Who writes this

Jean-Benoit Buisson

Every page on this site is written and signed by one person. This page says who, how the judgments are reached, and — just as importantly — what he is not.

How I got here

This site began with a question that has nothing to do with any one part and everything to do with how they are all sold: why is the number printed on the box never the number stamped on the part? A tire is advertised in inches and fits by two ETRTO figures on its sidewall. A cassette is sold by tooth range and fails to fit because of a freehub standard no listing mentions. A light is sold in lumens when what reaches the road is measured in lux. Every page I found while looking for an answer had the same shape — a ranked list, a score out of ten, an affiliate button, and not one figure I could check against my own bike.

That is the whole subject. Bike parts rarely fail outright; a chain stretches, pads glaze, a cable frays inside its housing, sealant dries out — and then the bike gets called worn out and something expensive gets bought. A part gets returned because it was ordered against the wrong one of the two numbers that describe it. None of that is on the front of the box, and all of it decides whether a purchase gets used or ends up in a drawer.

So this is the page I wanted and could not find. I read what manufacturers publish, I check every product reference market by market, I follow what things actually cost rather than what they are listed at, and I say plainly when a figure is not published at all. That last part matters more than it sounds: most of the disappointment here comes from a number nobody printed.

I keep notes — the honest specification of each family, the place where the manual contradicts the sales page, which chain fits which cassette, and the buying mistake each category invites. This site is those notes, put in order, in five languages, because the same question is asked in French, German, Spanish and Italian and gets a far worse answer in four of them.

I am not a bike mechanic, and I do not pretend to be. What I can do is read carefully, compare honestly, report every manufacturer figure with its source, and tell you which number the maker left out.

What this site covers

Everything listed here is taken from the catalog of this site, and each entry links to its own page. When the catalog changes, this list changes with it. It is a list of what is covered — not a list of what I own.

What I care about

Three ideas, and they run through everything. The number that gets quoted is usually the wrong one — a light sold in lumens rather than in lux, a tire sold in inches rather than in ETRTO, a lock sold on a security grade rather than on the weight you will actually carry. What the thing costs over three years decides more than what it costs today — chains, pads, cables, tires and sealant are consumables, and a drivetrain replaced at the right interval costs a fraction of one replaced late. And the thing that matters most is rarely on the specification sheet at all: whether the part physically fits the standard already on your bike.

What I am not

I am not a bike mechanic, a frame builder or a test engineer. I hold no qualification in any of them, I have never worked for a manufacturer or for a retailer, and nothing here rests on any professional title. This site describes a product — its construction, its materials, its dimensions — and stops there. In particular, every torque figure, tire pressure, wear limit and load rating on this site is reported from the manufacturer with its source named, and never derived by me. Brakes, steering, helmets and towbar racks are safety items: nothing here replaces the manufacturer's own instructions, and where a job belongs in a workshop, the page says so instead of talking you through it. Where a maker marks a product to a standard such as EN 1078 or StVZO, I report that the maker states it — I am not a testing body. If you are looking for someone whose authority comes from a job title, this is not that site; what each judgment rests on is stated on the page it appears on, and you can read how this site reaches a verdict in full.

How I work

Every figure names its source: a manufacturer specification, a manual, a standard, or the weight of long-term owner reports.
No price, product reference or specification is ever invented. Where a figure is missing, the field is left empty and the gap is stated on the page.
Product references are verified against Amazon before publication, per market. Where a model is not sold in that store, you are sent to a local search rather than to a page that does not exist.
Where the cheap option wins, the page says the cheap option wins — and where the honest answer is a €15 chain and a bottle of degreaser rather than a new drivetrain, it says that instead.

Why this site exists

Because bike gear is sold on the wrong numbers. A light is advertised in lumens and says nothing about where the beam lands. A tire is sold in inches when it fits by two millimeter figures on its own sidewall. A cassette is sold on tooth range and fails to fit because of a freehub standard nobody printed. And the parts treated as afterthoughts — the chain, the pads, the cable, the sealant — are usually the actual fix.

There is also a part of this that is not about buying anything. Most bikes that get replaced were not worn out; a chain stretched past its limit and took the cassette with it, a cable frayed inside its housing, sealant dried out months ago, and nobody had written down the twenty minutes and fifteen euros that would have fixed it. A bike that "used to shift fine", a brake that started rubbing, a tire that goes soft every week. Those problems are cheap to fix and almost never written down. That is the subject a page full of new equipment is guaranteed to skip. It is not skipped here.

Correcting me

If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it and date the correction on the page. Write to [email protected].

Jean-Benoit Buisson · Paris, France

Prices quoted in these summaries are dated readings. The live price is shown next to each product.