REVIEW: The Nutter Multi Tool from Full Windsor

What is it that we want from multi tools? Reliability? Functionality? Lightness? Absolutely. Effortless style? Perhaps. 

Full Windsor - a cycling accessory company started by Kiwi, Mark Windsor - is rapidly becoming famous for its innovative and distinctive products. Their mudguards are certainly eye-catching, while this first foray into multi-tool design and manufacture represents the firm's values of sustainability, creativity and functionality at a new level (after all, whilst the mudguards are very good, you can get only so innovative with them.) 

The new product first gained traction through Kickstarter, the popular crowd-funding site - itself an indication that The Nutter has a market ready and willing to invest in it. A multi-tool is a multi-tool to many cyclists, so The Nutter had to break the mould somewhere. This is where its striking design comes into play. 

Style is what you get in spades with The Nutter multi tool, and unlike most competitors, it doesn't come as one item in a folding system. This appears to be the intended pièce de résistance - promising to offer new levels of torque application and leverage. What you get is a single forged piece of metal with a single extender, which accepts the supplied components. 

These include 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8mm hex tool bits, plus Philips head and flat head screw driver bits. Also included in the forged metal handle is a spoke key, a 15mm box head spanner, a nylon tyre lever, torque key and bottle opener. 

A particularly useful feature is the magnetized tool bit extender that helps to ensure you don't lose those important bits by accident. At £39.99 (and a beefy 224 grams), the tool does offer reasonable functionality for the price and weight when you take into account the quality of the product. 

In practice, the tool is solid to hold and does an efficient job of transferring your power into those sticky allen key holes, allowing a lot more torque application than you'd get with a traditional Swiss-army style tool; a very stuck seat post bracket that wouldn't release with the use of a 'normal' multi tool, shifted with ease with The Nutter. 

The bits do offer a wide range of functionality, and are easily replaceable if they round off with extended use. It's a shame, however, that smaller allen keys such as those needed to adjust pedals aren't included in the package at this price, even if it's hard to see where they'd be installed on the lever itself! 

The leather carry case comes in a stylish black or brown (the one we tested was brown and looked fantastic), and has straps that allow you to attach the case to the frame or in place of a traditional saddle bag. 

Official product images suggest this looks great on a more vintage frame, but when attached to a modern carbon machine it looks a little out of place - and if you're not riding with internal cabling, it can snag on the rear brake cable when tied to the top tube. Better, then, to keep it in a pocket - but remember this is no lightweight performance tool, so if gram-shaving and marginal gains are your thing, this perhaps isn't the one for you. 

Given its undeniably stylish nature, this tool is for fashionable commuter cyclists riding fixies, and vintage bike owners who aren't concerned with the last word in performance - paired with a Merino wool jersey and a Brooks saddle, you'll be the talk of the town at next year's L'Eroica Britannia. 

A quality product designed to last, with a suitable, if not outstanding range of bits and functions it's a pleasure to own and to use when the need arises. If this is a sign of things to come from Full Windsor, cycling is about to get eminently more stylish.

For more information about The Nutter and the complete Full Windsor range, visit full-windsorshop.com.