Metal Tire Levers

There's a kind of tire-and-rim combination that defeats plastic levers entirely. Old tires whose bead has set into a folded shape over a winter on the bike. Tubeless tires that have dried onto the rim through a season of sealant. Hookless rims that hold a tighter bead profile by design. For those, the plastic lever's tip is too thick to slide under the bead cleanly; the lever skates along the bead rather than getting purchase. That's the moment the metal pair earns its slot in the kit.

The 1657/2A is forged steel, 150 mm long, with a thin working edge that fits under a tight bead where a moulded plastic tip won't go. The leverage at 150 mm is what makes the difficult bead a thirty-second job instead of a five-minute one. The spoke hook on the back end works the same way as on our plastic levers; hook the first lever to a spoke to hold the bead off the rim, slide a second lever six or eight inches along, and walk the bead the rest of the way over the rim edge.

Metal-on-rim asks for a steadier hand than plastic-on-rim. The thin working edge that gets these levers under a tight bead is also the edge that will scar an alloy rim bed if you twist the lever once it's seated. The right motion is a shallow lift-and-walk, not a deep pry. For carbon rims, default to the plastic 1657 levers first; the broad plastic tip is gentler on a carbon bed, and the metal pair is the tool you reach for when the plastic can't get the job started.

Specs

• Length: 150 mm
• Forged steel construction
• Thin working edge for tight-bead access
• Spoke hook on rear (same as plastic 1657)
• Sold as a pair
• SKU 1657/2A

Built in Zreče, Slovenia

Unior has been forging hand tools in Zreče since 1919, and is the official technical partner of multiple World Tour and downhill teams. The metal levers are the smallest forged tool in the cycling catalog; same European forging line as the larger workshop pliers, same hardened steel, just compressed into a 150 mm lever profile. Built-to-last is the same operating principle whether the tool is a chain plier or a tire lever; you'll bend your fingers before you bend one of these.

Pro tip from our mechanics

Skipping the bead-break step is what makes tire removal harder than it should be on any tire, and twice as hard on the kind that needs metal levers. Before reaching for the lever, deflate the tire fully and push the bead off the rim shoulder into the central channel all the way around. Most tires that “needed” metal levers turn out to be tires that didn't get the bead broken first. Our How to remove and install a bike tire → walks through the bead-break-and-lever sequence that keeps the metal pair in the drawer most of the time, and shows the right lift-and-walk motion for the cases where the metal pair is the only thing that works.