- Welcome back to Berm Peak, I'm Seth.
And today,
we're gonna be doing something a little bit different,
kind of the same.
We're gonna be talking about inexpensive bike products
that are great,
so you don't spend a lot of money
but you get a really good value.
Now, there are thousands of items like this
and I can't include them all,
and so, I'm gonna limit it to a few items
that we use here all the time
or that I have personal experience with
and I'm gonna start out with a set of hydraulic brakes.
So these are the Zoom brakes on the Kent Trouvaille.
These were under $70.
They're hydraulic, they transformed the Kent Trouvaille,
they were amazing, amazing value,
I would buy them again.
In all the times I've used them,
I've used them really hard and they've performed admirably,
they still feel amazing.
But they're not even close to the best value in brakes,
that honor would go to the Shimano MT200s and 201s.
Front and rear levers and calipers,
brake pads, filled up with fluid, $55 delivered
and they're made by Shimano.
Not only are they made by Shimano,
but they're some of the best Shimano brakes ever made
in terms of reliability.
I will, on the regular, meet people who have, like,
four year old entry-level bikes that these come on
and they have not done one single thing to them,
they have not bled them once,
they still work fine.
These are simple, reliable, powerful, and they're cheap.
So, why did I use the Zoom brakes on the Kent Trouvaille?
Why didn't I buy these?
Well, during the pandemic,
they cost, like, three times as much for some reason,
when you could get them,
yeah 129 to 159, that's, like, pandemic prices right there.
But recently I placed an order on Amazon,
it looked weird, it looked suspect.
$55, how does it get any better than that?
But yet they arrived looking brand new, working fine.
This is the best upgrade that you could give a bike
that doesn't have hydraulic disc brakes.
So, your stem, it's an important part of your bike,
especially if you're a really heavy rider
or you ride really hard,
that's kind of important, right?
If your stem breaks, or the little bolts snap on your stem,
your handlebars are gonna break loose
and you're gonna smash your face
into something really hard and sharp.
And so, what does a good stem cost?
$90?
$130?
Well, how about 30 to 50 bucks.
(beep) 39.95.
Truvativ stems,
which are made by SRAM are in the 30 to $50 range
and they're plenty strong, they're not, like,
the lightest, highest performance stems in the world
but, I have one over here on a really high-end bike
and it's like a $40 stem, it's not even that heavy.
And while you can absolutely find $13 stems on Amazon,
if you are a full grown man
that is riding over rocks and hitting jumps,
you should probably not have that on your bike.
$8, your life is worth $8,
it's extraordinary.
Maybe a 90 pound kid that's riding cross-country, fine.
I have one on the tall bike.
But if you're doing any kind of real hard mountain biking,
you don't want a $13 stem on your bike.
But you also might not want to spend 90 bucks or 150 bucks
for a chunk of aluminum with four bolts in it.
So I use these on a lot of flip bikes
because there the cheapest,
but there are lighter models that are a little bit more,
so yeah, really reputable, trustworthy option
for a cheap stem.
Other companies know they can get more for their stems,
but, yeah, these remain a really good value.
So while I have this bike up here,
there's another product on it, PNW dropper post.
Now, PNW makes a lot of different dropper posts,
they're all of good value,
in fact, anytime you see a review
or a video on dropper posts,
there's somebody in the comments that's like,
"Love my PNW dropper post, was only 200 bucks."
They have models down to $99,
and not only is it a good dropper post
but it's made by a real bike company,
and by that I mean it's staffed by mountain bikers.
Now, their philosophy is bring your own lever,
and so most of these come without a lever,
you can purchase it separately.
Their cheapest lever is $30
but you can get 'em on Amazon for like $13,
or maybe you're replacing your old dropper post
and you already have a lever.
They're also cool because you can customize them.
And so this spot over here has a little band
that you can insert to color match your bike,
they do the same thing with the levers.
Now, there are other dropper posts out there of great value.
Kind Shock, KS,
they have some really good dropper posts for cheap,
but I think PNW really stands out
because they have a wide range of posts,
they're all inexpensive,
and they're cool that you can color match them,
they're, like, fun, interesting posts.
And so I think if you're looking to upgrade
and get your first dropper post,
PNW is kind of a no brainer.
So now we have the Kent Trouvaille back up on the stand
and it's here because I wanna talk about three things
that are on this bike.
The first being the crank set.
Now I've mentioned this multiple times already,
it's a crank set, a bottom bracket,
and a single speed machined chainring, all for $55.
And it's not bad,
it's better than a lot of stuff that comes on these bikes.
In fact, the bottom bracket on the Kent Trouvaille
failed on our first ride.
I do hear a little bit of creaking,
but otherwise, ooh, what's that?
And those cranks were nothing to write home about,
neither was the chainring, it was like stamped steel.
For $55, we upgraded all of that
and it's been performing flawlessly since.
But this isn't the only bike I've put it on,
we also put it on Heather's bike.
We built this on Flip Bike almost a year ago
and it's still performing flawlessly,
same exact crank set.
And one of the things that makes this such a good value,
is it has an externally mounted BSA bottom bracket
which makes the stance a little bit wider
and so the design is stronger.
This has a nice big spline, it's got pinch bolts,
it's not, like, made by a real bike company,
like, they probably have this under, like,
20 different names on Amazon and Alibaba,
but it happens to be pretty good for the money
and so, I would recommend it
if you're trying to fix up an old bike.
If it doesn't work out,
wherever you got it from will probably take it back
and give you another one just like it.
So another product that's on the Kent Trouvaille,
microSHIFT drivetrains.
They make derailleurs, shifters, cassettes,
and they're good, really, really good for the money.
The derailleur that came on the Kent Trouvaille
was really basic, no clutch or anything like that,
and it performed just fine.
But when we upgraded to the clutched version,
it was flawless.
I mean, no fuss whatsoever,
you set it up and it just shifts perfectly.
You bang it around, still shifts really good,
not finicky, nice, light touch,
and the clutch worked really well,
it's got really good chain retention.
Now you can buy that derailleur, a 9 speed cassette,
and the shifter for $130.
Now if you need to buy those three things
to upgrade a bike to a 1x, that is an astonishing value,
especially considering the performance,
it's up there.
Now it's true that you can get SRAM NX
and then you're gonna have a 12 speed drivetrain,
but you're not necessarily gonna have more range
and you're gonna spend more than double that
to piece one of those together.
And so if you have a really basic entry-level bike,
maybe with a 3x, you're looking to upgrade the drivetrain,
a microSHIFT Advent with a clutch is just,
there's no other value that even comes close
and so, I highly recommend it.
Now, one part that we did not swap out
on the Kent Trouvaille, the original tyres,
these CST Patrol's have held up,
they have not gone flat, they have not gotten torn open,
and although they're kind of smooth,
fast-rolling cross-country tyres,
they've performed pretty admirably,
but CST makes a lot of really good tyres and they're cheap.
This is the CST Rock Hawk.
It is tubeless-ready, the mold looks amazing,
the compound's even pretty good.
You're not gonna find these tyres
outside of the 30 to $50 range,
and that's insane
because many of us are used to spending 90 or more on tyres.
Not only that,
but they seem to have a lot of really good options
with really good tread patterns.
For instance,
does the tread pattern on the BFT look familiar to you?
Look at these,
this is everything you have probably come to expect
from a really good tyre.
Now, it is a little bit lighter duty,
but the pricing is unbelievable.
I think that Kent made a really good decision
putting them on the Trouvaille
because we would've not ever been able to do
anything we did with this bike with one of those cheap tires
that you see on most Walmart bikes.
So if you've been mountain biking for any amount of time,
there is a good chance that you own
some kind of an action camera, probably a GoPro.
Now, the new GoPro HERO11 Black is an amazing camera
but it costs $650.
But this, this is a HERO8,
it's better in a lot of ways
and you can find 'em brand new for 250 bucks.
Now, of course, better is subjective.
Of course, the HERO11 is a more capable camera
with more power, but this will shoot in 4K also,
it has really good stabilization, and it's way smaller,
in fact, it's one of the smallest modern GoPros ever made
and so it's really easy to mount on, let's say your helmet.
Now, every GoPro before it sat inside, like, kind of a case,
this one is the first model
with the built in fingers on the bottom,
and so makes it more compact, makes it smaller.
Also, the next GoPro after this was the HERO9
and then it went up in size in every single direction.
It also has a lot less of that compact, convenient charm
that GoPros are known for,
and I think the HERO8 exemplifies this the best.
Now you can see from this footage that it looks incredible,
in fact, a lot of Alexander's videos
are still shot on the HERO7 to this day
and this is an upgrade even from that.
And so, the new ones are really, really powerful,
but you can't argue with the value
of this generation of GoPro,
and so if you're looking for a new one
and you don't need all the fancy features,
a HERO8 is really good
for some helmet-mounted point of view video.
So there you have it,
some products that are of a really, really good value.
They're not necessarily my favorite products,
admittedly a lot of the stuff I like
isn't necessarily good value,
but if you wanna make extra sure
that your money is going to something
that's gonna pay you back,
you want something of good value,
and so that's why I made a dedicated video
to listing those products.
Of course, these are my experiences,
there's a whole bunch of other stuff out there
that I haven't mentioned
and so, chime in below.
Thanks for riding with me today and I'll see you next time.
(dramatic music)