Halfords Apollo TDF-100 - Daft Question
fatdaz
Posts: 348
Hi All
A mate is looking to upgrade his bike and asked me to have a look at what he had now to work out what kind of an upgrade is worth having as he doesn't want to spend unecessarily. He has an old Apollo TDF-100 which I think was the forerunner of the Carerra TDF. He bought it second hand a few years ago and had never ridden it until we started riding together a few months back. Looking at the components has confused me as the rear derailleur is a Tiagra 9-speed (clearly labelled) yet the rear cassette only has 8 sprockets. The only other labelled bit is the front derailleur which is Sora. The chainset is 53-39 and the shifters are on the inside of the hoods.
He doesn't want to spend a lot of money (£500 region) and I'm not necessarily sure how much more bike he'll get for that money if this is a "proper" Tiagra/Sora mix. Does anybody know anything about this bike, what the spec should be and whether this one sounds like a "vanilla" spec or whether it is likely to have been tinkered with?
Cheers
A mate is looking to upgrade his bike and asked me to have a look at what he had now to work out what kind of an upgrade is worth having as he doesn't want to spend unecessarily. He has an old Apollo TDF-100 which I think was the forerunner of the Carerra TDF. He bought it second hand a few years ago and had never ridden it until we started riding together a few months back. Looking at the components has confused me as the rear derailleur is a Tiagra 9-speed (clearly labelled) yet the rear cassette only has 8 sprockets. The only other labelled bit is the front derailleur which is Sora. The chainset is 53-39 and the shifters are on the inside of the hoods.
He doesn't want to spend a lot of money (£500 region) and I'm not necessarily sure how much more bike he'll get for that money if this is a "proper" Tiagra/Sora mix. Does anybody know anything about this bike, what the spec should be and whether this one sounds like a "vanilla" spec or whether it is likely to have been tinkered with?
Cheers
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Comments
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A '9-speed' derailleur is no different from an 8 speed or a 10 speed as they all have the same range of movement from low to high. The indexing is in the shifters so as long as the cassette and the shifters are botrh 8, 9 or 10 speed then all will be fine. Your mate's bike has 8 speed Sora shifters and an 8 speed cassette so all is well.
Fitting a higher spec rear derailleur is common practice as it's what many people look at to see what 'spec' the bike is. Cassettes, Cranks, Brakes, Fronr Derailleurs are used from lower groupsets or from other manufacturers (i.e. Tektro brakes) to meet a price point, so its more than likely that the bikes components are as it was sold.
To 'upgrade' then he will need to buy a shimano or sram 9 or 10 speed shifters and a 9 or 10 speed cassette with the biggest sprocket probably no bigger than 27 teeth.
If you switch to 9 or 10 speed, you will also need a new chain as an 8 speed chain is too wide.
Fitting a compact chainset (50-34) will just require the front derailleur to be lowered a little (and the cable adjusting as appropriate). Just make sure the chainset matches the current bottom bracket (or replace that too).
And before I get pulled up again, last time I answered a similar question, a forum member claimed to have a 10 speed shifter and a 9 speed cassette and that it worked okay. I'm still not sure how that worked smoothly in all 9 gears though!
However, saying all that, I'm not sure I'd spend anything like £500 upgrading that bike. If the drive train isn't worn out then i'd leave it.
If £500 quid is burning a hole in his pocket then a 10 speed Tiagra groupset is 300 quid (http://www.merlincycles.com/bike-shop/r ... upset.html). Sell the bits you don't want and/or the bits you take off add that to the 200 quid and get a set of these.... http://www.merlincycles.com/bike-shop/w ... -pair.html0 -
I really wouldn't bother upgrading derailleurs. There is so little to be gained from it. He might not even notice a difference. As for the component mix, it's just another cheap bike without a 'complete' groupset; it's an easy penny-pinching measure. Nothing to be concerned about.
If you have a bike that you love then 'bike isn't worth it' doesn't apply (and I can identify with this very strongly), but nevertheless there's really no point spending the money if it isn't going to make a difference. You can't turn a bike into something it fundamentally isn't. In this case you could upgrade the bike to a 9 or 10 speed (depending on rear spacing), but it would cost an arm and a leg: new cassette, chain, chainrings, shifters, cables, handlebar tape...
If he wants to upgrade, he could get a new pair of wheels. Anything he buys between £100 and £200 is almost certainly going to make a noticeable difference. I'd spend the rest on cyclewear, myself.0 -
Sorry I wasn't clear by "upgrade" I meant "to a new bike". Thanks for the replies sorry for not being clearer0
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Ah, OK...
I think I would be best inclined to look at the used market, to be honest. £500 won't buy much more than he already has in a new bike, whereas he might find a used Specialized or Giant (etc), which are perennial favourites.0 -
Get on the ol' fleabay! My housemate picked up a 5 year old Giant OCR 1 with 105 groupset for under £300. There are bargains to be had... (perhaps in a few months though, when all the furor (sp?) has died down after TdF, Olympics, ToB etc)0
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Edit, ignore misread
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