seven cycling things that are gonna make your life easier number one
chain wear checkers or gauges these basically do exactly the same thing this one was two pounds off
amazon this one's a park tool one feels a bit nicer in your hands over time as you ride your
bicycle all of the parts get worn and your chain linking all of your drivetrain together wears out
quite quickly if you leave it too long and your chain does get worn and the space in between
the rollers gets bigger you start wearing out your cassette your jockey wheels and your chain
rings and that starts to get quite expensive if you drop this device into a brand new chain
it won't go all the way through if you drop it into a worn chain it will go through the numbers
here indicate the percentage of stretched so if it goes through at 0.5 you're probably on your way to
needing a new chain if it goes through at 0.75 percent you definitely need to change your chain
now this did actually catch me out because back a few years ago when everything was 9 and 10 speed
you would only really need to change your chain if it got to 0.75 percent of stretch nowadays
with 11 and 12 speed you want to be changing it at 0.5 otherwise as i said you start wearing out all
the other stuff that gets mega expensive and for the price of well 2 quid you'd save a lot of money
for whatever reason pressure gauges on track pumps are usually wrong so you might want to buy one of
these electric pressure gauges this one is made by toe peak it was about 25 pounds but if you want
your tire pressure to be correct then you kind of need to get one of these they are consistent
unlike track pumps you put them on and then you take them off again and you put them on again and
then you end up with a different reading this will always give you the same thing it's very precise
you can go down to like half psis which a lot of mountain bikers might experiment to that level
of tiny little change it has different units so if you don't work in psis you work in bars you can uh
view it like that as well makes a really annoying beeping noise you got presta and trader options
on this one uh there are other brands available i think they're all about its own price if you want
an accurate one and that's probably why you're going to buy one of these then uh 20 to 30 pounds
it's pretty reasonable i think the difference i find between this and the track pumps that i've
got like this lovely looking design one is about 10 psi which is quite a lot especially if you're
doing off-road stuff and how your bike reacts and how it feels to ride is very much down to how
much air is in your tires consider one of these i end up using it all the time handy little device
this is my new favorite thing some people call it a gimmick
i don't think it is i've only had it for a few weeks but i think this is the most useful
cycling product that i own and it solved a massive problem a shoe drive perhaps more suited to the
british viewers than anyone else this is 20 quid on amazon every time i used to go for a ride in
the rain or through some muddy stuff and then have to wash my shoes at the end of the ride
i would then put my shoes on the radiator inside the house very quickly the radiator gets covered
in [ __ ] and your whole house smells of like damp shoes and i also started to melt them slightly
so found this thing and it's a game changer i keep this in the garage get back from a ride
stick my shoes on either way and then you set a timer based on how long you want them to be
drying for it automatically turns off and then you can come back whenever and you have lovely
dry shoes i always take the insoles out of the shoes as well to speed up the process i know it
sounds ridiculous but it's the best thing ever in my little storage place where i keep things
to hand that i need before i go out riding i have one of these which is a tiny preset torque wrench
this one was about 30 quid other brands are available it has different attachments that
you can put in for allen wrenches and torx keys and you can adjust the setting in newton meters
on the dial here checking the bolts on your bike is important and there is always the underlying
fear that you might over tighten stuff and break your parts over tightening stuff can lead to parts
failing especially if you have titanium bolts or carbon components and a lot of components
these days in a bid to save weight are using those materials so it's even more important to talk them
up correctly you don't want them coming loose and you don't want to explode the bolts use it before
you go riding or check the torque regularly and definitely if you're taking your bike apart and
putting it back together there's no harm in using one of these guys to do it these little handheld
ones do have their limits this one only goes up to nine newton meters so if you want more accuracy
and more adjustment you might want to go with a dedicated larger torque wrench but obviously
be annoying to carry around probably the most used thing in every bike workshop gt85 let me preface
this by saying they are a sponsor of this channel so make of that what you will but it's also one
of the most useful bike things out there there are other products on the market that do similar stuff
particularly if you are overseas and they might not sell this in your country like i don't think
you can get this over in australia or in the states one can of stuff but i think it has three
really great uses every single time i clean my bike i use it as a degreaser so i put a
bit on a rag and run it through the chain it helps to degrease and get all the black stuff
off which is hard to get rid of otherwise second thing because it's water displacing
it stops rust so if you clean your bike leave the residue of this on your chain stops it from
rusting it means you don't have to dry everything and apply chain loose straight away third thing
i actually put this on my frames as well because it's very very muddy here in the uk even if you're
riding a road bike and a thin film of this on your frame stops everything from sticking to
it so really useful if you're mountain biking it also leaves your frame looking shiny and
nice works perfectly fine on matte paint finishes as well and safe on carbon frames
if you haven't got a track pump yet consider buying one with a chamber in it so you can use
these just like a normal pump you stick it on you pump them up but as times go on more equipment
is becoming tubeless or tubeless ready so i've noticed even though i'm still using normal inner
tubes in my road tires all of the wheels that i have and tires are tubeless ready so you still
need to pump them up to a ridiculous pressure to get them to seat properly on the wheels that
process is made a lot easier if you have a pump with a chamber in it you flip this thing pump it
up loads and then release it all into the tyre at the same time that big injection of air makes it
way more likely to pop the tyre into the right place on the wheel and you haven't got to worry
about pumping it to like 120 psi every single time you want it to seat it also means you are ready to
set up tubeless if you need to i use this on my mountain bike and gravel setups and it seats the
tire every single time perfectly they are a little bit more expensive than a normal pump but i've
noticed that everything is becoming tubeless ready now so future proof yourself now i've saved this
one till last because it is the most expensive and probably the hardest to convince you guys of how
useful and good that it is because i was skeptical at first too this is a garmin radar light i think
it's actually garmin varia but it is a radar basically this detects when a car is coming
up behind you while you're cycling and tells you how fast the car is going as well i've been riding
this for a few weeks now and it works unbelievably well and it feels weird riding without it now
i guess it's just a case of peace of mind and being able to prepare for the inevitable overtake
of a car but honestly it's just such a useful piece of information to have while you're out
riding regular viewers of the channel will have noticed that i've been riding my road bike a
lot less recently and a lot of the reason why is because of the standard of driving of course it
depends on the kind of riding you're doing uh one ride in particular when we rode across australia
i really wish i'd discovered this back then a lot of the time you're riding on very quiet but fast
roads it's the same around here actually and just having that heads up especially when it's windy
and you can't hear behind you it's just a really really valuable feature to have there's a few
different ones you can get in the range this one has a light built into it too you can get just the
radar separately and if you don't have a head unit already you can get a thing that just displays
the information about cars coming up behind you from the radar device if you do have a head unit
obviously it will link up with a garmin it also links up with wahoo's hammer heads and that kind
of thing so i think a lot of common bike computers have now integrated this system into their heads
up display and a lot of them are compatible like i said though it's not the cheapest thing on this
list but if you know someone who has one and you have an opportunity to try it out and borrow it i
would urge you to do so really amazing bit of kit makes things safer and i'm really glad i've got it
that is seven cycling products that might make your life easier let me know in the comment
section down below if you have any suggestions on unusual cycling products that are really
useful too particularly stuff that might save you money in the long run thank you guys always
for watching please like comment and subscribe and i'll see you guys soon for the next video