Park Tool Ak 3, available on Competitive Cyclist for $305.95
Sure, a poor craftsman blames his tools, but low-quality tools do low-quality work. To avoid rounding out bolts or rattling parts on your bike, you’ll want to invest in a decent tool kit. The Park Tool Ak 3 isn’t cheap, and it does make less expensive tool kit for beginners, but the Ak3 is well worth the investment if you can swing it.
By upgrading to the AK3, you get individual Allen wrenches for hard-to-reach areas like the saddle clamp, and a cassette tool and chain whip to change cassettes, one of the easiest ways to maintain shifting in top condition.
There’s also everything you’ll need to re-cable your bike, which is something you’ll want to eventually master even if it seems unfathomable right now, and a tool for removing disc brake rotors, which takes seconds but is necessary if you want to fly with your bike and have brakes that work when you land.
With this tool kit, you can do everything you’d ever wanted to do at home with the exception of building a bike from a frame. Some of the tools required to do that are expensive and frankly, scary, because they can hurt you or damage your bike if used incorrectly.
I don't know about you, but I’ve never personally enjoyed hacksawing carbon tubes, so I take my bike to someone I trust and get a coffee while they do it for me. Once my bike is built, then I can do everything I need to in order to keep it in tip-top condition. (There’s also a bottle opener in this kit, which is part of the reason why I'm not in such tip-top condition these days.)