Old Bicycle Repair, Maintenance, Upgrade, and Expansion Kit

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A dear female friend of mine was forced to start over in a new place in late 2014, with nothing but a bare bones and dilapidated mountain bike for vehicular transport. Her location was a thousand miles distant from mine. But I wished to help her anyway, with some carefully chosen items from Amazon.com. Below is a list of the items I sent her specifically pertaining to her bike, in somewhat random order, along with my reasoning behind each of them (unless an item's name is self-explanatory). Please keep in mind that below I was specifically shopping for accessories which would most likely work on my friend's mountain bike; if your recipient possesses a different type of bike, you may want to change certain of those items on the list. I also sought out the most easily installed or assembled accessories (according to customer reviews), since my friend says she often has a hard time with such things:

Rema Touring Patch Kit, #22 Large, was a bicycle tire patch/repair kit.

Planet Bike Eco Rack Oversized 6061 T6 Aluminum Bike Rack with Pre-installed Hardware (Black). This was a rack to fit over her rear bike wheel, to aid in cargo carrying and the like. It also helped shield her from mud or water thrown up by her rear wheel in wet conditions, since her bike had no rear fender to speak of, prior to this.

Crank Brothers Multi Bicycle Tool (19-Function, Silver). This was a compact Swiss Army knife type tool, specially made for bicycle repair and maintenance.

Zinn & the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance. This was an acclaimed, profusely illustrated mountain bike maintenance and repair manual, which I figured would aid her in keeping her bike up and running, and teach her how to use some of her tools as well.

Sunlite Cloud-9 Bicycle Suspension Cruiser Saddle, Cruiser Gel, Tri-color Black. This was a new seat for her bicycle, because her old one was in awful shape, not only tough and perhaps painful to use, but actually holing her jeans when she rode it, with its sharp and exposed edges.

Wald 3133 Front Quick Release Bicycle Basket with Bolt on Clamp (14.5 x 9.5 x 9, Black). This was a deep wire basket which attaches to a bike's front handle bars, suitable for toting groceries in. It was also a quick-release type, which meant you could take it off the bike and take it into a store with you to gather your grocery items, then reattach it for the ride home.

Vega Bungee Net (Black, Size). This was something like an elastic fish net with hooks on the corners, meant to allow her to quickly tie down grocery items to her bike basket or rear rack for the ride home.

PERSUADER 200 Tire Levers 2pc. These things help in getting bike tires on and off their rims when necessary.

LED Bike Light - Ultra Bright & Rugged Front Bicycle Headlight, FREE Taillight, Waterproof & Impact Resistant, Zooms From Focus to Wide Beam, 100% Top-Quality Aluminum Body, 5 Modes: High Medium Low Strobe SOS, Super Easy to Install. She sometimes had to ride her bike after dark on city streets, so she needed some lights for that. This set basically consisted of a nice compact flashlight with a clamp which attached it to the handlebars. The flashlight could be removed for standalone use too. The set also included a small tail light for the rear of the bike. Both items were easy to install.

Yes, this made for TWO flashlights I sent her, in total. But having a back up flashlight can be essential at times. Plus, I expected her to usually keep one as her bike headlight, and the other in her house.

Schwinn Thrasher Adult Micro Bicycle black/grey Helmet (Adult). This was safety equipment for her bike riding. Before getting this, she usually wore no helmet at all, unless she had to traverse some particularly busy highway, in which case she wore an old motorcycle helmet (I cringe to think of how that motorcycle helmet restricted her hearing and vision on the road, thereby endangering her in that manner).

Avenir Metro Panniers (1,380 Cubic-Inch Capacity). These were saddle bags to reside on her rear bike rack, to help her with grocery trips and the like. Although she had several stores close by to her, they were convenience stores, with limited selection and high prices. Full sized grocery stores with lower costs and healthier food selections were a couple miles away at least, with some scarily busy highways to travel to get there. So her trips to the big stores would probably be few and far between. Ergo, I gave her these saddle bags, the rack they attached to, and that basket for the front handlebars so she could carry as much as possible in a single trip. And hoped the helmet and lights would help safety-wise.

At last report from her as of this writing, all these items worked well with her bike and circumstances. Of course, additional items of various sorts could always be added to this kit, given sufficient funds. For instance, I hope to later send her a bigger and better tail light, than the little dinky one bundled with the bike headlight. Some extra reflectors would be nice too, for safety reasons. Etc. But still, I believe I tended to a good number of the vital issues involved with the items already listed.