The snowboarder’s pocket tool can come in really handy on the hill. If you’re experimenting with binding angles, you’re gonna need some way to adjust your bindings. Maybe your straps need adjusting? Or it’s a powder day and you want to move your bindings back for extra float…
Most snowboarders out there appreciate it when at least someone in the group is equipped with a pocket tool. It’s reassuring! Even though the pocket tools are all pretty small and fit easily into your pocket, somehow, it’s nicer if someone else is carrying it…
Dakine have been making decent tools for a while – the other brand that I’ve seen the most is Bakoda. The two that I’ve owned over the years have both been Dakine – the two models shown here.
Dakine Cool Tool – Advantages
In this mini review, I wanted to point out a couple of advantages of the Cool Tool, over some of the other designs.
First of all, I was a little concerned that the changeable driver heads would fall out of the handle; you push a head in, to displace one of the spares. However, that has never happened. In actual fact, it turned out to be an advantage over the other design from Dakine, where you keep the spares inside handle. Inside the handle gets a little moist, so the spare heads picked up a bit of rust over time…
The primary advantage however, is that the shape of the handle lets you adjust the screws on your bindings that are close to the board surface. For example, consider this picture:
Using the ratchet, adjustments here, with the Cool Tool are easy. The pocket tools that have a T-shaped handle do provide a little more grip, but adjusting that screw is almost impossible.
These pocket tools are all pretty cheap – in the $10 – $20 range – and can make a useful addition to your snowboard kit. If you don’t want to be the one that carries it, you could always get one as a gift for a friend, it’s a win-win. You can also now get a tool integrated with a stomp pad – check it out.