- Welcome back to you beautiful--
- Hey, Rich, those are mine, man.
(Rich exclaims) Find your own intro.
- (sighs) I need my own words.
- Yeah - Sorry mate.
Well then, we know mountain biking's expensive.
Even the cheapest parts of it can cost you
hundreds of pounds.
- Exactly, but we always want to upgrade our bikes,
but here are the few ways that are free
and cost you pennies that'll help you out a little bit
on the trail.
Let's kick it off with this one.
Okay, I'm going to kick it off with this first one
right here and that is down tube protection.
Now some manufactures do come with them
built into the frame already.
Just like this Canyon Strive one here,
has got a nice piece here that's going to help protect
that down tube from rocks flicking up.
Now if you're in a rocky place like the Alps
or somewhere up in the mountains
where big rocks are going to be flicking up
and you don't think this is going to suffice enough.
Suffice enough?
Is that a word?
Yeah I think it is.
So you want to grab yourself and old used tire,
just like this one right here.
It's quite thick and rubbery, it's not too heavy,
it's not too light, it's going to help protect that down tube.
Now you want to cut this about 30 centimeters, 45 centimeters.
Just enough to protect that down tube.
And look at that, it's the perfect shape
for your down tube.
Now you just place it right there, just like that.
You cable tie it on and it's going to protect that frame.
Your carbon frame, your steel frame or your aluminum frame
from all those big rocks flicking up and damaging this.
Cause you don't want any damage there.
All right, let's zip tie this on.
Look at that!
Pretty good, free, cheap.
Apart from the old zip tie, but that's-
you know that's pennies.
That's going to protect my bike when I'm out there in the Alps
or any big Alpine mountain that I'm at, right!
(mellow music)
- Now let's talk about dropper protection.
D'you remember when forks, back in the day,
had those little booties on them?
Kind of phased out now, they didn't really exist
but they served a purpose and that was, protect the seals.
Now, the dropper post is bang in the line of fire
for all that mud and crap that's going to flick on up
and just sit on that seal there.
So what can we do to give that a bit of protection?
Well, I've got an old inner tube here
which most of us have got knocking around these days
cause, let's face it, tubes are a bit dead.
And I'm going to cut a section of this
to protect the back of the seat tube.
Especially around the seal and the extension of it.
Stop anything, grinding away.
Boom, so there we have it.
Free upgrade virtually.
All nice and protected and secure around here
and no mud getting towards that bad boy.
(bass guitar music)
- All right, the winter months are out here in the UK
and the mud is flicking up everywhere.
When Neil and I went for a ride on an epic one
and it was very muddy and we didn't have mud guards
and you all called us out on it.
But today, I'm going to show you how to make one.
Easy out of an old bit of plastic.
Just like this old Markov piece here, this top.
Basically, you can go online and you can find a stencil.
You can print it out, you can place it on here
and cut out your own mud guard
but if you have got a little bit of cash
then click up there in the left hand corner
for a bit of merch because we do some nice GMBN ones.
Now our tech man himself, Doddy has done a video
all about this so take a look on how how makes
his own mud guard out of a bit of plastic.
- Given the shape of that, it sits really well
in here, it's quite a natural sort of fit.
You basically just want to draw a line
where you want that mud guard to be using a sharpie.
So at the front here, I actually want it to stick out a bit
so I'm going to have it come round to,
let's say here.
It needs to come down on the side of the fork here
so I can tie it to the fork leg.
So you can pretty much follow the line of your fork brace
in order to do this and then the same at the rear.
You want this to come out and have this kind of shape
to the back there, using that curve that's already
part of the milk bottle.
What I'm going to do is cut this out now, this shape,
put a couple of holes in the bottom here
for a cable tie around the leg,
and a couple in the top to run around the fork base
and then Bob's your uncle.
Got a homemade mud guard.
- Genius isn't it?
Genius, absolute genius.
It's free, it's cheap and it's going to keep
the mud out of your eyes.
(mellow music)
- Now bikes have become quieter over the years,
with the introduction ClutchMax, narrow eyed chain rings,
better gearing but what also you can do
is add a little bit of protection there on the chain stay.
On my bike here, my reactor's already got one,
you can see it's factory fitted
but you can also make these yourselves.
You can use all sorts.
Things like free-end mastic tape
old grip tape can even work.
Let's have a little look at how we can do this.
- The rubber itself comes in strips like this.
It comes in 50 ml and 25 ml,
white and the one I've got here is 50 ml white.
I'm actually going to have to cut this to fit.
Now the really good thing about this stuff is,
it's stretchy and it's extremely adhesive.
So you can actually shape it slightly.
All the way along to get a really good finish
and because it's quite thick, it dampens out
the sort of noise that you get from the chain
just ticking away on the chain stay.
- That's a pretty ingenious way of doing it.
No more chips and dings on my chain stays
and hopefully a nice, quiet running bike.
(mellow music)
- This next one is trading with your mates
because everyone's got something that they don't want
and they're going to throw it away
but it's someone else's treasure.
Like this mud guard, I'm not going to use this eye saver,
D'you want it?
- Actually that is pretty useful to me
because I use mine to commute sometimes
and I don't want all that horrible spray
going up my back or ass,
when I get to work so actually that'd be really useful
thanks - There you go.
Trading with your friends is pretty cool
and it saves you pennies.
You don't have to go to the shop
to go and buy a mud guard or get something else
like an old tire.
Go to your friends. - Yeah.
- They'll have some.
- Yeah, you can take my idea there if you want.
- I actually-
yeah that's not too bad.
But, you know, I don't really need to use one of them.
- Whatever works for you isn't it?
- Exactly. - Whatever works
for whatever you ride.
- Thank you very much for watching this video.
If it helped you out let us know in the comments down below.
Now if you want to stick around and get some problem solving
videos and continue to binge watch GMBN,
click just down here.
- Yup and it you want to see the guys take on the Ridgeway
without mud guards, click down here.
- Don't forget to hit the globe,
subscribe cause you're missing out on some rad stuff
and give us a thumbs up like if you like making free stuff.