Silca HX-Two & HX-Three take premium, affordable tools out of the box for portability

I’d argue the exact opposite: Silca seems to make great effort to emphasize the quality of its products. I don’t currently own any, but that’s the impression I get from perusing their site, reading their blog, and reading what journos have to say about Silca.

I have no clue at all where anyone would see any elitist attitude at all in Silca’s products and advertisements for said products.

The box set has actually been available for 2 years now, has won a handful of both industrial and product design awards and was our first product in the tool space where we are really only the second company after PBSwiss to offer tools at this level. If you travel with pro mechanics in Europe you will find that every single one of them uses PBSwiss or SILCA hex keys. The cost of wearing out a hex key is just too great as the damage it can cause poses not only a safety issue for the riders, but can add hours of time per day to the mechanic’s routine. The HX-One was developed alongside a handful of pro mechanics as a way of combing the culinary concept of mise in place (everything in place) with the highest quality tools. Being able to access the box one handed saves a lot of time, and the layout of the box makes you more likely to replace them during use which saves time making them easier to locate when you need them again. If you visit the ProTour pits today you will find dozens of mechanics rocking these kits as the mechanics find that the kit saves time, headache and heartache when wrenching at that level. Also the box kit comes with a magnetic driver adapter to drive 1/4 Hex bits, and comes with the most expensive S2 bits available including custom cross-head bits that we make to the defunct JIS specification so that they perfectly fit Shimano limit screws… details.

Of course not everybody is a pro mechanic or obsessed with tools, so we now make simpler and more affordable versions so that more people can access the technology. At out core we are a technology and design company, striving to bring tech from other industries into this one in ways that are both beautiful and pleasing to use.

It’s certainly not in any way meant to be elitist, but it also isn’t for everyone.

The world is full of companies in every single category who are already making products that are both decent in function and inexpensive in price so we certainly don’t need another one of those. However, there are very few companies willing to sweat every detail to try and elevate things to a new level.

Rapha is a great example. Many people like to call them elitist, but the reality is that by focusing on product first and cost last they completely changed the game. No matter what brand of clothing you wear today, you are benefiting from the attention to detail and focus on quality and materials that Rapha brought to cycling clothing. Even the most anti-Rapha brands now pay attention to details and tout features that Rapha essentially invented, and better yet, they’ve inspired dozens of new brands who are trying to elevate the level even further. In the end, the consumer wins through more choice and more detailed and higher quality products at the lower price points. I can only hope that we can do the same for cycling accessories and tools.