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6 simple ways to pimp up your bike6 simple ways to pimp up your bike Sept 2018

6 simple ways to pimp up your bike

Add some colour to made your bike shine in the summer sun
by Mat Brett
UPDATED Tue, Aug 11, 2020 14:10

First Published Dec 3, 2015

36

Adding a couple of coloured components or accessories can really improve the look of your bike. We’re not suggesting you go all Timmy Mallett about it – less is often more – but consider these six easy ways to pimp up your bike.

1 Fit some new handlebar tape — £4.99-£40.49

Lizard Skins Bar Tape.jpg

Replacing old, worn out handlebar tape can make a big difference to your comfort and it’ll also make your bike look a whole lot neater and more appealing to ride – mechanics sometimes fit new tape to pro racers’ bikes to give them a little psychological boost (true!). Lizard Skins DSP (read review) is very grippy and it’s available in loads of different colours for £25.

2 Saddle up — £24.99-£195.00

Saddle colours

If you’re on the wrong saddle, you’re not going to enjoy your cycling to the max – that’s obvious. You don’t have to spend a vast amount to get a good saddle, you just need to find one that’s the right shape for you.

3 Replace your headset cap —£16.95-£74.95

Kapz union jack.jpg

Kapz offers all kinds of headset caps, including full colour custom designs so you can personalise your bike. This engraved Union Jack model might be pricy at £32.95, but it comes with red, silver and blue headset spacers.

4 Get new bottle cages — £1.99-£70

Tacx Deva Bottle Cage

Bottle cages can start to look shabby over time, especially after a few months of wet weather when grit can get in there and scratch away at the surface. The polyamide, carbon and glass fibre Deva bottle cage from Tacx is available in a bunch of colours to match your bike, priced at £12.99 each.

5 Add a new computer mount — £41

k-edge-mount.jpg

Every bike computer comes with a mount in the box, but you can often get a better one aftermarket – or at least a better looking one. K-Edge’s mount for the Garmin Edge 1000 / 800 / 810 is CNC machined from 6061-T6 aluminium and allows you to position your computer centrally. It comes with a lifetime warranty and in red, blue and gunmetal, as well as boring old black.

6 Go fully pimp with a Token Bling Box — from £50

token-bling-kit.jpg

Sometimes it’s cool to be understated, but if you want to bling up your bike you could try adding coloured parts like bolts, jockey wheels, and so on. Token even offers a Bling Box comprising a top cap and bolt for your headset, a down tube cable adjuster, a cassette lockring, and the like.

Upgrade
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Bling
Bike bling
Mat Brett

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. 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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36 comments

Avatar
jakker replied to Matthewjb | 7 years ago
2 likes

Matthewjb wrote:

tomascjenkins wrote:

Lezyne CNC bottle cage doesn't age like the plastic ones, and looks bling.

 

wrecks your water bottles though 

 

It's a f#cking water bottle....

Avatar
tom_w | 9 years ago
12 likes

Alloy chainring bolts are the devil's work

Avatar
michophull replied to tom_w | 9 years ago
1 like

tom_w wrote:

Alloy chainring bolts are the devil's work

 

Absolutely right. Never EVER use alloy bolts on a bicycle. If you find any on your bike, get the buggers right off and replace them with steel ones.

I once had an alloy bolt snap in a blind hole on a chainset granny ring. It was so rubbish that I managed to drill out the shank, knock in an allen key and extract it. Sod of a job to do though.

Avatar
BikeJon replied to michophull | 9 years ago
2 likes

michophull wrote:

tom_w wrote:

Alloy chainring bolts are the devil's work

 

Absolutely right. Never EVER use alloy bolts on a bicycle. If you find any on your bike, get the buggers right off and replace them with steel ones.

I once had an alloy bolt snap in a blind hole on a chainset granny ring. It was so rubbish that I managed to drill out the shank, knock in an allen key and extract it. Sod of a job to do though.

 

That goes for alloy spoke nipples too. A terrible idea for the UK...

Avatar
DrG82 replied to michophull | 7 years ago
0 likes

michophull wrote:

tom_w wrote:

Alloy chainring bolts are the devil's work

 

Absolutely right. Never EVER use alloy bolts on a bicycle. If you find any on your bike, get the buggers right off and replace them with steel ones.

I once had an alloy bolt snap in a blind hole on a chainset granny ring. It was so rubbish that I managed to drill out the shank, knock in an allen key and extract it. Sod of a job to do though.

 

If you own a torque wrench and a tub of grease there's no reason not to use alloy bolts so long as they are specified for the job in hand and you're not mixing materials.

Say you have carbon cranks with alloy insets/tabs then steel bolts will encourage galvanic corrosion more than alloy bolts and removing seized bolts could result in you stripping threads from the expensive parts.
The same with bottle cages on carbon bikes.

Avatar
Boss Hogg replied to tom_w | 6 years ago
1 like

tom_w wrote:

Alloy chainring bolts are the devil's work

Indeed they are!

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