It's been almost 4 years since I made myself one of the most beautiful birthday gifts purchasing a Mountain Bike. I've already written a post with this purpose where I shared more stories, so I'll try to avoid repeating myself since I hate recycled content, but in short, I've always been passionate about bikes and roller skates.
While for some reason I feel like I'm too old to get up on roller skates again and do all the tricks I was doing as a kid, I feel like you can go cycling even at 90 years old, and that made me consider purchasing a bike for myself a few years back, after a long break from cycling.
Even though I am the kind of person who uses a thing until it gets completely destroyed and becomes unusable anymore, I do enjoy bringing updates and leave personal touches on the things I own, making them unique and get as close as possible to my taste since it's quite different from what you usually see on the market.
With this thought, 2 weeks ago I placed an order on SHEIN for some custom pieces that would match the overall vibe of my bike, which wasn't the first tuning I brought to Aiko (yes, I gave her a name), but it is the most major change I have made so far.
You can see the other custom tunning things I did on this post and here. But who knows? Maybe a new tunning will happen sooner than planned! I have a long list of things I wish to change again, but I am afraid to modify the bike too much, thinking it could affect its performance.
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The first upgrade we began with and which I was the most afraid for, was replacing the handlebars because my bike is not a common one, changing the speeds from the little thing placed between handles and breaks, which I was thinking it's somehow stick to the original handles and won't allow me to remove them.
I will address the adjustments made as "we" because my bf helped me during most of the process since it involved some force that I wasn't owning.
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After a long effort to remove the handles, which had detached in the end, the biggest challenge was to take them off entirely because they were made of rubber and they barely moved from the iron handlebars.
So, after removing them, we thought about attaching what we got from Shein, but sadly, these weren't the right size and also came with a plastic inside the rubber. Its purpose was to make attaching and detaching the handlebars easier, but since I also got some sort of side covers to go inside the handlebar, it consumed lots of energy cutting the handles the right size and melting the plastic so the caps would have enough space to go inside.
I didn't take pictures of this process as I was almost convinced I would break the handles and wouldn't manage to succeed this upgrade, but somehow, I did it. I know the ending of the handlebars is not the smoothest since it was cut, but honestly, I like it even more, considering that it's something custom-made and it has a story apart.
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After all the efforts we made with the handlebars, we decided to move on to the easier upgrades so we have enough time to rest before facing another major challenge.
So the next step was replacing the lighting from the bicycle, which came really handy since what I used was of poor quality and not too visible in traffic. I'm still not very happy with the front lighting as I don't think it makes too much light either (haven't tested it yet), but I absolutely love the back one.
Both lights can be charged via USB cable and have 5 different modes of lighting and intensity.
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Another little but meaningful upgrade was placing two matchy reflective stickers on my helmet and bike.
Sadly, Romania is on the first place in Europe when it comes to traffic accidents, and also on the first place in terms of riders who are dying after being hit by a car. Hence, I'd lie to say that the message is not giving some shivers go down the spine thinking that some riders have their last ride out there as I write this post, but I feel like anything reflective comes very handy in this situation.
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And speaking of reflective upgrades for the bike, I also got 12 parts to go on the bicycle spokes for even more visibility during the night.
I only got one set to test their quality first, because usually all 12 parts go on a single wheel, but for now I divided them on both wheels, and most likely I'll purchase one or two more sets in the following days.
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And last, but not least, replacing the pedals was the ultimate upgrade I had in plan for now, as the ones the bike came with were quite small and also made of plastic.
The ones I purchased are a lot larger and also made of iron, which is a huge upgrade. I wanted to get some lime green ones, but they were extremely expensive and also not made of iron, hence why I opted for ones that would match the reflective stickers and handlebar caps.
While I dismantled and mounted back up a bicycle before (not this one though), I was thinking that this was going to be a pretty quick process, but it turned into the biggest effort did that day, ending with bruises, scars, and lots of pain, lol.
Usually, when pedals are mounted it's suggested to grease them with vaseline so you will be able to remove them easily after a couple of years of usage without dettaching them, but the shop we got them from is quite busy with constantly assembling bikes for the buyers and they no longer pay too much attention on these details, resulting in pedals not being greased first.
What happens if they are not greased, you might ask? They simply weld over time, making them almost impossible to detach and even causing the break of the pedals and the crank arms. We were lucky enough for this not to happen, but I think you can realise how much time it took us to remove the old pedals after almost 4 years of being there and never detached.
Anyway, it's all good when it all comes with a happy ending, so here is how Aiko is currently looking after all the upgrades. I still want to get a new seat and attach new stickers on the bicycle seatpost, as these I had a while ago were ripped off, but maybe in a future upgrade that will bring even more custom things.
Other bike-related posts:
- I made myself a Birthday gift by purchasing a new Mountain Bike!
- Small upgrade on bikes and Wednesday ride in the woods 🚴♀
- My Bike Needed An Upgrade
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences.
At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe.
Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (300+ articles written on this field), but also approaching other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 800+ blog posts.
Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.