Incremental Upgrades - Next Step

[lejogger]

My best carbon bike started life with an almost full SRAM Rival groupset. The frame is light and aero, so I thought it would be nice to incrementally upgrade as a bit of an ongoing project, a way of spreading costs, and to keep me madly in love with her.

So far I have swapped:
Wheels: Ritchey Pro to Fulcrum Quattro (Fantastic)
Shifters: Rival to Red (Great)
Front mech: Rival to Force (Meh)
Seatpost: Ritchey Comp Alloy to Ritchey WCS Carbon (Not yet fitted)
Saddle: Ritchey basic to Selle Italia SLR Superflow titanium (Good)
Cables: Shimano to Gore Ride-on Pro
Cassette and chain: Shimano 105 to SRAM PG1070/KMC X10SL

Now imagine a world where I could make any one of the following upgrades for a very similar amount of money:
Rear Mech: Rival to Red Aeroglide
Brakeset: Tektro to Red Aerolink
Chainset: SRAM S350 to Red Exogram

Which would you go for or in what order?
Or would you do something else?

Please note that I appreciate that performace increases will be marginal if anything from any of these upgrades. It's purely an exercise in making me feel better about my bikes because like my child I like them having nice things.

 

[Rob3rt]

Brakes to SRAM Red Aerolink, because they are awesome!

 

[lejogger]

Brakes to SRAM Red Aerolink, because they are awesome!

Haha I thought they might be
What in particular? Stopping? Modulation? Weight? Etc or all of the above?

My existing calipers are really bog standard so it's definitely in my top two. Seen a set online for circa £200.

I figure by the time I've bought some equivalent swisstop pads for the calipers I have now I wouldn't have a huge amount of change from £100 so I may as well upgrade the whole unit.

The only nag I have is that the chainset change would strip over 350g which is significant, and it's much more blingy

Would ceramic jockey wheels be better than a whole mech upgrade?

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

I would go with TRP brakes myself as they are outstanding.

No ceramic jockey wheels make bugger all difference other than they are usually with lightweight jockey wheels, save your money.
These are the delerium jockey wheels I run with ceramic bearings.

http://www.cyclechat.net/useralbums/img_20130329_174443-jpg.2830/view-image

 

[Rob3rt]

I have full SRAM Red and it is great, but the standout component for me is the brake calipers, they look great, they are fairly light, great stopping power (with the supplied Swissstop black pads).

I have the rear mech before they released the aero glide one, it is very light, looks good, although not quite as nice as the latest iteration, but doubt it offers any notable performance benefit.

The chainset, well hard to comment, I have the Quarq version which differs from the normal one. It is a substantial weight saving for you though.

 

[lejogger]

I would go with TRP brakes myself as they are outstanding.

Any model in particular? I really don't know anything about TRP brakes.

No ceramic jockey wheels make bugger all difference other than they are usually with lightweight jockey wheels, save your money.
These are the delerium jockey wheels I run with ceramic bearings.
http://www.cyclechat.net/useralbums/img_20130329_174443-jpg.2830/view-image

The spanner monkey at Cycle surgery told me that ceramic bearings give you a much smoother drivechain. If they don't I think I'll just stick with the Rival mech or try to pick up a cheaper Force mech with the carbon cage.

 

[lejogger]

I have full SRAM Red and it is great, but the standout component for me is the brake calipers, they look great, they are fairly light, great stopping power (with the supplied Swissstop black pads).

The chainset, well hard to comment, I have the Quarq version which differs from the normal one. It is a substantial weight saving for you though.

I'm pretty sure whichever one I don't do now I will do later in the year, so it's the conundrum between accelerating faster or stopping faster.

Will I have a compatibility issue with the 2012 Exogram Chainset and not having the yaw front mech? SRAM say yes, but some googling suggests no.

 

[Rob3rt]

It will work fine, I use the Exogram Chainset on my 105 equipped TT bike as well as my SRAM Red equipped road bike (being a power meter, I can't afford 2, so swap between bikes).

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

Any model in particular? I really don't know anything about TRP brakes.

I'm a massive fan of the R950SL which are carbon and titanium and just have great modulation, and power

The spanner monkey at Cycle surgery told me that ceramic bearings give you a much smoother drivechain. If they don't I think I'll just stick with the Rival mech or try to pick up a cheaper Force mech with the carbon cage.

I've got different makes of jocky wheels on all my bikes, all have high end quality ceramic bearings, I buy them based on bling factor and weight, I do not believe they give a smoother drive chain.

 

[TheDoctor]

Deffo the brakes first. Tektro brakes are a bit lacking IME, but the SRAM get good reviews.