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14 cheap tricks: explore the everyday alternatives to spendy cycling kit

Money saving tips that'll save your arse, clean your chain, and much, much more

Most of us like to treat ourselves to cool new bike stuff from time to time but there's a place for saving money too, so here are some tips for using everyday alternatives to expensive cycling products.

Some of these suggestions come from the road.cc team and some come from readers.

If you have any more to add, sling them in the comments at the bottom. Oh, and if you want to give us any Viz Top Tips-style suggestions, try to make sure they're funny!

Slap on the udder cream

Teisen Uddercream

Yes, udder cream; cream for udders. As the name suggests, it's designed to maintain good udder condition in dairy cows. Moisturising and often antiseptic, it's also a cheap alternative to chamois cream.

Chamois cream reduces friction between your skin and clothing, and so avoids chafing. It can be quite expensive, though — compared to udder cream, at least. Teisen Uddercream will set you back £21.84 for 2.5 litres.

If you don't want that much — and you probably don't — the same stuff is available in a 200ml tube for £3.90. Plus, there's a small chance that your milk yield will go through the roof.

Go for fig rolls rather than energy bars

A 55g PowerBar Energize energy bar contains 36g of carbs (21g of which are sugars), 2.6g of protein and 2.8g of fat. A bar will set you back around £1.50.

McVities Fig Rolls

The nutritional data for three McVitie's Fig Rolls is similar: 37.2g of carbs (18.9g of which are sugars), 2.4g of protein and 4.5g of fat. A whole 200g pack, containing 12 biscuits, currently costs £1.45 from Sainsbury's, so you're looking at about 36p for the equivalent of an energy bar. Bargain!

Use your phone as a GPS bike computer

A GPS bike computer on the handlebar makes a lot of sense for a lot of people but the smartphone that you're probably already carrying in your pocket has a huge navigational capability and will do a great job for some. Use an app that allows you to download and save maps when you have access to WiFi and you won't eat into your data allowance either.

Quad Lock Bike Kit for I Phone 7 - mounted top.jpg

You'll need a mount for your mobile – something like a Quad Lock Bike Kit — but that'll be cheaper than shelling out on a bike computer.

What if you don't want to stick your posh smartphone on the handlebar?

"An old, unwanted smartphone makes a perfectly functional bike computer. Bonus: stick your SIM card back in it and you have an emergency phone," says Tim Meyrick.

Clean your bike with wet wipes

"Cheap baby wipes are great for cleaning bar tape, saddles and any sticky residue on your bike," says Peter Atkin.

Water Wipes

Wipes that are labelled as bike or workshop-specific are available, but you can save a lot of money by heading down to your local supermarket and picking up a regular pack of wet wipes or baby wipes to use on everything from your chain to your fingers.

You'll still need to give your bike a regular clean and degrease, but the wet wipe solution is the equivalent of putting on an extra spray of deodorant rather than getting into the shower; it'll do for a while!

Of course, using a bucket and water is even cheaper, but this isn't always a practical solution.

Clean your chain with paraffin or white spirit

Paraffin makes a cheap chain degreaser (although some chain manufacturers will tell you never to remove the original factory lube).

Take the chain off your bike and soak it in a shallow dish of paraffin (some people use white spirit – including a number of the road.cc team). Give it a clean, perhaps with something like an old toothbrush, wipe it down, put it back on your bike and apply some lube.

Paraffin

Save the paraffin and you'll be able to use it again (it's a petroleum product so go careful; it's not nice stuff).

You can buy paraffin all over the place. A tenner gets you four litres from B&Q.

Store your phone in a freezer bag

Most modern smartphones are waterproof but if you want to protect yours from getting scratched in your pocket you can use a a freezer bag/ snack bag instead of a brand name wallet.

Ziploc bags

A Ziploc Snack Bag, for instance, measures 16.5cm x 8.2cm so will fit perfectly into most jersey pockets, and it has a sealed top. Head over to Amazon and you can buy 90 of them for £9.49 or go to any supermarket and you'll find various options in different sizes, some more durable than others.

Make your own energy drink

A DIY energy drink is really easy to make and much cheaper than buying a ready-made sports drink.

One method is to add 500ml of orange juice to 500ml of water, add half a teaspoon of table salt and... that's it.

Tesco Orange Juice

This drink gives you 235kcal of energy and 52g of carbs.

A litre of orange juice is currently 69p at Tesco, but you only need half that so you're looking at 33.5p.

Use safety glasses

"Wear safety glasses instead of Oakleys," says Pete Watts.

Bolle Ness+

You can buy safety specs from any DIY store for £2 or £3. Bollé even makes some, like the Ness+, with a sporty look and a scratch and fog resistant coating. You can pick up a pair for £9.49.

Clean your disc brakes with propanol

Propan-2-ol-3D-balls (wikimedia commons)

Propan-2-ol (wikimedia commons)

Most commercial disc brake cleaners contain a form of the alcohol propanol. You can buy it on its own from somewhere like Amazon (five litres for £20.95) and use it to get oil and grease of your brakes.

Propanol is highly flammable and can cause serious eye irritation, so be ultra-careful.

Wear waterproof latex gloves

"Latex gloves work well under [outer] gloves in the rain," says Kris Pratt.

Latex gloves

Disposable latex gloves aren't breathable but they are waterproof, if that's your number one concern. They're also cheap. You can buy a pack of 100 for £4 at B&Q.

If you're sensitive to latex or want a more robust barrier against solvents, you can get nitrile gloves from about £9 for 100 from Amazon.

Wear freezer bags as waterproof socks

"Use freezer bags inside shoes instead of expensive waterproof outer socks," says Dominic Epsom.

Not everyone agrees.

"I've tried that and water trickles down the inevitable gaps in the top, unless you gaffer-tape the tops to your legs," says Jo Burt.

Like latex gloves (above), freezer bags obviously aren't breathable but the fact that they're waterproof might be more important to you on some rides. You can buy 40 for £1 at Tesco.

Tesco freezer bags

Some people also wrap a layer of aluminium foil around the outside of their socks to keep heat in on cold rides.

Stash your tools/spares in an old bottle

Water bottle as tool storage - 1

A tool holder bottle doesn't cost a whole lot but the chances are that you have an old bottle kicking about that'll do the job equally well.

There are two ways to do it: either use a wide necked bottle or you take a tall bottle, chop it in two and use the top half as a lid section.

Use a pencil case as a tool roll

"My tool roll fits an inner tube, multitool, two tyre levers, a CO2 pump and two canisters. It's a 50p pencil case from Tesco that fits in a jersey pocket," says Gareth Gaffer George.

Pencil case tool roll

Push the boat out and you can get this one (above) for three quid! Other bags will do a similar job, of course.

"Last year I got a Muc-Off wash bag for Christmas that I now use it as a tool bag in my panniers," says Wolf Simpson.

Drink chocolate milk for recovery

This one is well known. Sports scientists will tell you that a good recovery drink should have a carbohydrate: protein ratio of 3:1 or 4:1.

Frijj chocolate milk (1)

A 400ml bottle of Yazoo Chocolate Milk gives you 36.4g of carbs, 13.2g of protein and 260kcal of energy, while a 400ml bottle of Muller Frijj Chocolate Milkshake gives you 44g of carbs, 13.2g of protein and 300kcal of energy. They cost about £1 each from a supermarket.

These are very similar values to those of a recovery drink from a sports nutrition brand. You probably wouldn't want to survive on the stuff but chocolate milk does the job after a tough ride.

Quad Lock Bike Kit for I Phone 7 - mounted top.jpg

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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94 comments

Avatar
ktache replied to mike the bike | 4 years ago
3 likes

Mmmm, chocolate milk.

This is a favorite of mine, though I have had a go making some myself.

Avatar
Rik Mayals unde... replied to NZ Vegan Rider | 4 years ago
3 likes

A former pro once told me not to waste money on protein recovery drinks. He said a glass of milk does the same job. (The pro won many top races, and also rode the TDF, and has a very good palmarés). 

Avatar
RoubaixCube replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 3 years ago
2 likes

biker phil wrote:

A former pro once told me not to waste money on protein recovery drinks. He said a glass of milk does the same job. (The pro won many top races, and also rode the TDF, and has a very good palmarés). 

Similar story - I have a friend who is a personal trainer and a gym owner. He tells me that Protein powders and shakes are all B.S because a lot of the protein that its made from is just refined from milk or milk powder.

He's over 60 and absolutely ripped. He only sells the stuff at his gym because it helps keep the money flowing

Avatar
wtjs replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 3 years ago
0 likes

A former pro once told me not to waste money on protein recovery drinks

I can believe it, except for people at the very top of the performance tree. I follow what I understand to be the Graham Obree method: ordinary food like jam sandwiches. I hope it's true that he recommended this. Great man!

PS Nothing wrong with milk if you like it- problems with calcium may arise if you drink pints of it day after day.

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 3 years ago
1 like

From what I understand protein shakes are mainly whey powder. In other words, dried milk.....

Avatar
gavben replied to Captain Badger | 2 years ago
2 likes

I worked in a local dairy site in R&D during University holidays back in the late 80s/ early 90s. Looking to find something useful to do with whey. It used to cost a fortune to dispose of, now consumers buy it off them in "high protein" foods (or bulking out ready meals). Find a way to turn your waste into £££, that's the dream.

Avatar
Jetmans Dad replied to NZ Vegan Rider | 3 years ago
10 likes

NZ Vegan Rider wrote:

Don't drink chocolate milk - there's NOTHING good in it for recovery or anything else ;-(

Methinks your lifestyle choice is showing. 

By all means, do your bit to promote an entirely plant based diet and lifestyle, but telling porkies about non-plant based food to do so is not really productive. 

Avatar
Nick T replied to Jetmans Dad | 3 years ago
0 likes

I'm no vegan, but milk is the devils spunk. Don't believe the con that it's somehow good for you

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Velo-drone replied to Nick T | 3 years ago
1 like

I love a good unevidenced assertion, me.
So persuasive!

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Captain Badger replied to Velo-drone | 3 years ago
1 like

No I've heard that too. Only the other day I heard someone say "milk is devils spunk"

 

Edit* Although it is true that fig rolls are devil sh1t buritos

Avatar
edordead | 4 years ago
2 likes

For chain degreasing I use green spirit from B&Q. It's a biodegradable version of white spirit for paint brush cleaning and it does a solid job of degreasing. Cream cleaner does a pretty stand-up job of cleaning disc brakes as well  1

Avatar
zero_trooper | 4 years ago
7 likes

I was going to post a comment, but there's no coming back from absinthe... kiss

Avatar
yupiteru | 4 years ago
9 likes

MY TOP TIP - for cycle tourists:

Instead of wasting money on expensive binoculars, simply get closer to the object that you wish to view.

Avatar
brooksby replied to yupiteru | 4 years ago
6 likes

yupiteru wrote:

MY TOP TIP - for cycle tourists:

Instead of wasting money on expensive binoculars, simply get closer to the object that you wish to view.

...

 

Avatar
Chris Hayes | 4 years ago
1 like

I need no encouragement to buy fig rolls! But prefer M&S chocolate milk.  Quid a litre! 

Avatar
ktache | 4 years ago
0 likes

Oddly I got a Chrome Industries Large Utility Pouch for my carry around tool kit, it's like one of those extra large pencil cases that you could fit a full size ruler in, just a great deal more expensive.

It is built very well though, has lasted many, many years and fits my Topeak Master Blaster DX, and all of the other crap I believe I need.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to ktache | 4 years ago
3 likes

ktache wrote:

Oddly I got a Chrome Industries Large Utility Pouch for my carry around tool kit, it's like one of those extra large pencil cases that you could fit a full size ruler in, just a great deal more expensive.

It is built very well though, has lasted many, many years and fits my Topeak Master Blaster DX, and all of the other crap I believe I need.

Is that an absinthe spoon?

Avatar
brooksby replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

ktache wrote:

Oddly I got a Chrome Industries Large Utility Pouch for my carry around tool kit, it's like one of those extra large pencil cases that you could fit a full size ruler in, just a great deal more expensive.

It is built very well though, has lasted many, many years and fits my Topeak Master Blaster DX, and all of the other crap I believe I need.

Is that an absinthe spoon?

Erm - and you know what one of them looks like because...?

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
0 likes

brooksby wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

ktache wrote:

Oddly I got a Chrome Industries Large Utility Pouch for my carry around tool kit, it's like one of those extra large pencil cases that you could fit a full size ruler in, just a great deal more expensive.

It is built very well though, has lasted many, many years and fits my Topeak Master Blaster DX, and all of the other crap I believe I need.

Is that an absinthe spoon?

Erm - and you know what one of them looks like because...?

I tried drinking absinthe, but it's a bit of a faff (put a sugar cube on the spoon, rest it on top of the glass of absinthe and then slowly drip ice cold water over the sugar cube) and it's not even that nice. These days I stick to cider and rum (not in the same glass though).

Avatar
brooksby replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
5 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

I tried drinking absinthe, but it's a bit of a faff (put a sugar cube on the spoon, rest it on top of the glass of absinthe and then slowly drip ice cold water over the sugar cube) and it's not even that nice. These days I stick to cider and rum (not in the same glass though).

Lightweight 

Avatar
sodit replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
1 like

WOT youve never had a purple parachute!!  Double Woods rum floated on top of a pint of Blackthorn cider (or cider of choice) . 5 of them and I'm anybodys smiley. And dont bother with absinthe just drink 45% Pastis not that pernod muck.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to sodit | 3 years ago
1 like
sodit wrote:

WOT youve never had a purple parachute!!  Double Woods rum floated on top of a pint of Blackthorn cider (or cider of choice) . 5 of them and I'm anybodys smiley. And dont bother with absinthe just drink 45% Pastis not that pernod muck.

Never heard of that before. I find Woods rum a bit on the harsh side and am not a fan of Blackthorn's (it's not real cider you know). Maybe I'll float a bit of Kraken on top of some Henney's (or Thatcher's) and see how that goes. Doubt I'll manage 5, though.

Avatar
dodgy | 4 years ago
3 likes

Hands up, I've been a big fan of using baby wipes to clean my bike, mainly when on holiday and away from my hosepipe. But they're basically plastic, and are a big problem for our oceans.

 

Just something to bare in mind, I was quite surprised to find they're plastic, they don't feel 'plasticky' particularly. I undersand plastic free alternatives are starting to become available.

 

Avatar
Simon E replied to dodgy | 4 years ago
2 likes

dodgy]</p>

<p>Hands up, I've been a big fan of using baby wipes to clean my bike, mainly when on holiday and away from my hosepipe. But they're basically plastic, and are a big problem for our oceans.</p>

<p>

and a major contributor to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2017/sep/13/wet-wipes-... giant fatbergs</a> in our sewers because selfish people flush them down the toilet.</p>

<p>[quote=dodgy

wrote:

I undersand plastic free alternatives are starting to become available.

Toilet paper and reusable cloths of various kinds have been around far longer than baby wipes.

I use a standard scouring sponge to clean my bike, with a tiny drop of washing-up liquid in a bucket of water. The cleaner at work chucks them out regularly and they last for ages. When travelling the sponge will be wedged into a corner of a bag or rucksack pocket with the chain lube etc.

Nick T wrote:

Top Tip, reuse last year’s articles to save you having to knock up any new content

True but how much did you pay for the content?

Avatar
Bishop0151 replied to dodgy | 3 years ago
2 likes

They mix plastic micro fibers in with the paper pulp. The amount of plastic fibers determines how much stronger the end product will be.

That's why your not sopposed to flush them. Loo paper is weak paper and basically disolves. Wipes are near indistructable and can clog drains or block sections of the water processing plants.

Avatar
xerxes | 4 years ago
0 likes

Great minds think alike.

I recently bought a pencil case to keep my tools, spare tubes, mini pump and some first aid stuff in: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Triple-Pocket-Zip-Rectangular-Large-Fabric-Pe...

It keeps everything together and fits perfectly in my frame bag.

Avatar
Pfaff | 4 years ago
0 likes

Instead of the poisonous paraffins go for plain old fashion soap which will do the job quite as well.

Fat dissolves fat.

And is environmental friendly, wallet friendly and conscious friendly.

 

Avatar
Nick T | 4 years ago
7 likes

Top Tip, reuse last year’s articles to save you having to knock up any new content

Avatar
MattieKempy replied to Nick T | 4 years ago
3 likes

No-one made you read it! Even more pertinently, no-one made you read it twice!

Avatar
Pilot Pete | 4 years ago
0 likes

For the same price quoted in the article for cheap orange juice I can buy Bulk Powders Complete Hydration Energy Drink powder. 5kg contains 125 servings (40g per 500ml bidon). Current offer price works out at 28p per serving. Quite often you can get an even bigger discount. The last lot I bought worked out at 20p per serving.

https://www.bulkpowders.co.uk/complete-hydration-drink.html

Nutritionally it is better than orange juice, water and table salt. The added advantage is you can put a serving in a little ziplock bag (which I reuse until they start to fail) and carry in a jersey pocket to top up on a long ride.

The orange flavour tastes great too.

Similarly, for a recovery drink their Pure Whey Protein contains double the protein of a chocolate milk per serving. On the current offer you can can get a 30g serving for 43.4p. So roughly half that for the same amount of protein in a chocolate milk, that’s 21.7p

https://www.bulkpowders.co.uk/pure-whey-protein.html

They do several flavours, one of which is chocolate...

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