The "what bike bits have you just bought" thread

[SkinnyBoy]

First ride in my new Giro Empires on Saturday haha. I seem to be aceing the Anne from Little Britain look!

[Birdster]

First set of lights. Needed an upgrade from the ones that came with the Triban 500SE.

Will only be cycling on light roads at night so I'm hoping that these are up to the job. Seemed to have favourable reviews online.

[GuinnessMK]

One of these arrived today;

http://www.mountainwarehouse.com/running-cycling/r...

I saw them on offer in a store while on holiday, but decided against an impulse purchase. Got home, still thought it looked like a bargain, so ordered online. Free next day delivery arrived today!

[SoliD]

Big purchses this week!

Got myself a Pinnacle Arkose 4 from Evans



And £100 of free accessories so got 2 pairs of shoes, one mtb and one road, as both of my current sets are getting a bit tatty.





Going to refresh my road bike, so putting on new jagwire kit and new tape (Supacaz half and half)

Oh, and also got an 18" fan for the turbo trainer, as my current floow stander just doesn't push enough air!

[SoliD]

okgo said:

Read this, scroll down to the bit that talks of the importance of torquing correctly

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/09/garmin-vector-r...

Thanks very much, shall give it a read!

[Usget]

One of these.



Well, it was £175, and I couldn't resist. The bloke had barely ridden it, the old story. I know it's kind of the Dacia of the bike world, but let me reiterate - £175. Somewhat limits my exposure if I find I don't use it much!

My six mile ride home was enough to ascertain that the brakes are totally crap, so I've also ordered some of these:



And I don't get on with flat pedals, so another set of these...



... and I'm a fan of sticking with what you know, so one of these...



... and the seatpost clamp looks like it came out of a Christmas cracker, so one of these.



All of which cost about the same as the damned bike, but should make it a decent bike to ride. Forks are already decent, wheels are tolerable, tyres are good, drivetrain is SRAM x5. Very pleased. Can't wait to get it muddy.

[MadDad]

One of these;



and one of these;



To replace the ones I had to cut off of my Ti bike at the weekend having discovered that the Alu post had oxidised itself solid in the frame!

And a couple of these because they are crap and keep breaking but there are no decent after-market replacements;

[loudlashadjuster]

Usget said:

[stuff]

All of which cost about the same as the damned bike

[anonymous-user]

I'm in the process of resurrecting my old 2005 specialized hardrock into a kind of hybrid bike. Basically it'll be used for getting about town or going to country pubs. It's also my turbo trainer bike.

I've just bought this rigid MTB fork from on-one/planet x for it. The old RST fork is knackered and weighs 2.5kg. This rigid weighs about 1kg.



So far I have converted it from a square tapered bottom bracket to a hollowtech, fitted hollowtech cranks, converted it to a single narrow-wide chain ring (38 tooth), and fitted schwalbe city jet tyres. I then used some old parts from my Giant full susser (bars, stem, pedals, front wheel) as I have upgraded those on my Giant. The final bit to add is a front disc brake (and fork once it arrives). Sticking to v-brake on the back to keep cost down.

It's a great fun build to work on It did weigh 14kg, but with all the bits I'm changing it should be 11.5kg.

[snowdude2910]

My mates all have MTB's I felt I was missing out so I've had to buy a MTB although the £500 budget escelated a little (the joys of 0% finance) this should be with me thursday can't wait :-)

[Matt_N]

MadDad said:

One of these;



and one of these;



To replace the ones I had to cut off of my Ti bike at the weekend having discovered that the Alu post had oxidised itself solid in the frame!

And a couple of these because they are crap and keep breaking but there are no decent after-market replacements;

Tip for the future, ammonia will dissolve aluminium corrosion, so will most drain cleaners, if you can get some to penetrate into the seat tube, sometimes from the bb shell.

Also aluminium has a different expansion rate but the trick is not to heat the post it's to cool it rapidly, a CO2 canister is usually enough to free it.

[Silver940]

snowdude2910 said:

My mates all have MTB's I felt I was missing out so I've had to buy a MTB although the £500 budget escelated a little (the joys of 0% finance) this should be with me thursday can't wait :-)

That's some budget creep!

[BMWBen]

Snapped a 5700 105 shifter on my trusty winter steed (front derailleur seized, applied too much force), and given that it's 120 quid for some new ones and only 300 for the 11 speed groupy I went for that instead! The old one has done about 20000km...



Hurrah for man maths!

[snowdude2910]

Silver940 said:

snowdude2910 said:

My mates all have MTB's I felt I was missing out so I've had to buy a MTB although the £500 budget escelated a little (the joys of 0% finance) this should be with me thursday can't wait :-)

That's some budget creep!

It certainly is lol having spoken to my mates who know about this stuff I wanted fox forks and a decent groupset, then once a hardtail started getting towards a grand I figured for that money I want a full susser and this was at the bottom end of the fox suspensioned ones with XT groupset so I did a bit of man maths and it costs the same a month as my outgoing roadbike cycle to work scheeme and that's got a few years left in it so it had to be done, arrives tomorrow can't wait :-)

[Usget]

snowdude2910 said:

It certainly is lol having spoken to my mates who know about this stuff I wanted fox forks and a decent groupset, then once a hardtail started getting towards a grand I figured for that money I want a full susser and this was at the bottom end of the fox suspensioned ones with XT groupset so I did a bit of man maths and it costs the same a month as my outgoing roadbike cycle to work scheeme and that's got a few years left in it so it had to be done, arrives tomorrow can't wait :-)

With that level of man-maths I'm surprised you didn't come to the conclusion that the resultant bike was too special to be used all the time; and that what you needed was a £500 H/T as well, to keep the miles off it

[donfisher]

Ordered one of these to replace the Promax Render R on the front of my Whyte:



I probably should do the rear as well even if it's just for OCDs sake but I'm more interested to see how much better they are than a standard mechanical caliper.

[MadDad]

Matt_N said:

Tip for the future, ammonia will dissolve aluminium corrosion, so will most drain cleaners, if you can get some to penetrate into the seat tube, sometimes from the bb shell.

Also aluminium has a different expansion rate but the trick is not to heat the post it's to cool it rapidly, a CO2 canister is usually enough to free it.

Thanks for the tips, I tried the CO2 canister trick but no luck I have put the new post in with lots of copper slip so hopefully I won't have a repeat of Saturdays episode!!!

[47p2]

MadDad said:

Thanks for the tips, I tried the CO2 canister trick but no luck I have put the new post in with lots of copper slip so hopefully I won't have a repeat of Saturdays episode!!!

Try some Crack-it Arctic freeze spray available on eBay at £3.99 plus postage Link

[snowdude2910]

Usget said:

With that level of man-maths I'm surprised you didn't come to the conclusion that the resultant bike was too special to be used all the time; and that what you needed was a £500 H/T as well, to keep the miles off it

OOOOOOOOOH No no no I need to build a monster garage now because my shed isn't secure enough and I don't like bikes in the dining room :-)

[anonymous-user]

snowdude2910 said:

It certainly is lol having spoken to my mates who know about this stuff I wanted fox forks and a decent groupset, then once a hardtail started getting towards a grand I figured for that money I want a full susser and this was at the bottom end of the fox suspensioned ones with XT groupset so I did a bit of man maths and it costs the same a month as my outgoing roadbike cycle to work scheeme and that's got a few years left in it so it had to be done, arrives tomorrow can't wait :-)

You've gone and done it now, but Fox doesn't always = best. You usually pay a bit more for Fox when the Rockshox equivalent will be cheaper, and often it's just as good.