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SEVEN DAY CYCLIST
CYCLING, BUT NOT USUALLY RACING
LATEST UPDATE: FEBRUARY 7th
HOW DO WE DECIDE OUR OVERALL RATINGS FOR PRODUCTS WE REVIEW?
PDW Zit Bitz
Under 1g each $15 for four (about £12.40 at time of writing)
Bling your bike? With limited practical function, Portland Design Works (PDW) Zit Bitz aim to put the finishing touches to redundant bottle-cage bosses and eyelets and their rack and other equivalents. Once upon a time I regarded things such as this as the equivalent of a fake tan, but vanity seems to be creeping in with age (no, I don’t have a comb-over).
Pros: very nicely machined, range of colours.
Cons: not to be used as fasteners.
Specification
The PDW Zit Bitz are beautifully machined alloy frame bolts that should fit any standard frame or fork eyelet, such those for your bottle cage or rack, when they are not un use. PDW single out Surly bikes for having a potential over-abundance of these. Fair enough, but it may be that you have ditched one bottle cage or are running without a rack as you are at liberty to do. They come in a choice of six anodised colours; black, silver, gold, red, aqua, green. You get four per pack (all the same colour): those with especially funky paint jobs might wish that colours could be mixed. Puritanical functionalists may have reached for the sick bag, but cycling aesthetes may wish to read on.
PDW are very keen to emphasise that Zit Bitz are not for fastening anything to anything else. They are decorative, although, they will keep the elements out.
The thread is 8mm long, short enough to ensure that they are unlikely to cause an obstruction should they protrude on the other side, for example on rack eyelets on the rear drop out.
Use 3.5.5
Well, given that they have no use as fasteners and can only be inserted finger tight, do they actually have a use? Keeping eyelets and associated braze-ons neat and tidy and keeping nasties from getting in. they do that perfectly well. They have also stayed in place perfectly well over some bumpy tree roots and forest gravel tracks.
Steel, aluminium, titanium frames should cause no problems with a dab of grease, but, for carbon, which usually have aluminium braze-ons, best to use a carbon gripper paste or a synthetic grease.
Apart from that, they look good.
Durability and care 5/5
Naturally I smeared on a bit of grease to begin with, but not too much. You don’t want to get it all over the place. With them in place I added a touch of general protectant. This seems to have been effective in helping keep them clean. Having said that, after a few rides, a quick wipe over has kept things shiny; and that, after all, is really the point.
They have put up with some pretty rough weather since arrival and have been left out in the rain and wind during office hours at the day job. Add to that the splatter and spray of dirt tracks post snow and country lanes plastered with mud.
Value 3.5/5
Parsimonious folk will baulk at forking out £3.13 – near enough – for something that has no structural purpose. I’d actually really like a fastener version of these. However, if you like to pimp your bike, then they are decent value, especially if you are just plugging up eyelets where longer coloured bolts might cause problems. Wolf Tooth do water cage bolts in four colours at £2.50 a piece (£10 for four). Pro Bolt offer a wide range of coloured fastening bolts in a lot of sizes and for different purposes – prices vary. You can go much cheaper, but beware of products where the colour will flake off or quickly become discoloured. However, all are cheaper than repairing corrosion damage. Of course, you could just use the regular bolts to be found in most spares tins.
Summary
Very nicely made, although limited functionally. Putting vanity to one side, there are other options available. However, they do look very nice and do have a real purpose, too.
