Decathlon is a French company that doesn’t seem to be very good at assessing the Taiwan market. They have had quite a lot of product lines (like bike tools) that were never going to sell here, and eventally get remaindered, presenting brief opportunities that I usually miss.
I havn’t done much with bike maintenance, partly because they generally seem to need more special tools than a Citroen, but this might be an opportunity to partly address that at fairly low cost. When I was in there a while ago the kit was under a 1000NT
It gets mixed, but generally positive reviews on the UK website. The non-specialist tools in the kit are redundant, since I already have them, but the special tools would probably cost more purchased separately, which would be difficult here anyway.
The reviews seem pretty solid and you do get a fair amount of tools for the price and also can take care of lots of maintenance issues.
However, I think the main issue in Taiwan (maybe just Taipei) is, do you have the space to do bike maintenance at home? The most I do at home is put the bike through a wash, but do not have enough light or space to do much more.
I live on campus now, and have a shared office, so I can do bike work in the office on weekends when the other teacher isn’t around.
There’s also a staff kitchen room which I’ve used for small but tricky jobs like carburettor rebuilds.
Overall its not bad, much better than when I worked on my car in the street, in Edinburgh, in the winter, though an American used to having a garage would perhaps find it a hardship.
Main hardship is the mosquitoes, but that is really only a problem if a job takes too long and I end up working close to dusk. It’s essential to find shade though. Working in full sunlight becomes intolerable very quickly and then I start screwing things up.
One BIG advantage of Taiwan for this kind of thing is the much lower probability that people will steal your tools if you leave them for a short time, though of course it could still happen.
It’s a pity because it has many tools. I have a very simple (yet good… supposedly) torque wrench with some bits of different sizes, but I can’t do “heavy” work with it.
Well, like I said, that was never going to sell here so I think they’ve discontinued it, so they’ll have taken it off the website. There were still some in a Tainan store a couple of weeks ago. Tried to go there last night but arrived just as they were closing.
Its been suggested to me that this is low quality and I should just bite the bullet and buy Park Tools. However, I’m not sure I can justify that outlay, and I’m not sure how easy Park Tools are to find here anyway.
Not sure why you specifically mention a torque wrench.
Decathlon UK site has one for bikes which is an unusual torsion shaft design I havn’t seen before.
I have a beam-type torque wrench for my car but hardly ever use it. A bicycle would need a lower range but I doubt I would be working on a bicycle high-end enough (carbon frames etc) to really need one.
@Ducked, I mentioned the small torque wrench because that and a few other things are the only tools I have, but they are not enough for working on the crankset, for example. Now I’m thinking that besides the cranset and the cassete, everything else can be done with the small torque wrench and allen wrenches i have—
Finally made it to the main Tainan store and the toolkit is no longer on the shelves, so I think they either sold out (unlikely) or they’ve been withdrawn from sale.
You don’t want to overtighten things mounted on CF, or CF things. Nowadays medium to high end bicycles tend to have a big percentage of CF on them, so to have a small torque wrench gives you some (false?) peace of mind.
If someone sees that kit in Taipei area, please let me know
What I might suggest is, if you have a bike shop near home or work, get to know them, they will most likely do the minor maintenance for free if you show some sort of loyalty towards them. It’s a help me, help you kind of relationship.
I know it sometimes can get tedious to have to run to the shop the night before a ride, but for me, it’s another reason to ride the bike.
I’ve only had a mechanic do one job on my car while I’ve been here (fit an exhaust section I bought off him) and I then had to work out what was wrong with the job, take it back, listen to a load of (translated) UTTER BULLSHIT, and argue until I got it fixed.
Much easier just to do it myself. If it costs me a car (it arguably has once) my cars probably cost quite a lot less than your bicycles, and my bicycles don’t cost anything at all.
Anyway, that kit’s apparently no longer available, so its a non-issue.
