Looking for opinions

What's wrong with the components you have now?

What do you expect to gain by upgrading them?

I agree w/ the bear.  Figure out why it is you want a new bike or better components.  I just got a new bike, but it's b/c I've been riding over a year and pretty much hated my bike.  Could not get comfy on it.  So my drive for wanting a new bike was to finally have something I liked and felt good on, b/c then I would hopefully be more likely to ride more and hence improve on the bike.

Edited by gopennstate 2009-07-01 4:14 PM

My main goal would be to try to lighten it up a bit.  I'm a bigger guy at 240 (down from 260)  but looking for all the help I can get .  Wouldn't mind a bit smoother shifting and ride down hills (feels like it gets a little wobbly).  Other than those, I'm not too sure.  Like I said, I'm still pretty green in the triathlon world so I wouldn't really know what to expect from upgrading components.  Was going to get opinions and then research.  Guess I may have gotten a little ahead of myself.  Either way, I wouldn't be doing anything about in the immediate future.  I want to get the "engine" in better working condition.

Any lightening up you can gain from components will be in grams, and will not significantly affect your triathlon performance. Losing poundage off your frame might!

Smoother shifting, maybe, but you might gain that if you have the bike tuned. Ditto with the downhill wobble, check the wheels for trueness and spoke tension.

I'm rarely in favor of upgrading perfectly good working components, the cost-benefit just isn't there. Put your extra cash that's burning a hole in your pocket into a savings account titled "New Bike Fund."

Do you have clipless pedals? Aerobars? If you don't, those have relatively low costs and relatively high benefits to performance.

Hi

I'm a total newbie to triathlons, but I have about 10 years experience with cycling. I'm really not a big fan of upgrading components because you'll end up spending a lot of money and the final result is not worth it.

For example, my bike has Shimano 105 components. If I wanted to upgrade to, say, Ultegra, it was a couple of hundred dollars (well, swiss francs, actually) more, the advantage was a couple of grams of less weight and that shifting was smoother while climbing. In my opinion, not worth the extra expense.I'd agree with bear. "Small" things like aerobars and tuning up your bike will probably add more value for less money. If you are unhappy with your actual bike because you don't feel comfortable with it, or you don't like it anymore, or you just like a cool-looking bike like a Cervélo, then that's another story. Again, I would prefer to save to buy a new and better bike than upgrade the existing one.Regards,Luis.