While at Interbike, I stopped by the IceToolz booth to chat with Alex and Steve. My eyes rested on the IceToolz E261 Frame and Fork Adjuster , and I felt all warm and safe.
A little history: The easy-to-find tool of choice for increasing the space between rear dropouts of a steel frame has typically been a wooden 2 x 4. So, if you wanted to spread a 130mm-spaced 7-speed steel hardtail mountain frame to accommodate a 135mm spaced mountain hub, you carefully pried apart the rear stays with the 2 x 4. (Sheldon Brown describes in detail the process of cold setting [bending] a frame on his site.)
The IceToolz frame and fork adjuster allows you to cold set frames with much less grunting. You can also use the E261 to spread steel forks made to hold older 91mm or 96mm front hubs to accommodate a standard 100mm front hub. (Remember: Steel has elastic properties. Your aluminum frame does not. Snap your fingers. That is the sound you will hear if you try to cold set an aluminum frame.)
The IceToolz site describes the frame and fork adjuster as a pro-quality shop tool for expanding and compressing forks, chain stays, and seat stays. The tool has trapezoid threads and proves extra power as well as protective rubber pads wherever the tool makes contact with the frame.
(IceToolz is a marketing face of Lifu. Lifu has been around for a couple of decades. If you've been collecting bike tools for years, you probably have some hex wrenches somewhere housed in a drilled piece of blue plastic with the Lifu logo on it.)
One photo by Wheelgirl at Interbike in Vegas 2007. Other photo lifted from IceToolz site.
