upgrade

koremitsu said:

I am riding a khs flite 500 cromo. I have fallen in love with cycling and plan to do my first century in march. The bike has tiagra group, and I am wondering if I should upgrade to ultegra.

This is a beginner bike, so I am curious about the advantages of better equipment. Is this bike worth upgrading, or should I invest in a new ride altogether. I have barely put in 700 mi on my khs. Any ideas what I should do?

Everytime I price out stuff and do the math, I find that it is much cheaper to just get a new bike.

I think it is well worth it to upgrade to Ultegra if you have the dough and I think you will notice a big difference.

I say ride it until it breaks. By which I mean ride it until some major part breaks. I had a bike with a tiagra group for a good long time the shifters gave, and it wasn't worth 200ish dollars, at the time I wasn't doing my own labor, to fix a $500ish dollar bike. I did end up fixing it, but that was a little stupid, should have gotten a new bike then. You should be able to get at least 5thousand miles out of that group.

Ride it till it breaks. Ive got 3500 miles on my tiagra gruppo and only had to change the chain so far, and I ride the hell out of it. It will require more frequent tuneups but most LBS's offer free tuneups with the purchase of a bike anyway. Ride that bike for a year or 2 and get really strong (cuz it prolly weighs a ton) and then upgrade to the good stuff.
Unless of course money is no object.

It's just not worth it to upgrade that many parts; buying a new bike is almost always cheaper. If you really want better equipment, there are two ways to go about it: 1) sell your current bike and use that $ to help buy a new one, or 2) if you can afford it, buy a new bike and keep the old one for winter, rain, trainer use, etc. If neither of these options sound good, keep riding what you've got and have fun! Good luck with whatever you choose.

Upgrading is always good. You can get a feel for what you like. Upgrading does you good all around in every aspect of like. Cut it loose or keep it.

Did you ever decide to upgrade? Keep us updated.

11 year old thread by member who hasn't posted something since May 2005 - don't hold your breath for an update.

JSWin said:

Upgrading is always good. You can get a feel for what you like. Upgrading does you good all around in every aspect of like. Cut it loose or keep it.

No it isn't. It's a waste of money unless there is something malfunctioning with his current components. Going from Tiagra to Ultegra won't make one bit of difference in speed or function if it is maintained properly.

If one has money to waste, then upgrading for the bling factor is good, that is about it.

This upgrade won't make a huge difference in your ride experience. I only recommend upgrading if you can do so at a minimal cost, otherwise you'll probably regret it. Alternatively, just enjoy riding your bike for the next couple of months and consider getting a new bike once you grow tired of your current one.

I'm also not a big fan of upgrading just for the sake of it either to be honest. I think these days people don't need to have the latest and greatest thing on the market like they think they do.

We now live in a throw away society, and most of the time were just upgrading for the sake of it and throwing out perfectly good gear. What's the point in that?