A good pair of cable cutters are a necessity for working on brakes. A regular wire cutter won't get you a clean cut on housing or cable. It will fray the ends and make installing cable a chore. These Park cutters are the most expensive tool on the list. They're far from the best cutters out there (Felco are the best, you can cut cable your whole life and give them to your grandkids for their BMX'es), but they work very, very well for under $30.

Ahh, the lowly tire lever. Sure, they cost almost nothing, but when you have a flat they make life many times easier. 20" tires are a bitch to get seated without levers, so spend two dollars and buy a set of three. Never use the metal levers, they'll bend your spokes and make flat spots in your rims.

Pliers are very handy for all types of bike repairs. First, remember pliers are only for holding, never for turning. Pliers work great for pulling cable taught, and holding other tools still at akward angles. You'll also need pliers to squeeze on cable ends when installing new cables.

Spend a couple dollars on a decent phillips head screwdriver. You may need this for adjusting brakes and brake springs. Some bikes have allen heads on the brakes, so this may be unnecessary. May also be used on some brake lever barrell adjusters. May also be used for self defense if attacked by Goblins while soing BMX repair.

This is a 30/32 mm headset wrench, which will fit most standard and oversized BMX threaded headsets. You'll need this for adjusting the locknuts to get a smooth running bike, and to take the headset out to clean and replace the bearings. This is why I say to hell with threadless headsets. They can't be adjusted at all, if it doesn't fit your screwed, and stuck with the factories 'adjustment'. This a medium weight tool and can be had for under $10 dollars.

This is a medium weight 15mm pedal wrench and 36mm headset wrench. The pedal side will fit all pedals on a 3 piece crank (9/16"). If you have one piece cranks, you'll need a wrench that fits a 1/2" pedal. The 36mm headset opening will work on a few oversized threaded headsets, so it's nice to have this. The leverage on this wrench is decent, but pedals are often difficult to remove. If you can swing it, the park 'Battleaxe" pedal wrench is enormous, and has openings for 1/2" and 9/16" pedals. You remove the right pedal by turning counterclockwise, and left pedal by turning clockwise. Always grease the axels on your pedals.

A gear brush makes cleaning chains and sprockets much simpler. Yes, you can use a toothbrush, but what I like about this is the 'pick' side which fits perfectly into cogs, drivers and chains to get the really bad crud. Soak the offending parts in diesel gas ('petrol' for the Brit impaired) for a few hours then scrub like Lady Macbeth. Presto - like new drivetrain. Also good for brushing your teeth and beard.

This little beasty takes the freewheel off of freewheel hubs. It comes in various configurations for different freewheels (ACS, ODY etc...), and most freewheels come with the tool. If you don't get one with your freewheel, bitch at the bike shop, they always come packaged together (Oh, yeah everyone buys parts on the internet - I digress). The best way to do this is, is to put the remover in a vice, place the wheel on top and pretend you're turning the steering wheel on a bus. The most stubborn freewheel will usually pop right off. You can also put the remover on, tighten the axel nut above it to hold the tool, and turn the remover counterclockwise with an adjustable wrench. If you have a cassette hub, you'll need the appropriate lockring removal tool. Just twist off the lockring and slide off the cassette.

Park bills this as a 'BMX Multi Tool', and it's not perfect but it's cheap. It has the most common metric and standard sizes for stem bolts, brakes and some crank pinch bolts. It also has flathead and phillips head screwdrivers. It's sometimes difficult to open a stuck bolt with a multi tool, but for the cash this is a good deal and you can throw it in a sweatshirt pocket and make a lot of adjustments on your bike while you're out riding.

A nice floor pump will save you hours of aggravation. Gas station pumps are unpredictable, and it's really easy to pop a tube. Hand pumps take forever to get a BMX tube to the correct PSI. Just shell out and get a nice metal pump and make your life easier.

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Having the right amount of air in your tires is one of the most critical adjustments on your bike. It's also one of the simplest, and one of the few things that will make a fast, noticeable improvement in the way your bike feels. The gauges on most pumps are horribly innacurate. Those little metal air pressure gauges aren't meant for bikes, and are also pretty innacurate. For $15.00 US you can buy this amazing digital gauge and check pressure to 1 PSI. It has a light up display, fits Presta and Schraeder valves, and Bike Planet donates some of their profits to bike worthy causes. Have correctly filled tubes and be charitable simultaneously.

You must own a chainbreaker. Using a nail and hammer will wreck your chain and is a good way to have a wreck from a bent link. This is about $15.00 US and I've even used it to break a Shadow Chain. This also won't bend in a week like the one's from Dan's Comp.

The tool below is a thin walled 14mm socket that 's used to remove crank bolts. I've found that most sockets are a wee bit too thick to get inside a crank arm, so this is right tool for the job. The really long padded handle makes sure you won't strip the crank bolt, a time honored BMX disaster.

These only cost $3.00 yet everyone insists on using a flathead screwdriver to hold their chainring bolts when they're switching gearing. This tiny wrench easily fits behind your chainring and has a slotted head to hold the nuts still while you remove the bolts from the other side with an allen key. If you strip the chainring bolts and nuts, it's a pain in the ass to get them out without bending and ruining the chainring. Spend the $3.00.

Get an adjustable wrench with a large jaw and a fairly small handle, to work on your brakes, help adjust your cones and turn the various oddball nuts on your friends bikes.

If you need to adjust your hubs, which is something every rider should know how to do, you need cone wrenches. These odd shaped wrenches slip onto the cones, and with the help of a box wrench or adjustable wrench, let you adjust the play in your hubs. The correct adjustment is as smooth as possible with no play. Each of these wrenches gives you two sizes, in this case 14/15mm and 17/18mm. You may also want a 19mm and a 20mm, depending on your own wheels. These are quite cheap. A full set of the pro park wrenches (one size per wrench with long, padded handles) is only $27.00, but these are about $5.00 each.

This picture is quite deceiving, as this is actually a tiny wrench which costs about $3.oo. It has an 8mm and a 10mm opening, and will work on just about every brake bolt theire is, including the locknuts, adjusting nuts and anchor bolts. It's small enough to make adjustments in any position while the brakes are on the bikes.

Having a really high quality crescent wrench that fits your axel (most likely 3/8" or 14mm) nuts will save you the trauma of having to remove stripped nuts. A good wrench will prevent this by fitting correctly and keeping its' shape. It may also fit your stem cap bolt if you have one.

Never use the wrong size hex key in a blolt head. Sometimes it's difficult to tell what the right size is, so by having a good quality metric and standard hex set, you'll be able to use any bolt on any bike. I bought this for $2.00 dollars at a hardware store and it has 20 total sizes. It's a good idea to have these around, with the current environment of engineering in BMX you never know what size bolt you're going to see on a part.

Purchase the biggest, beefiest 8mm hex key you can to remove crank arm bolts. I find these to be the most stubborn part on many bikes, so the more leverage you have the better. Get a cartoonishly large one, you'll be happy you did.

If you run pegs, an enormous 4 way socket (14/15/17/19 mm) is the only way to tighten the axel bolts without a problem. A socket set with an extension usually isn't long enough, and if it is it wobbles and will lead to stripping. This lets you tighten those suckers down hard without slipping a bolt, even with huge pegs (flatlanders...). This one was $6.99 at Pep-Boys and I expect to leave it in my will.

Here's three different spoke wrenches. I suggest you own one of each. get a really nice Park one in the size of your current wheels for wheel truing. Get a 3 way or an 8 way wrench to carry in your pocket when you ride. Nothing shuts down a session like a loose or broken spoke.

Remember, I know what is best for everyone.