Tyre Monkey Tire Lever vs Crankbrothers Speedier Lever
When it comes to tire lever options, both the Tyre Monkey lever and the Crankbros tire lever have their advantages and disadvantages. First, both the Tyre Monkey and Crankbros levers boast a robust construction, making both of them ideal for tackling stubborn tires.
CRANKBROTHERS
On one hand, the Crankbrothers tire lever has a handle type shape that your fingers slip through. This results in, a firm grip and a guard around the outside of your fingers, providing protection against knocking your fingers against the spokes. Moreover, you have the option of either pushing or pulling the lever around the tire. And of course, you can use either hand.
TYRE MONKEY
The Tyre Monkey has the basic shape of most tire levers. However, it is wider than your average lever which in turn, makes it easy to grip with your hand. Additionally, when using the Tyre monkey tire lever, the lever is positioned horizontally. This keeps your fingers away from the spokes and provides good leverage when either pulling or pushing it around the rim. And of course, you are also able to use either hand with the Tyre Monkey.
Interesting to note, you would think with it’s beefy design that this lever would be pretty resistant to breakage. Unfortunately, there have been reports of the Tyre Monkey breaking during use. There were no reports of where on the lever it actually broke. During our testing, we had no breakage and the lever seemed to standup to what ever we through at it. Hard to imagine where on the lever it broke down.
TIRE LEVER DIFFERENCES WITH STALLATION AND REMOVAL
On the negative side, the Tyre Monkey kept slipping of the rim during tire removal. This was most prevalent with the MTB tire. Even though it does have a notch that slips onto the edge of the rim, the instructions indicated to just rest the lever next to the rim during removal and not to use the notch. However, it did have you use the notch during installation.
Also, the part of the lever that fits under the bead of the tire is much shallower than the part on the Crankbrothers lever. To note, the notch on the Trye Monkey is wider than the Crankbrothers and does not clip on the rim. It basically, just sits on the rim. Conversely, the Crankbrothers lever has a narrower notch on the installation end. So, you clip the lever onto the rim during the tire installation. As a result, the Crankbrothers. lever stayed firmly on the rim during the process.
Both tire levers are compact in design fitting snugly into any bike tool kit. Moreover, both tire levers provide a good grip, finger protection and leverage during use. However, the Tyre Monkey lever did slip out during tire removal several times. We believe this was do to the shallower lip that inserts under the tire bead. On the contrary, the Crankbrothers lever had a sharper curve to it.
In this review we do give the nod to the Crankbrothers lever. We like the fact that it firmly snaps onto the rim during the installation. Even though, you can use the notch on the Tyre Monkey for both processes, it does not snap on the rim. The notch just sits the rim with a small amount of play. On a positive note, The Tyre Monkey tire lever is shorter and somewhat more compact and did work as well on the road tire.
Despite their divergent strengths, both the Tyre Monkey lever and the Crankbrothers tire lever prove indispensable for cyclists seeking reliable tire maintenance solutions. As of this writing, the Tyre Monkey is available on Amazon for $14.99 (CLICK HERE) and the Crankbrothers lever is $5.99 (CLICK HERE).
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