Aldi have some gloves coming soon that look ideal, think its this Thursday.

Missus’s stretchy over-knee socks had the feet cutoff and now became arm warmers 🙂

And this military drinking bottle got ziptied on a seat tube. It takes all types of bottles, even good for carrying beer back from shop, if you take it easy.

Does anyone have a source for cheap but decent cable outer (maybe a box)?

How often do you need to be bleeding shimano brakes to make it worth buying LHS fluid from Halfords? Once it’s opened, you have to use it, as it draws in moisture, plus the amount you need to bleed a set a brakes in teeny. So by the time 5-6 years has rolled by and you need to bleed the brakes, you’ll buy another litre of fluid from Halfords?

false economy really.

bike cleaner? erm that’ll be fairy liquid then.

I’m all for saving money, but some of these are a waste of time.

Does anyone have a source for cheap but decent cable outer (maybe a box)?

I wouldn’t use fairy on a bike, or car. It contains salt.

Once it’s opened, you have to use it, as it draws in moisture,

Not really, it’s mineral oil. I also bleed my friends brakes for them. For me it’s worth it. Having said that, you can get 1L of shimano stuff from halfords for £13 (£1 more than the equivalent amount of LHM). It’s the little tiny bottles which are a complete rip off.

It could only draw in whatever water moisture was in the bottle so it is hardly going to be useless as a result.
Do you think say a Citroen garage buys it in teeny tiny bottles or massive drums?

Fox Fork Oil = Torco RSF

To confirm, mineral oil is hydrophobic – it does not draw in moisture. Buy as big a bottle as you want and leave the lid off if you like. One of the big advantages over DOT fluids.

No Fear snow board gloves are great on the bike in winter ,come with a fleece liner and are cheap from Sports Direct

Oh, yeah that’s DOT that’s hydroscopic innit, always get them confused. I guess if you’re doing loads of brakes at a time, makes sense, for the occasional user though?

A squirt of fairy has so little salt it makes no difference, my bikes are still here after all these years…don’t sem to have rusted away toa pile of filings yet.

citrus degreaser

must be alright my mate uses it to clean engines!

Or just use petrol as a degreaser, much cheaper.

Caravan Cleaner £11.99 per litre, but concentrated, so 2 cap fulls makes 5 litres of useable liquid = about 100 litres.

Oh god not this again!
Fenwicks bike cleaner is cheaper and designed for the job. I have a letter from the Fenwicks MD giving the facts about why it’s better.
And people only use Muc Off cos they get bought it for Xmas..

Plenty of cleaning products here…

http://www.mcklordsdirect.com/category_page.asp?catid=9

I have a letter from the Fenwicks MD giving the facts about why it’s better.

Thankfully no business owner would ever tell a lie about their products in order to sell stuff so this must be scientific fact.

Precisely! 🙂

Fenwicks bike cleaner is woefully bad

Or just use petrol as a degreaser, much cheaper.

Until your face explodes.

For the last 2 month I’ve been trying to use “cheap alternatives” to muc-off. All different stuff: fairy, eBay “concentrated awesome cleaners”, etc…

I bought muc-off again last Friday to compare. All set: bike cleaner, chain cleaner (I use chain cleaning device), disc brakes cleaner… I gotta say – there are cheap alternatives. But they are not as good as the real thing. Not even close.

Using non-Shimano Mineral oil will invalidate your warranty apparently.

It also makes brake a bit more of a pain to bleed due to the higher viscosity.

You probably won’t die in a blazing fireball of death though!

I have a letter from the Fenwicks MD giving the facts about why it’s better.

What does it say ?

What does it say ?

Our stuff is better mkay.

I have a letter from the Fenwicks MD giving the facts about why it’s better.
What does it say ?

“I didn’t get where I am today…”

Does anyone have a source for cheap but decent cable outer (maybe a box)?

Singletrack bikes, Shimano SP41, 15 quid for 10m.
LINK

Lucemill Plastic bottles for IPA, Acetone and any plastic bottle you could possibly want.

LINK

I carry some pre-injection wipes from the chemist too, 70% IPA and good for cleaning oily fingers after a trail side chain fettle.
Nitrile gloves from hardwear shops, leyland SDM, the latex ones are even cheaper but make my hands sweat. Cost about £10 for a box of 100, less than half price of the Park Tool branded ones.

Tubeless sticky worms from eBay
When your weldtight kit runs out and you already have the tools these are great, cut em in half..

good thread this, stingy old misers.

This is a far superior degreaser:

Meguiars

it’s cheaper too.

This is a far superior degreaser:
Meguiars

It is great, also recommend Comma Hyper Clean, beats pretty much everything else available.

Similar price. But available in 1litre size for under £5, so cheaper if you don’t use a lot.

I’ve been quite happy with my litre of ‘No More Dirty Bike’ from poundworld. It even looks like Muc off.

Use baby stuff sterilisation tablets (50 for 90p) instead of Camelbac cleaning tablets.

Singletrack bikes, Shimano SP41, 15 quid for 10m.

Not available as a kit then with the ends and inners and whatnot?

Camelback cleaning ? thin cheapo bleach heavily diluted

“I didnt get where I am today” .Wasnt that Reggie Perrin`s boss and that pic is the Major from Fawlty Towers ?

thomthumb – Member
citrus degreaser

must be alright my mate uses it to clean engines!

This. Virosol is pretty decent, cheap, and apparently safe to pour down sinks. I started using it after googling for citrus degreasers and ending up in an old thread here.

Diluted fruit juice and a pinch of lo-salt for ghetto kind-of-isotonic energy drink. lo-salt has potassium chloride as well as sodium salt so tastes funny on your chips but in the right doses better than normal salt in your drinks imho.

+1 for poundshop dustpan brush, see also poundshop kitchen/scrubbing brushes and toothbrushes.

Plumbers silicon grease for disc brake pistons, and the pointy end of a slender ziptie to apply it: even a little pot for a fiver will last you forever.

Milton for camelbaks, and a track pump and wodges of kitchen roll pumped through if you ever need a fun way to de-mould a camelbak tube (but sterilise it afterwrds too)

Sugru and shoe-goo for a multitude of bodges and repairs.

Duct tape wrapped many times round a credit-card sized card, makes a tyre boot and also useful first aid for helping keep anything really gapey closed on your way to hospital.

Napisan as sports wash.

Babywipes clean all sorts really quickly.

Not really a non-bike product, but disc brake cleaner is also great for getting your rim brake rims even cleaner than you though they were when you washed your bike, improves braking performance ime.

molgrips – Not available as a kit then with the ends and inners and whatnot?

I’m sure they do kits too, or you can buy the inners and ends from Singletrack Bikes in bulk too.

Edric 64 – Member
“I didnt get where I am today” .Wasnt that Reggie Perrin`s boss and that pic is the Major from Fawlty Towers ?

that’s the problem with Google…its free what do you expect?

Ok then what oil is rock shox 15wt?

Lhm is fine in shimano

Normal greases are ok

No frills polish is just silicone and ace for wiping your frame down.

Lidl do some diy gloves at 3quid. They’ve been my winter glove of choice.

Aerosol brake cleaner is a handy solvent and is ideal for decreasing mechanical stuff.

+1 for Screwfix Bolle safety glasses – £10 a pair, tinted and impact rated, even come with pouch

+1 for pound shop for bike wash, white spirit for chain cleaner, brake cleaner spray and baby bottle bleach for camelback