There's a Japanese manufacturer called
Maruni (マルニ) that specializes in puncture repair supplies,
and the tire levers I use at work are made by Maruni.
I've been using them for over ten years now, so the tip of the lever is worn down.
These tire levers are incredibly easy to use and they don't break
(at least, I've never seen one break).
The other day, I got word from one of my distributors—let's call them Distributor A—
that Maruni products would be price-increased starting August 2nd this year,
and that the fixed list prices would be eliminated in favor of open pricing.
Looking at the price revision list, patches and rubber cement were listed,
but there was no mention of the tire levers.
I hastily checked Distributor A's ordering site and discovered
that the tire levers themselves were no longer being stocked.
As far as I know, these are the easiest-to-use tire levers,
so I'd be in real trouble if they were discontinued.
Distributor A stocks all Maruni products (probably) except for these tire levers,
so there's no logical reason not to carry them.
It's not like there's some competing Maruni tire lever that conflicts
with another brand's tire lever they're obligated to push instead.
By the way, Distributor A sells them as 3-piece sets—one red, one yellow, one blue—
and that's almost always how they're sold.
From a different distributor—let's call them Distributor B—
I sourced tire levers from the Viva (ビバ) brand,
which mainly produces touring bike components.
Like Maruni, they come in 3-color sets,
and apparently someone couldn't be bothered to rebrand them under their own label,
because they're still stamped with "Maruni" on them.
Distributor B's price is still at the old list price: ¥390 excluding tax.
So the per-unit cost comes to ¥130 per lever.
After investigating further,
I found that yet another distributor—Distributor C—sells them individually
and had decent stock, which I promptly bought out.
According to someone at Distributor C,
these tire levers are not actually being discontinued.
Well, since I'd hate to run out, I'm stocking up generously just in case.
These tire levers probably have good distribution stock overall,
so even if I buy out a few distributors,
it's not the kind of product where I could corner the market.
Distributor C also carried them in black, in addition to red, yellow, and blue.
I'd never seen this color before.
This side of the shape is identical,
but the side with the Maruni marking is unmarked and the shape is slightly different.
The individual items from Distributor C have no fixed pricing.
For my retail price, I set it at ¥80 per lever including tax,
which seemed like the ceiling without going for some loss-leader gimmick.
For comparison, the ¥130 per lever from the 3-piece set was before tax,
which works out to about ¥76.
I'm not limiting them to sets, so you can buy multiple of the same color if you want.
What Distributor C told me about them not being discontinued is,
so far, apparently true—after I bought them out,
the stock got replenished.
Though I bought those out too.
So I'll be getting a major stock influx soon.
Since the dollar amount isn't huge, I could stock up without much hesitation,
but more importantly, I can confidently say these are easy to use,
so I stocked up in volume.
I'm someone who once bought out all the original Colima-embroidered Selle Italia Flight saddles
from Colima back in the day
(since I see our inventory every day, I know some other shops got some during my buying spree),
but that was only possible because it was a discontinued item.
Completely buying out these tire levers is, as I mentioned, impossible.
Looking at the sales of our loss-leader ¥400 butyl tubes
and ¥150 CO₂ cartridges, if these were definitely being discontinued,
I'd stock 1,000 units easily.
But unlike tubes and cartridges, since they don't break,
you don't get repeat purchases from the same customer except in case of loss.
That's the difference.
Bonus
About other tire levers I own
↑This is a flat "chewing gum" style tire lever.
Similar shapes come from various manufacturers,
with Michelin's being probably the most well-known.
This one is branded Gomitalia (ゴミタリア), which is quite rare, probably.
Gomitalia literally means "Rubber-Italy," but it doesn't sound great in Japanese.
It was especially famous for tubular tires,
and their WO tires were what's called open tubulars—
tubular tires with just the bead glued on without stitching,
flat and seaweed-like.
Similar tire shapes include Vittoria's old Open Corsa CX
and Veloflex's WO tires.
This style of tire lever includes Zéfal's Z-LEVERS,
though Continental ones are somewhat hard to find.
Overseas online retailers seem to sell individual tire levers,
but in Japan through distributors,
the only way to get Continental tire levers is through their
"saddle bag" kit, which fits about two ultra-thin butyl tubes,
comes with one ultra-thick tube and two flat tire levers,
and you have to buy the whole package.
Personally, I find this style tire lever hard to use,
but according to customers I've talked to for articles,
they do have passionate fans.
Also, since they don't curve upward and stay flat,
they're easy to slide into a saddle bag even when it's stuffed,
and some people say that when inserted as a base layer,
it actually stabilizes the shape of the bag.
↑This is an IRC tire lever,
the only tire lever other than Maruni that I actually use at work.
The "MOUNTING" marking on the opposite end from the lever
is supposedly for seating tubeless tires into the rim center,
but since many wheels these days use proprietary tubeless standards outside ETRTO,
I've never actually used that end.
Incidentally, I've broken one of these before,
on a second-generation Mavic Road UST tubeless tire.
The lighting makes it look like a different color,
but it's the same lever and same color as the one before.
Since it doesn't fit well in a saddle bag, I ground down the mounting end.
By shape it might be classified as a flat type,
but it lacks that characteristic thinness, so I'll treat it as a separate category.
The feel is completely different too.
↑This is a tire lever from PB, the Swiss company famous for hex keys.
It's short, and by size it's obviously a bicycle tool, not for cars or motorcycles.
Honestly, without the PB name, it's not something I'd bother buying.
It's not unusable, but it's not particularly easy to use either.
This tire lever doesn't have a "MOUNTING" marking,
but the defining feature is that you can flex about owning it to some people.
Actually, the fact that PB made this thing at all
probably adds value to the article itself.
↑This is a Vittoria tire lever.
It's recent, with a different shape from older versions,
and the logo in the snap-together slot is the current Vittoria logo,
but the three-color Italian tricolor set format
is unchanged from the older version.
When you realize at a trailhead you've forgotten your tire lever
or you've broken one, you can use the quick-release lever as an emergency tire lever
(though many modern quick levers aren't shaped for this),
but I suspect some tire levers out there are less capable at this task than a quick lever itself.
The old Vittoria is one of those for me.
This is what the snap-together slot looks like.
I'm just sharing a close-up for documentation purposes, just so we're clear.
Also, I'll add some links to related articles that probably aren't relevant
(→here)(→here).
↑This is a tire lever from Silca, a pump manufacturer now under American ownership,
and it's a 2-piece set.
This one's defining feature is that you can flex about the price,
at ¥2,100 excluding tax.
Wow, so cool!
Tied together with a SILCA-branded band!
These finishes are aimed at the hearts of people who get hives
wearing anything other than Ra○a or As○os gear (cheap allergy)
or who think their water rots in anything except a King titanium bottle cage!
The material is a combination of nylon and metal,
but the lever part is metal.
It shouldn't be any problem on carbon rims
(and they obviously designed it for carbon rims),
but on aluminum rims like Mavic Open Pro Disc or Stans wheels
with exceptionally thin bead hooks, you might want to avoid using these.
↑This is an early Campagnolo tire lever.
Before Silca came out with theirs,
this was the premium tire lever standard.
At the time of writing this article, the list price is ¥551 excluding tax per lever.
This side has the part number TL-7Z414141 stamped on it,
and the manufacturing date is July 2006.
↑This is a later and current version.
It has no Campagnolo stamp.
The part number on the other side is identical to the early version,
and this one is from September 2015,
but the stamp had been removed long before this.
↑This is a Fulcrum-branded tire lever.
Not "a Fulcrum tire lever."
The only distributor in Japan carrying Fulcrum
had this specially made as a race participation prize,
and there's no other distribution.
When you buy a Fulcrum wheel, it comes with a tire lever,
it's the same unmarked black lever as the later Campagnolo version.
I suspect they removed the Campagnolo stamp for this reason.
The stamp on this side is identical to Campagnolo's,
and the manufacturing date is April 2016.
↑This is from a customer and fellow team member's own gear, and I got permission to photograph it.
I said earlier that Fulcrum-branded tire levers are Japan-only specials with no other distribution,
but I was wrong.
Turns out this came with a Fulcrum wheel from overseas online retail!
But here's where it gets mysterious: this side has no stamp at all.
That's something you don't even see on Campagnolo tire levers.
Did they deliberately do this
to insist it's a different product from the Japanese distributor special order?
The manufacturing dates on both are July 2018.
As a completely unrelated aside, the watch manufacturer Longines
makes a Heritage Legend Diver, which is a remake of the original Legend Diver (Ref.7150)
from around 1959–61.
The initial remake was a limited edition.
Then Legend Diver became a regular model,
but to not upset the people who bought the limited edition,
the specs were changed.
The original Legend Diver and the first remake are non-date,
but the regular model Legend Diver
has a date window at 3 o'clock.
The first remake is non-date,
and while the price isn't crazy high,
very few of them are in circulation.
I've had two chances to buy one over the years,
but hesitated both times and they sold out.
When you want something, that's when you should buy it—that's really true.
↑This is a tire lever for tubular tires from Most,
the parts brand of Pinarello.
They made a decent quantity,
but it was a one-time spot production,
so it's limited stock through distributor.
Distributors still have plenty though.
These are sold individually per lever, by the way.
At ¥760 excluding tax, it's not cheap.
I've mentioned this before on the site,
and it's genuinely easy to use for removing tubular tires.
Since you typically only need one for the task,
if you use tubular tires and are interested,
try ordering from your local Pinarello dealer.
I said earlier I only use Maruni tires except for IRC,
but I need to correct that.
When removing tubular tires, I use this one almost always.
↑This is a tire lever belonging to one of my customers and fellow team members,
an old-timer cyclist.
It's Maruni, but in a way, it's not Maruni.
It's a rare tire lever I don't even have.
It's at least 25 years old.
A quarter-century-plus old—that sounds older.
It says "Earth" on it, which is a Maruni brand.
Maruni (マルニ) that specializes in puncture repair supplies,
and the tire levers I use at work are made by Maruni.
I've been using them for over ten years now, so the tip of the lever is worn down.
These tire levers are incredibly easy to use and they don't break
(at least, I've never seen one break).
The other day, I got word from one of my distributors—let's call them Distributor A—
that Maruni products would be price-increased starting August 2nd this year,
and that the fixed list prices would be eliminated in favor of open pricing.
Looking at the price revision list, patches and rubber cement were listed,
but there was no mention of the tire levers.
I hastily checked Distributor A's ordering site and discovered
that the tire levers themselves were no longer being stocked.
As far as I know, these are the easiest-to-use tire levers,
so I'd be in real trouble if they were discontinued.
Distributor A stocks all Maruni products (probably) except for these tire levers,
so there's no logical reason not to carry them.
It's not like there's some competing Maruni tire lever that conflicts
with another brand's tire lever they're obligated to push instead.
By the way, Distributor A sells them as 3-piece sets—one red, one yellow, one blue—
and that's almost always how they're sold.
From a different distributor—let's call them Distributor B—
I sourced tire levers from the Viva (ビバ) brand,
which mainly produces touring bike components.
Like Maruni, they come in 3-color sets,
and apparently someone couldn't be bothered to rebrand them under their own label,
because they're still stamped with "Maruni" on them.
Distributor B's price is still at the old list price: ¥390 excluding tax.
So the per-unit cost comes to ¥130 per lever.
After investigating further,
I found that yet another distributor—Distributor C—sells them individually
and had decent stock, which I promptly bought out.
According to someone at Distributor C,
these tire levers are not actually being discontinued.
Well, since I'd hate to run out, I'm stocking up generously just in case.
These tire levers probably have good distribution stock overall,
so even if I buy out a few distributors,
it's not the kind of product where I could corner the market.
Distributor C also carried them in black, in addition to red, yellow, and blue.
I'd never seen this color before.
This side of the shape is identical,
but the side with the Maruni marking is unmarked and the shape is slightly different.
The individual items from Distributor C have no fixed pricing.
For my retail price, I set it at ¥80 per lever including tax,
which seemed like the ceiling without going for some loss-leader gimmick.
For comparison, the ¥130 per lever from the 3-piece set was before tax,
which works out to about ¥76.
I'm not limiting them to sets, so you can buy multiple of the same color if you want.
What Distributor C told me about them not being discontinued is,
the stock got replenished.
Though I bought those out too.
So I'll be getting a major stock influx soon.
Since the dollar amount isn't huge, I could stock up without much hesitation,
but more importantly, I can confidently say these are easy to use,
so I stocked up in volume.
I'm someone who once bought out all the original Colima-embroidered Selle Italia Flight saddles
from Colima back in the day
but that was only possible because it was a discontinued item.
Completely buying out these tire levers is, as I mentioned, impossible.
Looking at the sales of our loss-leader ¥400 butyl tubes
and ¥150 CO₂ cartridges, if these were definitely being discontinued,
I'd stock 1,000 units easily.
But unlike tubes and cartridges, since they don't break,
you don't get repeat purchases from the same customer except in case of loss.
That's the difference.
Bonus
About other tire levers I own
↑This is a flat "chewing gum" style tire lever.
Similar shapes come from various manufacturers,
with Michelin's being probably the most well-known.
This one is branded Gomitalia (ゴミタリア), which is quite rare, probably.
Gomitalia literally means "Rubber-Italy," but it doesn't sound great in Japanese.
It was especially famous for tubular tires,
and their WO tires were what's called open tubulars—
tubular tires with just the bead glued on without stitching,
flat and seaweed-like.
Similar tire shapes include Vittoria's old Open Corsa CX
and Veloflex's WO tires.
This style of tire lever includes Zéfal's Z-LEVERS,
though Continental ones are somewhat hard to find.
Overseas online retailers seem to sell individual tire levers,
but in Japan through distributors,
the only way to get Continental tire levers is through their
"saddle bag" kit, which fits about two ultra-thin butyl tubes,
comes with one ultra-thick tube and two flat tire levers,
and you have to buy the whole package.
Personally, I find this style tire lever hard to use,
but according to customers I've talked to for articles,
they do have passionate fans.
Also, since they don't curve upward and stay flat,
they're easy to slide into a saddle bag even when it's stuffed,
and some people say that when inserted as a base layer,
it actually stabilizes the shape of the bag.
↑This is an IRC tire lever,
the only tire lever other than Maruni that I actually use at work.
The "MOUNTING" marking on the opposite end from the lever
is supposedly for seating tubeless tires into the rim center,
but since many wheels these days use proprietary tubeless standards outside ETRTO,
I've never actually used that end.
Incidentally, I've broken one of these before,
on a second-generation Mavic Road UST tubeless tire.
The lighting makes it look like a different color,
but it's the same lever and same color as the one before.
Since it doesn't fit well in a saddle bag, I ground down the mounting end.
By shape it might be classified as a flat type,
but it lacks that characteristic thinness, so I'll treat it as a separate category.
The feel is completely different too.
↑This is a tire lever from PB, the Swiss company famous for hex keys.
It's short, and by size it's obviously a bicycle tool, not for cars or motorcycles.
Honestly, without the PB name, it's not something I'd bother buying.
It's not unusable, but it's not particularly easy to use either.
This tire lever doesn't have a "MOUNTING" marking,
but the defining feature is that you can flex about owning it to some people.
Actually, the fact that PB made this thing at all
probably adds value to the article itself.
↑This is a Vittoria tire lever.
It's recent, with a different shape from older versions,
and the logo in the snap-together slot is the current Vittoria logo,
but the three-color Italian tricolor set format
is unchanged from the older version.
When you realize at a trailhead you've forgotten your tire lever
or you've broken one, you can use the quick-release lever as an emergency tire lever
(though many modern quick levers aren't shaped for this),
but I suspect some tire levers out there are less capable at this task than a quick lever itself.
The old Vittoria is one of those for me.
This is what the snap-together slot looks like.
I'm just sharing a close-up for documentation purposes, just so we're clear.
Also, I'll add some links to related articles that probably aren't relevant
(→here)(→here).
↑This is a tire lever from Silca, a pump manufacturer now under American ownership,
and it's a 2-piece set.
This one's defining feature is that you can flex about the price,
at ¥2,100 excluding tax.
Wow, so cool!
Tied together with a SILCA-branded band!
These finishes are aimed at the hearts of people who get hives
wearing anything other than Ra○a or As○os gear (cheap allergy)
or who think their water rots in anything except a King titanium bottle cage!
The material is a combination of nylon and metal,
but the lever part is metal.
It shouldn't be any problem on carbon rims
(and they obviously designed it for carbon rims),
but on aluminum rims like Mavic Open Pro Disc or Stans wheels
with exceptionally thin bead hooks, you might want to avoid using these.
↑This is an early Campagnolo tire lever.
Before Silca came out with theirs,
this was the premium tire lever standard.
At the time of writing this article, the list price is ¥551 excluding tax per lever.
This side has the part number TL-7Z414141 stamped on it,
and the manufacturing date is July 2006.
↑This is a later and current version.
It has no Campagnolo stamp.
The part number on the other side is identical to the early version,
and this one is from September 2015,
but the stamp had been removed long before this.
↑This is a Fulcrum-branded tire lever.
Not "a Fulcrum tire lever."
The only distributor in Japan carrying Fulcrum
had this specially made as a race participation prize,
and there's no other distribution.
When you buy a Fulcrum wheel, it comes with a tire lever,
it's the same unmarked black lever as the later Campagnolo version.
I suspect they removed the Campagnolo stamp for this reason.
The stamp on this side is identical to Campagnolo's,
and the manufacturing date is April 2016.
↑This is from a customer and fellow team member's own gear, and I got permission to photograph it.
I said earlier that Fulcrum-branded tire levers are Japan-only specials with no other distribution,
but I was wrong.
Turns out this came with a Fulcrum wheel from overseas online retail!
But here's where it gets mysterious: this side has no stamp at all.
That's something you don't even see on Campagnolo tire levers.
Did they deliberately do this
to insist it's a different product from the Japanese distributor special order?
The manufacturing dates on both are July 2018.
As a completely unrelated aside, the watch manufacturer Longines
makes a Heritage Legend Diver, which is a remake of the original Legend Diver (Ref.7150)
from around 1959–61.
The initial remake was a limited edition.
Then Legend Diver became a regular model,
but to not upset the people who bought the limited edition,
the specs were changed.
The original Legend Diver and the first remake are non-date,
but the regular model Legend Diver
has a date window at 3 o'clock.
The first remake is non-date,
and while the price isn't crazy high,
very few of them are in circulation.
I've had two chances to buy one over the years,
but hesitated both times and they sold out.
When you want something, that's when you should buy it—that's really true.
↑This is a tire lever for tubular tires from Most,
the parts brand of Pinarello.
They made a decent quantity,
but it was a one-time spot production,
so it's limited stock through distributor.
Distributors still have plenty though.
These are sold individually per lever, by the way.
At ¥760 excluding tax, it's not cheap.
I've mentioned this before on the site,
and it's genuinely easy to use for removing tubular tires.
Since you typically only need one for the task,
if you use tubular tires and are interested,
try ordering from your local Pinarello dealer.
I said earlier I only use Maruni tires except for IRC,
but I need to correct that.
When removing tubular tires, I use this one almost always.
↑This is a tire lever belonging to one of my customers and fellow team members,
an old-timer cyclist.
It's Maruni, but in a way, it's not Maruni.
It's a rare tire lever I don't even have.
It's at least 25 years old.
A quarter-century-plus old—that sounds older.
It says "Earth" on it, which is a Maruni brand.
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