I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve used a bottle opener in the past year. But yesterday I opened a beer with a PAUL bottle opener. Then I gathered up most of the bike bottle openers in my garage. I’d need two hands to count them all.
Those guys down at DANK bags sent me that PAUL opener from the Made show in PDX. It’s a fine piece of metal. The kind of component that just feels good in your hand. Well made.
Ten years earlier, the directors at Bike Works gifted all the employees engraved Park Tool bottle openers that include a pedal wrench, a 15mm socket and a “tire lever” that I wouldn’t put on any wheel unless it was an emergency. It’s clunky and heavy but it’s part of my tool kit for sentimental reasons.
My one and only time in Vegas and Interbike I came home with a lot of bottle openers. If one ABUS key is good, then three must be better. Hunting and gathering. More like hoarding.
At the POSEIDON table was a spread of little bikes in various colors. Cute but functional. Looks like a bike but opens beers. Several of them ended up in my pocket and I gave away a few when I got home. I still have that blue one hanging on the zipper of my weekend backpack.
The GIANT cog shaped opener is from a RAGBRAI many years ago.
The RHINO opener is kinda cool but I can't say I've ever used it and for some reason I took two. Hoarding. The UNIOR opener looks like a tool that hangs from a mechanic’s belt loop keychain. The official Park Tool BO-2 fits right in among all the Park Tools on the pegboard but it doesn’t bring me much joy. Blah blah blah.
I feel like bottle openers are good marketing but they’re never around when you need one or there are two too many to choose from.
reading Bret's comment about Surly discontinuing the CrossCheck led me to the Surly site which of course led me to the Jethro Tule: a bottle opener that every single speeder needs. CrossCheck fades out, Preamble and Straggler fade in.
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