Abbey Bike Tools spent more than two years testing and developing their first chain tool which is called the Decade. Why? Because they didn’t want to release a chain tool that would just become obsolete the next time someone introduced a new drivetrain. And they didn’t want it to wear out in less than 10 years. Now that SRAM AXS has come along, the Decade is already paying dividends as a new mid plate ensures that it is SRAM AXS compatible.
The issue with SRAM AXS comes down to the fact that the Flattop chain rollers are 0.01″ larger than an 11 speed chain, which means the driving pin on the chain tool will be too low on the chain pin. Shown above with a standard mid plate and a SRAM AXS Flattop chain, you can see that the driving pin sits low on the chain pin and won’t properly drive it out.
Abbey was busy selling their SRAM AXS compatible mid plates during the show and didn’t have any to demonstrate when I came by, but you can see above that the same mid plate used on the top photo allows for perfect driving pin alignment with an 11 speed chain.
Fortunately, the Decade has replaceable mid plates which are sold for $25 each, with the Decade tool itself selling for $175. Abbey’s founder Jason Quade also mentioned that this brings up a potential issue with existing chain wear indicators and chain whips as well (SRAM responded to this by mentioning the Pedro Chain Checker Plus and Chain Checker Plus II are both AXS compatible).
When asked about the need for an AXS compatible chain tool, SRAM confirmed that some older chain tools will be incompatible with AXS. While Abbey has the jump with the ability to quickly manufacture new mid plates, SRAM gave us this list of AXS compatible chain tools below:
SRAM AXS Compatible Chain Tools
- Abbey Decade (with AXS plate)
- Park 3.3 (technically many 3.2s are compatible as well as Park Made a manufacturing change to work with AXS, but not all 3.2s are compatible which is why they renamed it the 3.3)
- Pedros Apprentice 1.1
- Pedros Pro 3.1
- Pedros Apprentice 1.0 and Pro 3.0 will work by retrofitting a new bridge
- Even some Pedro’s Multi Tools are AXS compatible with the complete list here
- PRO chain tool
- Shimano TL-CN29
- Shimano TL-CN28