Parts
- Leather saddles, grips, bar tape etc. (Brooks, Lepper)
- Bags, baskets, carriers etc. (Brooks, Basil etc.)
- Pumps (SKS Rennkompressor, Quicker pro)
- Lighting (dynamos, headlamps, taillamps, wiring)
- Locks and kickstands
- Pedals, toestraps, toeclips etc.
- Various: Chain hook, key fob, tyre repair products.
- Ordering and/or making an appointment for a testride on leather saddles
- Warranty for all products is at least 2 years. Some products have a longer warranty period and this is indicated with those products.
Beginning
Since about mid 2009, about a year after the first publication of the critical webpages on bicycle pumps and bicycle dynamo lighting, we started selling custom bicycles and quality bicycle parts. The original intent of this website was not commercial, but to try to improve matters and provide truly helpful reviews. The issues and disinterest in this are described on the introduction page for my tests/reviews.
Continuing
Despite being based in the Netherlands, we (I sometimes have help :)) sell to anywhere, and though postal services sometimes take a while, you will get what you want with good advice. I don't have the clout to get super cheap rates from DHL that larger companies get... We have sent packages to anywhere e.g. USA, Canada, Australia, New zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, almost all countries in Western Europe and some countries in Eastern Europe such as Ukraine and Latvia, Israel, Qatar, Singapore, to name some of them. This is interesting and fun. The issues that come up are delays by customs, or postmen not leaving a note of attempted delivery (ask your local postoffice or email me if you think it takes too long).
If you value the tests I have done, and described, then you could support me by buying from me, but if not from me then I suggest you from a shop who knows their stuff. Good service is dying out, and forums and websites cannot provide the generally detailed knowledge nor advice that truely knowledgeable people provide, and this means service is dying out... Magazines certainly don't provide the knowledge as I mentioned on the introduction page for my tests/reviews.
Philosophy
We only sell parts we tested and that are of good quality. Usually we also have to like the parts (how it looks, feels, whatever) but exceptions are made for this... This means: No gel saddles, no bike locks that are easy to cut through, so no cable locks and no plug-in cables for ring locks (steel shear cutters go through cables as through butter; chains are much tougher and hardened, each link is as hard as the steel shear cutters that bad elements try to crack them with), no halogen lighting because you can't see anything with it on unlit roads, no pumps that are unable to pump a tyre to 4 bar, etc.
Also, this website aims to be informative at all times, so no marketing blurbs from any company can be found here for any product to describe/recommend it. Descriptions/reviews are all self-written from a critical consumer's point of view. Despite low prices (in particular Brooks' recommended retail prices are now so high that their products have become a luxury item, which they shouldn't be), this is not a web-only webshop that only aims to sell as much as possible... (if you live in NL, you can come round, testride Brooks/Lepper saddles, etc.)
My (proprietor of Gambiet) major annoyance with shops, is lack of knowledge (I usually know more than anyone in a shop just by looking through magazines and catalogues), non-critical attitude (is this a good pump? To which the answer usually is "Sure it is!", but when you get home you find out you can't inflate a tyre to 4 bar without ridiculous effort...), and with webshops in particular the often abysmally small pictures (and of course almost no proper advice). So, none of that on this website.