RELATIVE or Comparative, where you're checking two things against each other.This is rulers and calipers and tapes and protractors. There are two types of measurement and which one you need depends on your personality, what you're trying to achieve, and how your mind learns. Like any tool, you can always find other solutions. Comparative measurements will often get you far enough. I have never found micrometer screw to be useful when working with bikes.ĭo you need a caliper? I'd say no straight-off. If you want more accuracy, a micrometer screw would offer that but it usually is restricted to a very narrow range of measurements and can only measure outer diameters, never hole depths or inner diameters. There may be some calipers that can only measure outer diameters. Just ensure you buy a tool that can be used for all of hole depths, inner diameters and outer diameters. If you don't have a caliper, you don't know the important dimensions of your parts. Setting constant bike fit obviously requires a tape measure.Ĭalipers can measure hole depths, inner diameters, outer diameters, thread pitches etc. With bikes, such measurements are probably more common than large-distance measurements that you would do with a tape measure. If you don't have a caliper, you can't make small-distance measurements.

Am I on the right track?īy far, caliper is the tool that I use the most in my toolbox, whether working with bikes or something else. My first thought is that I'd use it sporadically, and hence a digital tool would be a bad idea (battery will be depleted between uses). brass caliper-either with a rotary needle or with a slide-rule-like fractional measuring scale,.very inexpensive (USD200)-yet still from an unrecognizable brand-digital caliper, and nothing in-between,.In terms of categories, there is a wide choice: If seatposts are basically the only thing I'd need to measure, it would make more sense to just take all my seatposts to a friend/neighbor and note the diameter just once, or to borrow/rent a caliper. There is far less variability in handlebars, and handlebar dimensions are anyway more frequently documented in brochures. How important is a caliper for a home-based bike workshop? It simply makes no sense to haul a bike to the LBS to measure a seatpost. It appears I am missing (yet) another tool: a caliper.

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