Park Tool Company is an American designer, manufacturer and marketer of

bicycle tools Various bicycle tools have evolved over the years into specialized tools for working on a bicycle. Modern bicycle shops will stock a large number of tools for working on different bicycle parts. This work can be performed by a trained bicycle mech ...

and equipment for both professional and home

bicycle mechanic A bicycle mechanic or bike mechanic is a mechanic who can perform a wide range of repairs on bicycles. Bicycle mechanics can be employed in various types of stores, ranging from large department stores to small local bike shops; cycling teams, or ...

s. It manufactures about 4000 products that range from

wheel truing stand A wheel truing stand is a specialized tool for "truing" (straightening) bicycle wheels. Individual models differ slightly, but all consist of an axle stand on which the wheel can rotate and calipers, to measure slight deviations of the wheel's ri ...

s to

hex wrench Hex keys of various sizes Socket head screws of various sizes A hex key (also, hex wrench, Allen key and Allen wrench) is a simple driver for bolts or screws that have heads with ''internal'' hexagonal recesses (sockets). Hex keys are form ...

es.

History

In 1963, Howard C. Hawkins and Art Engstrom were the owners of Park Schwinn, a bicycle shop in the Hazel Park area of

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

. They noticed that there were no tools available to repair the increasingly complex bicycles of the 1960s, so they began creating their own tools. The first was a stand that held the bike off the ground allowing convenient access to any part of the bike. Other area bike shops and

Schwinn Bicycle Company The Schwinn Bicycle Company is an American company that develops, manufactures and markets bicycles under the eponymous brand name. The company was originally founded by Ignaz Schwinn (1860–1948) in Chicago in 1895. It became the dominant man ...

liked the stands and requested a production model. Soon after, the company expanded to include wheel truing stands, then expanded further into consumer wrenches and gauges. By the early 1980s, Hawkins and Engstrom were a perennial top ten Schwinn dealer with three stores but sold their bicycle shops to focus their efforts on the tool business. Today, both Art Engstrom and Howard Hawkins are retired. Howard died in 2015. Park Tool is owned and operated by Eric Hawkins, Howard Hawkins' son, and now offers more than 500 bicycle repair tools in its line.

Patents

The founders of Park Tool along with James E. Johnson developed a clamping device on their original bike repair stand, for which they received a United States Patent in 1976. The company has applied for and has been granted many patents since then, including a pizza cutter shaped like a

penny-farthing The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle. It was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel providing high speeds (owing to its travelling a large distance for every ...

. and several patents for bicycle specific repair tools.

Color

Park Tool products typically incorporate blue into their design. Handles are frequently colored blue although some tools are colored differently so as to avoid mechanics confusing different tools of otherwise similar appearance, as in the case with the square-taper crank puller (CCP-22, blue) and the splined crank puller (CCP-44, black). The color blue is a registered trademark and

trade dress Trade dress is the characteristics of the visual appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers. Trade dress is an aspect of trademark law, which is a form of intell ...

of the company.

References

External links

* {{Tool manufacturers Bicycle tool manufacturers Tool manufacturing companies of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1963 Manufacturing companies based in Minnesota 1963 establishments in Minnesota