My Adventure Toolkit for my Yamaha WR250R

My Adventure Toolkit for my Yamaha WR250R

This is a small toolkit for my WR250R that I carry on all of my rides. I started this kit by replacing the factory tools and then adding tire care and simple emergency repair tools to the kit. I’ve made sure that it covers most maintenance items as well.

In fact, you should use these tools to perform maintenance to make sure that you’ve got what you need and that you know how to use these tools before you have to use them in the middle of the desert.

In particular, this set has a smaller set of tire levers and a bead buddy. You should practice changing a tube out with this set to make sure you can do it with your tires.

I’ve done my best to keep this small and trim. The photo above is taken with the kit next to my favorite summertime riding gloves. I’ll go through the tools in it and why I like them. You’ll recognize that it uses the large size mesh bag that came with the one that use for my bike tool kit.

The Contents of my WR250R Tool Kit

• Mesh Storage Bag
  I like mesh bags because they don’t hold water and you can see your tools easily through them. They aren’t as durable as they could be, but they are cheap enough to occasionally replace.
• Patch Kit with Scabs
  I carry both glue patches and quick adhesive patches. A thorn puncture close to home might be a simple adhesive patch. A torn tube might need a glue up. The glue patches take a little longer to do, but I do consider them permanent fixes.
• J-B Weld Steel Stick
  This is a steel reinforced epoxy that you can hand mix. It sets in five minutes and can be machined after an hour. This can be a lifesaver for tasks like patching a oil cover. On big rides I also carry traditional JB Weld, the liquid can work well for hard to reach areas and tighter crevices.
• Spoke Wrench
  This is a cheap spoke wrench that I haven’t needed often. You can make do with an adjustable wrench, but having a proper wrench is cheap insurance for dealing with a wobbly spoke on a bent rim.
• 4” Adjustable Wrench
  Surprisingly versatile, this little wrench can open to half an inch and can be very useful when working on your friends bike if they don’t have their tookit with them.
• 5” Vise Grips with wire cutter
  These can be used for everything from gripping a broken clutch cable to holding broken parts together while your JB Weld cures.
• 0.021 Safety Wire
  If it can’t be fixed with JB Weld and Bailing wire, you’ve really broken it. Great for holding on broken exhaust or loose plastics, this wire is thin enough that you can easily stitch parts together with it or wrap things up and bind them. Use the cutters on the vise grips to cut it.
• Pencil flashlight
  I keep a headlamp in my riding pack, but I keep a dedicated light in this little bag to make sure that I am never without. The shape can be nice for getting into tight corners. Even in the daytime it can be hard to see into nooks and crannies of a bike if you’re parked in the shade.
• Bic Lighter
  This is more likely a survival item, but I have dealt with frayed saddlebag straps with it.
• Tire Pressure Gauge
  After dealing with a flat, this is a key item. Ideally for long rides you could carry a more accurate dial gauge, but for a quick fix this will do when it only matter that you’re at 15 and not 5psi.
• Battery Tender USB Converter
  This lets me charge my phone from my battery tender terminals. Unless you’ve installed a dedicated USB port, this is a great way to be able to charge a phone, flashlight or GPS from your bikes battery.
• Neiko Mini Ratcheting Screwdriver
  I like these little screwdrivers. They are compact and easy to use. They aren’t ideal for reaching a couple of screws deep in the bike, but for adjustments on handlebars or tending to GPS mounts, these are great.
• Motion Pro 27mm combo lever
  This is a combination of axle wrench and tire spoon. They are a little stubby, so practice changing your tire with them a few times before you carry only these with you. It’s best to set your front axle torque with a torque wrench, then back it off by 1/4 turn. Then use this wrench to turn it back 1/4 turn. This will let you get the feel for the proper torque and how it feels with this wrench.
• Motion Pro 22mm combo lever
  This is a tire iron that can be used with the rear axle.
• Motion Pro 27mm socket adapter
  This is an adapter that drives a 3/8 socket with the 27mm axle wrench. This is a fantastic little tool that can be used without the wrench at first to quickly hand assemble a part and then you snap on the tire iron combo wrench to finish tightening the part. This really makes this tool kit complete.
• Motion Pro Bead Buddy
  Along with two tire irons, you can change almost any tire with one of these. This device keeps the far side of the tire bead off the seat and in the center groove of the rim so that you have enough tire bead to work with to seat the tire. If you have extremely hard to seat tires, it’s worth having two of these. I’ve found with my Dunlop 606 that I can seat the tire with just one of these and the two levers above.
• 6” socket extension
  The bulky head of the tire iron adapter makes it hard to get to a couple of the 8mm bolts. With this extension you should be able to get to everything, in particular doing an oil change if you have a skid plate on the bike.
• 8, 10, 14, 17 metric sockets
  I bought these individually, but a set is a great way to go. These 4 sizes cover nearly all of the maintenance items on the bike.
• 4 and 5 mm allen keys
  I like the ball end wrenches for general maintenance with the ball end on the long arm and a regular end on the short arm. I’ve converted some of the philips head screw on the handlebars over to these as well.

Above is a photo of the axle wrench socket driver. It is a clever little adapter and saves this compact dual sport tool kit from having to include a ratchet wrench.

Not Pictured, but elsewhere in my bag

• A full spare front tube
  You can run a folded up front in your rear at low speeds if you have to.
• Assorted zip ties
• Nitrile Gloves
• Toppeak Morph Pump
  The head of a regular bike pump may have trouble fitting between spokes. This pump has an external hose that makes it much easier to deal with a rear tire.
• Kershaw Cryo Knife
  This is my favorite little knife. It’s cheap enough that I don’t worry about it, but has nice enough steel that it holds an edge well.
• Fuses taped to the underside of my saddle
  I keep some extra fuses for the bike taped under the seat of the bike. It keeps them out of a bag where they are beaten up by the tools.
• Sunblock

Limitation of this kit

If you’re heading out on a multi-day adventure, you’ll want more tools than this. You’ll probably want:

• Webbing tow strap
• A real ratchet wrench
• Chain tool
• Chain lube
• Hacksaw blade
• Tweezers
• Radiator Stop Leak
• Longer screwdriver
• Spare spark plug and spark plug wrench
• Tire plugs for major holes
• Both a front and rear tube
• Slow cure JB Weld
• Digital Multimeter and assorted electric repair supplies
• Any other tools that you’ve used recently during maintenance.
• Oil
• Visine
• Glow sticks

If you have any suggestions or comments, let me know!

Long Live Long Rides

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