Irrespective of the cost, what is the least-needed bike thing you have bought…just because it looks nice or has the right logo on it etc etc?

My road bike has a Thomson stem but a plain black top cap. It just looks…dull.
I was in a bike shop yesterday trawling through a spares box of black branded stem caps which I could have had for pence. They didn’t have a Thomson one. It has to be Thomson – I have decided a ‘need’ one so it looks good and offers zero performance gain over the one I have…that’s a whopping £7 I need to find 😉

What’s your undulgence?

I had 3 plain matching bottles for the tandem ( it has 3 cages) all the same. I lost one and couldn’t get a matching one therefore had to buy 3 more plain ones that matched

My bike was £280 new, its now a bit battered, but very functional, it has an upgraded mech and shifters which by most standards are mid range.

Then I got a tax rebate, so it’s now rocking carbon rims and hope hubs.and a £230 set of forks.

Do I win? 😀

tjagain – Member
I had 3 plain matching bottles for the tandem ( it has 3 cages) all the same. I lost one and couldn’t get a matching one therefore had to buy 3 more plain ones that matched

Capitalist pig! 😉

I put a red and black ti railed Fizik on my Brompton. Because it matched the paint job. Then I realised that the stock grips simply didn’t look good enough. So I put red ones on.

I bought green ss spacers because reasons……….

A carbon fibre bottle cage for £35. Not because it was light but because it was the best colour match!

£30 or thereabouts on some red anodized jockey wheels for the xtr mech on my Stumpjumper…pointless.

Gold Hope QRs for my Barry White Inbred…..the ones they replaced were fine…

Top cap here too – ordered a skull design one from a firm in the states, thought I’d get one (different design) for my sister at the same time. £16 for both which is not cheap for a couple of small bits of alloy. Then got hit with VAT and RM’s handling fee which brought it to £30! Ooof. Not doing that again.

Also have sets of Hope headset spacers in red, gold and gunsmoke. And others in black, silver and green. Blue, need blue now. And mango. And purple.

CFH – surely “running dog”?

maserati – just to fit in on here

Paid more to get a Charge spoon saddle made with the custom options so it had the right black/green combination for my bike.

I ordered a pair of white Endura Mullets the other day. Not because I’d consider them better than my go to radars, in fact I sold some of the same last year. Nope, I bought them because I feel they make me look more angry, and that this might have some psychological disdvantage amongst my peers when racing. 😳

What was I thinking…

NOt a purchase but I have grown my hair long because I at 55 have a full head of dark hair and all my friends are balding and / or grey. I have only done it to show off. How shallow is that?

So long as you’re not sporting a ponytail…

Or a topknot.

A deep V T shirt.

Respray and a custom headbadge. Not cheap, not necessary!

I got a stainless hip flask cage in a trade that I’ve put on my SS. The black plastic bottle cage for my Kleen Kanteen bottles now looks crap. So I’m trying to find a stainless King Cage Iris to match that will work with the Kleen Kanteens.

🙄

I made a coffee tamper out of a lump of stainless, a Campagnolo hub, and a spare black stem top cap. It really needs a Campagnolo top cap. Just because.

🙄 🙄

I have 3 pairs of Oakley Radars just to match different bikes/kit – black, white and green.

Pretty much all my bikes.

Sterling Silver headset spacers…

Three sets of hope grip doctors in different colours to complement specific colours on different bikes: red to match hope hubs & anodised dustcaps, black to match hubs and logo on frame, gold to match hubs/headset/anodised dustcaps.
Don’t ask why; pointless, definitely unnecessary but i think they….look nice

Njee wins hands down. All the others are reasonable.

I came very close to buying the Salsa seat clamp with rack mounts on it for £28, despite being hard up at the time, to go with my Salsa. Saw sense in the end and bought a £7 generic one.

Silliest thing I actually bought was a Powertap front hub, to match the rear… and had it built up too ofc.

Sterling Silver headset spacers…

Brilliant!

A small CNC piece to cover the direct mount (front derailleur) on my fatty 🙂

All the shiny Hope stuff on my bikes. 🙂

My mini monos have my name on them 😀 Master cylinder covers say ANDY in place of Hope, inside the ellipse.
Usual engravings around it- dot 4/5.1 etc.

Im rather chuffed to have them as theyre an ebay find.

Titanium bolts for my carbon bottle cage

Rim tape on the fatbike. I went through 3 different brands and loads of different widths of PVC tape to get it right, and then more hassle to make it seal tubeless. But it does look damn fine.

Gold hope bar plugs to match the hubs and rotors, also the thomson gold stem plate and top cap.

77 Euros on a carbon BK Composites SRAM Shifter Clamp

Saved 12g

Titanium bolts for my carbon bottle cage

Should’ve gone aluminium. Half the weight, a quarter of the cost and available in pretty colours.

Gold plated Elite bottle cages to match the gold CK hubs and accessories on my Seven Sola. Only problem was the endless rattling made the gold start to flake off usually resulting in me having bloody hands every time I went for a swig of water!

A second road helmet from Mavic – purely because it perfectly matches the colour scheme on my road bike & tyres.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Giro helmet I had before..
Now I have a Summer Road Kit all perfectly colour matched, and a Winter Road Kit the same. Strangely enough, MTB is whatever is closest to hand at that moment.

A Surly chain tug but it doubles as a bottle opener.

I *may* have had some XTR Yumeya reservoir covers a few years ago, saved 3g… And a Yumeya chain. Did come in a lovely box though.

Tomhoward +1

Every bike or bit of kit I’ve ever purchased have been a desperate attempt to make me feel better about my poor skills and fitness, hence my username.

I’ve now run out of cash though…..

I want this Kashima stem top cap, but will probably never part with the cash (£24.99) for it..

I had one of them 😆

I put one of those top caps that holds a bottle top into a Charlie the Bikemonger basket to make up the value of the order above the free postage rate.

Was way more expensive than paying the postage, and I think more expensive than the thing I was buying.

Who has EVER broken, worn out or lost the original top cap that came with their bike?