Now, there was no post in quite some time, I’ve been busy cycling through Japan. And yesterday I opened my newly-arrived box with a lot of replacement parts and general bike stuff, because I was annoyed by a number of things at my bike. First of, my bar tape disintegrated in the rain, so I bought a new two-colored fancy looking one, because I am such a superficial person. Also, since I tried a friends bike, I never was happy with the braking power of my own bike, because Giant slapped some cheap Tektro TK-R340 brakes on it. So I couldn’t help myself and got the Shimano BR-5700 (Shimano 105 series brakes, 54€) in black, fitting the coloring of the frame. I was unsure whether the braking will improve, but having replaced them I can confirm that braking does indeed improve and by quite some bit. Also, no idea why Giant builds these on the bikes, as you can get rather decent Shimano R451 for 2x17€. Also, links go to Bike-Components because they ship fast, have low prices, a bearable web site and support payment via PayPal (= not 2 days wasted while transferring money).

Another disappointment are the self-gluing patches for bike tires. I used to have the nifty-looking Lezyne self-gluing patches. Kids, I tell you, these don’t work. At all. Everytime I used these, the tire was filled for two hours and then it was flat, because everytime the air found a way around the patch and left the tire flat. Dammit, the only thing this thing is good for is wasting time. This time I replaced it by an old-skool kit with patches and glue. Seems to work so far.

I’ll be back when I have to rant about more parts. Like the wheels. Heh.