Sure, some innovations have made cycling faster, safer, and genuinely more enjoyable. However, just as many accessories deliver little more than a shrug despite commanding a price tag that assumes you’re buying an entire bike park rather than a small, insignificant part.
So here it is: my list of the top six most overrated bike accessories. They cost more than they’re worth, fix problems that barely exist or exist purely to impress the sort of person who reads spec sheets for fun.
Oversized pulley wheels
There is something poetic about spending hundreds to fix a problem that only a spreadsheet could detect. “Poetic” might not be the right word, but I’m generally not allowed to use the one I’m thinking of.
Oversized pulley wheels are sold as a gateway to professional watt input, though, in reality, most people who go for it couldn’t finish even a flat stage on the Tour de France. The idea behind this mechanical masterpiece is that by enlarging the jockey wheels on your derailleur, they promise to reduce friction in your drivetrain. The theory checks out – slightly larger wheels mean less articulation in the chain and marginally more efficient energy transfer. It’s the sort of gain that registers nicely in lab conditions under controlled effort, high-end testing equipment, and the gentle hum of a wind tunnel.
Outside of that vacuum, the benefits get murky. Independent tests regularly show a savings of two to three watts, best case. That’s assuming perfect cleanliness, ideal chain line, and a drivetrain already running at elite-level efficiency. Introduce a bit of road grit, a dodgy shift under load or the fact you haven’t cleaned your chain since the Spring Classics, and you’re back where you started.
All that for gains so fragile that even professionals with full-time mechanics struggle to justify them. For the average rider, it’s not just overkill – it’s the cycling equivalent of wearing a tailored tuxedo to mow the lawn. It doesn’t make you faster. It just makes you look ridiculous while staying exactly where you are.
3D‑printed saddles
The buzzwords never change. Whether it’s AI-powered, 3D-printed or quantum foam-infused unicorn composite, people lose their minds. Price becomes irrelevant. A hundred quid? No problem. A thousand euros? Take my money. Their firstborn? Let’s talk logistics. As long as that magic phrase jumps off the spec sheet and onto their bike, they’re in.
3D-printed saddles are the crown jewel of this behaviour. They’re pitched as, wait for it – revolutionary. How original, indeed. It is the perfect blend of comfort, performance, and futuristic design. You’re told the lattice structure adapts to your anatomy, absorbs vibrations, and cradles your sit bones with the gentle empathy of a Victorian wet nurse. What you actually get is a brittle, industrial sculpture that looks like it belongs in a sci-fi film set and feels not far off from sitting on a tennis racket.
The irony is that saddle comfort has always been a matter of painfully subjective opinion. There’s no universal winner. But traditional saddles, with their varied shapes, widths, and padding, already offer enough choice to find something that works. If none of those do the trick, the odds that a digitally extruded plastic mesh will solve your problems are slim.
What 3D-printed saddles really excel at is marketing. They look expensive and exclusive. They photograph well. They scream “serious cyclist” to people who equate complexity with quality. But after a few long rides and a couple of numb toes, most riders quietly retire them to the shelf – right next to their dreams of painless progress.
Carbon bottle cages
Shaving grams off your bike is, in principle, a noble pursuit. But when you’re paying 80 euros to remove the equivalent weight of a jellybean, it might be time to consider therapy. Or at least a long look in the mirror, preferably not one made of carbon fibre.
There are many ways to waste money in cycling, but the carbon bottle cage is a masterclass in absurdity. For a component whose entire job is to hold a bottle and not snap in the process, these featherweight sculptures manage to overpromise and underdeliver at every turn. Yes, they’re light. But so is common sense, apparently. They crack, they rattle, and they occasionally launch your bottle into the underworld the moment you hit a bump.
Even for professionals, it’s a pointless indulgence. The UCI enforces strict minimum bike weight limits, so it makes more sense to shave off grams that actually matter rather than the eight milligrams this overpriced paperclip pretends to save.
Carbon chainrings
Speaking of carbon, let’s move on to something that at least sounds like a genuine upgrade: carbon chainrings. There’s nothing quite like paying top dollar for a performance part that wears out faster than a teenager’s first job enthusiasm. The difference is that the teenager might eventually come back with experience. The carbon chainring just cracks.
To be fair, they do work – briefly. They’re light, stiff, and can give you a marginal advantage when you’re putting down serious watts. But they also wear out quickly, cost more than an entire drivetrain, and absolutely hate being shifted under load. Which is a bit of a flaw for something whose whole reason for existing is to, well, be shifted under load. There’s a reason professionals only use these on time trial bikes and change them more often than their socks. For everyone else, it’s a high-risk way to turn your drivetrain into a fashion statement.
Super-expensive low‑friction chains
And while we’re on the drivetrain subject, let’s talk about low-friction chains. The ones that cost an arm and a leg, though the black market is a bit tight at the moment, so you might have to throw in a shoulder or at least a finger or two on top. These chains are usually waxed, polished, bathed in unicorn tears, and vacuum-sealed like prime beef. They promise savings of a watt or two, maybe three if your chain line is straight, your cadence is perfect, and you’ve made the appropriate sacrifices to the gods.
In a lab, they work. Briefly. But the moment you hit a muddy trail, a wet road or even a slightly dusty commute, that mythical watt-saving coating goes the way of your dignity during a failed track stand. From that point on, it’s just a very expensive chain pretending it’s still special.
The marketing suggests you’ll be faster. The reality is you will just be poorer. Every puddle, every speck of dirt becomes a direct threat to your investment. And unless you’re the kind of person who rewaxes chains more often than they load the dishwasher, you’re better off sticking with a standard one and changing it a bit more often.
Expensive phone mounts
Phone mounts aren’t inherently bad. If you’re commuting, navigating through town or just spinning to the park, having your phone in view makes sense. A €3 strap from Temu does the job well enough – and if it doesn’t, it only costs €3 to make peace with that. The trouble starts when casual convenience gets rebranded as premium performance. Suddenly, there’s a “system”. You need a special case, a proprietary lock, a vibration dampener, and perhaps a backup tether so your phone doesn’t eject itself mid-descent. By the time you’ve bought everything, you could’ve just picked up a solid entry-level bike computer and still have change for coffee and cake.
If you’re serious about your riding – tracking intervals, monitoring heart rate, syncing with sensors – then use the proper tools. A phone mount, no matter how expensive, doesn’t make your phone a bike computer. It just makes it a very fragile, very exposed, very expensive speedometer. And if you’re not serious? That Temu strap’s still looking pretty good.
The cost of looking fast
Cycling doesn’t care what you bought. It doesn’t care how much you spent, what it’s made of or how clever the marketing was. It only cares that you ride. The truth is simple: you don’t get faster by upgrading your pulley wheels or cooler by flashing carbon everything. You get faster by riding harder. You get cooler by not caring.
Most of the gear on this list exists to sell you a shortcut. There isn’t one. Save your money. Ride your bike.
