Best bang for buck upgrades

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fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
A new saddle is a good way to drop some weight from the bike, especially if it's a generic saddle. Doesn't have to be expensive. Charge Spoons are about £25 and are light and comfortable. I've got two Selle Italia SLR's, one was bought second hand for £30 many years ago, and more recently, £50ish from a sale - the RRP is £150. Very light saddles, but bang for buck, the Spoon is great - two of the bikes are on Charge Spoons.
 
OP
OP
W

WShire

Regular
I’ve actually got a Charge Spoon on a mountain bike. Excellent saddle.
Ive got a lightweight Prologo saddle with a cutout on the Ribble. It suits my undercarriage!
 

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
On the subject of brakes....

My old Boardman came with partial Tiagra 4700 groupset (inc shifters) but budget Tektro calipers. These were asymmetric dual pivot and pretty bloody poor.. They were upgraded to 5800 105 symmetrical dual pivot calipers (and pads) which made a very significant improvement.

Not sure how much was down to the caliper design and how much was the pad compound, but noting that the Tiagra calipers look asymmetric I'd be inclined to bin these off. IIRC the Ultregra R8000 will be geometrically / functionally the same as the 5800 105 I bought; just later, lighter and aesthetically different.

You'll prefer the symmetrical design if you have any appreciation of mechanical things and they should be easier to adjust and better in terms of pad wear too. I suspect if you're looking at used items you'll get a pair for peanuts, given that everyone now wants discs..
 

wafter

I like steel bikes and I cannot lie..
Location
Oxford
Thanks for the Info! That’s pretty much my experience with the Tiagra calipers. I’ll keep an eye out for the 5800 105’s 👍

No worries; glad it was of interest. IIRC 5800 was the generation of 105 that first got the symmetrical setup; so a similar age of Ultegra and Dura Ace should also have it if you're feeling posh.. while this has carried over to the current iterations of these two so you have a fair bit of choice.

They're pretty easy to identify by their two visible, symmetrical pivots.
 

si_c

Guru
Location
Wirral
The biggest upgrade I made for braking was compressionless brake housing. I highly recommend the Jagwire Pro series cable sets (it's the KEB-SL housing if you want to buy it separately) - if you're doing the brakes you might as well upgrade the shift cables as well.

Compressionless housing is a requirement for mechanical disc brakes to operate well but I've found it to make a noticeable difference with rim brakes as well (I'm using direct mount Shimano 105 R7000 series brakes, which were a noticeable upgrade from the Tektro ones that came with the bike).
 

All uphill

Still rolling along
Location
Somerset
The biggest upgrade I made for braking was compressionless brake housing. I highly recommend the Jagwire Pro series cable sets (it's the KEB-SL housing if you want to buy it separately) - if you're doing the brakes you might as well upgrade the shift cables as well.

Compressionless housing is a requirement for mechanical disc brakes to operate well but I've found it to make a noticeable difference with rim brakes as well (I'm using direct mount Shimano 105 R7000 series brakes, which were a noticeable upgrade from the Tektro ones that came with the bike).

I'll second that. I used to chuck on any old cables and outers, and didn't know what I was missing until I tried some decent cables and outers. Shimano SP 41 (iirc) in my case.
 
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