New road bike - piecemeal upgrades or all at once?

Triathlon Forum
1

Currently riding a trek 1200 as my road bike. Got some Easton Vistas that I replaced the original Alex wheels with.

I’d like to be on a new bike at some point during the next 12 months - the 1200 just isn’t cutting it - it’s an OK bike but I want a bike that I absolutely love to ride, like my tri bike.

I’m looking at 2 options:

  1. Upgrade to 10 speed ultegra over the next month or so. Then later, buy a good carbon road frame and switch everything over when I can afford it. Put the old parts back on the trek frame and use it as a winter/rain bike only. This means I can use my PT wheel on both bikes - currently the road bike is 9 speed tiagra/105 and my PT is on the (10 speed) tri bike.

  2. Save up, buy a new road bike.

What would YOU do?

2

If you don’t have to have it now I would save up for a new bike.

3

there are and will continue to be plenty of deals on complete builds that will cost you not much more than an Ultegra 10speed build kit would be.

save up, wait for the right deal to come along, and jump on it.

4

there are and will continue to be plenty of deals on complete builds that will cost you not much more than an Ultegra 10speed build kit would be.

save up, wait for the right deal to come along, and jump on it.

Agreed

5

We would often find great deals from the trek reps right around the time that Trek chaged model years. Maybe you could cozy up to your local Trek guy? What size are you?

6

i’m on a 56…

my original plan was to buy lightly used parts through either craigslist, ebay, or ST classifieds… then try to pounce on a Tarmac frame + fork when the time was right. I’ve seen some pretty good deals lately, hard to believe I’d be able to get a full build for the total cost of a used ultegra gruppo, but who knows?

The shop down the road had a full Ultegra Tarmac for $2100 CDN last week, that’s a pretty sweet deal but unfortunately I’m not sitting on that kind of cash at the moment.

7

I have a friend that is looking to unload a almost new storck cd 1.0 51cm, which has a 55tt I believe for about $1200 for frame/fork/headset. If you are interested let me know. I dont know if you know about storck but this bike is pretty phenomenal.

8

Save up for sure. Bike components have a definate “new” feel to them for about 6 months. Everything is tight and it just feels right.

If you upgrade peice by peice, the bike will never feel new and by the time you have replaced everything, the oldest (new) upgrades will be old.

BTW, re: the Storck mentioned in the previous post. They are amazing bikes and that sounds like a good deal.

9

too good to be true, actually.