is easier and more accurate.
• Cable cutters — The first time you replace a cable. Pliers crush rather than cut, and a frayed inner is the job done twice.
• Cassette lockring tool and chain whip — The first time you replace a cassette. Both are specific to your cassette standard, which is why buying them speculatively is how people end up with the wrong one.
• Bottom bracket tool — Only when that job arrives, and only after identifying which of the many incompatible standards your bicycle uses. This is the tool most often bought wrong.

• A workstand — Not a job-specific tool and the biggest single improvement to working on a bicycle. It also makes the activity accessible to anybody who cannot crouch or kneel, which is a stronger argument than convenience.
• A torque wrench — Optional on steel and aluminium, and not optional the moment you own anything carbon. Carbon fails by crushing rather than stripping, so feel — which is calibrated on metal — is the wrong instrument. Use the manufacturer’s stated figure for the specific component; this guide publishes no torque values, because a universal number would be wrong somewhere it matters.

A different question from what to own, and a much shorter list: a tube, tyre levers, a pump or inflator, a multitool with the sizes your bike uses, and a quick link for your chain speed. That covers the two failures that will otherwise strand you — a puncture and a broken chain — and both are learnable in an evening at home, which is the point of learning them before you need them.