diff --git a/tokio/Cargo.toml b/tokio/Cargo.toml
index 658bf9f99b9..4441864be66 100644
--- a/tokio/Cargo.toml
+++ b/tokio/Cargo.toml
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ tokio-macros = { version = "~2.4.0", path = "../tokio-macros", optional = true }
 pin-project-lite = "0.2.11"
 
 # Everything else is optional...
-bytes = { version = "1.0.0", optional = true }
+bytes = { version = "1.1.0", optional = true }
 mio = { version = "1.0.1", optional = true, default-features = false }
 parking_lot = { version = "0.12.0", optional = true }
 
diff --git a/tokio/src/io/util/repeat.rs b/tokio/src/io/util/repeat.rs
index ecdbc7d062c..33a8fd9862b 100644
--- a/tokio/src/io/util/repeat.rs
+++ b/tokio/src/io/util/repeat.rs
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+use bytes::BufMut;
+
 use crate::io::util::poll_proceed_and_make_progress;
 use crate::io::{AsyncRead, ReadBuf};
 
@@ -56,10 +58,7 @@ impl AsyncRead for Repeat {
     ) -> Poll<io::Result<()>> {
         ready!(crate::trace::trace_leaf(cx));
         ready!(poll_proceed_and_make_progress(cx));
-        // TODO: could be faster, but should we unsafe it?
-        while buf.remaining() != 0 {
-            buf.put_slice(&[self.byte]);
-        }
+        buf.put_bytes(self.byte, buf.remaining());
         Poll::Ready(Ok(()))
     }
 }