So many ways to hide a mini tool these days, from your fork’s thru axle to under the stem cap, from the BB spindle to your fork’s steerer. Now there’s one more, and it’s for drop bar road, gravel and cyclocross bikes. The Arundel Shameless Plugs use twist-to-tighten plastic plugs to four tools inside your road bar ends, and the kit includes all common bits letting you pick what you need.
The end caps use oversized threads to twist and secure into the bar’s ends, relying on a little extra bar tape to provide the thickness necessary to hold them in place. One side has a fixed JIS Phillips Head screw driver along with a hex-shaped holder that turns the individual bits into a useable tool.
The other side has three slots to hold your choice of the included bits:
- Hex: 2, 5, 3, 4, 5, 6
- Torx: T10, T15, T20, T25, T27, T30
Weight for the system with three bits installed is 74g on our scale. Installation instructions recommend starting with fresh bar tape and leaving a little more than normal to tuck into the bar. That extra padding gives the tools more security so they won’t jostle out. On our test bike, they slot in quickly and easily, but definitely needed the extra few inches of tape to hold tight.
Retail is $39.99, found under the Service Course heading on their website.
