Of course, none of us really need Bling, do we? But, to be fair, it can make us feel a bit better and enjoy the fact that, to our own individual tastes, we and our bikes look good.

This series is principally about bike components and accessories rather than clothing, so we’ll ignore all of the prestigious brands and jersey designs on offer and just look at some hardware. You can easily bling a bike with anodized components, they offer lots of opportunities, spoke nipples, computer mounts, cable ends, allen bolts for just about everything, bar ends and even hubs (see Hope and Chris King). You can get transfers with your name or other slogan for your top bar, lights on spokes maybe? (a Dunwich Dynamo tradition), fancy bar tape and so on.

But today we are going to focus on personalised headsets. At West London Cycling we use KAPZ for these and have been impressed with the service.

So, in conclusion, do you really need bling? We’d suggest that if it makes you feel good, then maybe you do!