How well is your cockpit aligned right now? It may be close, but is it perfect? Short of finding a mechanic with the perfect eye, aligning your stem and handlebar typically involves eyeballing it, maybe giving it a few taps with your hand on one side, and going for a ride to see how close you got it. And then coming back and doing it all over again because it’s not straight.
We’ve seen a few different alignment tools over the years to do this very thing, some of which involve lasers. But for DNR Designs, their K.I.T. or Keep It True alignment tool is all analog. Made and assembled in Greenville, South Carolina, the tool is fairly simple.
Start by mounting the handlebar clamps to your bar. The adjustable clamps allow for nearly any type of handlebar to be used including MTB, BMX, Road, CX, Gravel, and more.
Once attached to the bar, the lower part of the tool is adjusted so that it will properly rest on the fork blades or the stanchions of your suspension fork. The tool has an adjustability range of 10-17″ to work with different styles and sizes of bikes.
From there, you simply rotate the stem and bar assembly, until the lower part of the tool rests evenly on both fork legs. Then tighten down the stem. The patented system pretty much guarantees a properly aligned cockpit. But with the tool priced at $187 (marked down from $220), it seems more likely that this will find a home at your local bike shop rather than in your garage.
that may be the coolest “I totally don’t need this, but oh my, do I want this” tool I have ever seen…. I will be grabbing one of these when I save up the scheckels.
We would love to send you one out!!
I think eyeballing it is cheaper
SMH
Wouldn’t work on aero road bar with narrow round clamping area though. So, to use with aero road bar, we must mount a round bar on first, then align the fork then swap back to aero road bar later? This solution doesn’t even work with integrated bar/stem.
Why don’t they clamp from the stem instead? Stem are almost universally round, or oval-ish.
Because that wouldn’t work on 35-50mm stems where the extension is super short.
If that’s what a person wants l am thankful it exists.
This is the best of this type of tool so far. It’s like my design but inverted.
It would be so easy for manufacturers to inscribe centerlines on the bars and stems.
Waited my whole life for this invention, but now I ride a Lefty.
This is like your aim in a urinal. If it bothers you, move it.
priced for shop use, but no shop mechanic is going to take the extra few mins to use this tool. and Tune’s laser tool is half the price, and obviously better, because lasers. https://bikerumor.com/2018/01/17/review-perfectly-aligned-handlebars-tune-spurtreu/
The Tune tool does require that the user be able properly align the laser before use. It’s not given that everyone can do that. It also may periodically need to be realigned if it’s bumped, dropped, and so on. The Tune tool is sweet though.
Still eyeballing and assuming wheel dish is correct.
Manufacturers could make this easy by marking the center of the fork steerer tube on the front/back, and similar on the stem as well. Align the marks and tighten.
Seems easy enough to make using regular items you can find at home depot/ harbor freight. Bet there’s somebody put the that can make it for < $ 187.
We have one of these tools in our shop and hands down the best and most accurate way to ensure perfect alignment. I get that it’s a bit pricey but i guess it depends on how accurate you need the bars aligned. This tool gets it perfect every time and i have not seen anything that can achieve this level of accuracy.
No I have realized I just need piece of wood with whole in the middle (for the steam) and to just press it into fork and the handlebars to see if it’s correct.