boardman hybrid: upgrade

plutus

Hi,

I'd like to upgrade my Boardman Hybrid Comp to get a little bit faster and more reactive in my 20km daily commuting...
I guess that the first and main upgrade may be the wheels....do you have any suggestion without giving an arm?

thanks

apreading

Wheels - Kinesis Crosslight CX, although I think most places are out of stock at the moment. Save loads of weight from the most important place. Alternatively, for nor much more get handbuilt Archetype rims on novatec hubs.

Forks - carbon would be much better for ride quality as well as weight.

Tyres - more supple and wider tyres allow you to run lower pressure and actually have less rolling resistance.

Better ride will make you faster on UK roads as the bumps and vibrations slow you down and these will be minimised.

I have the hybrid team and its pretty fast, the wheels made a big difference to weight and ride quality, as did better tyres. I also have some ultegra cranks and a carbon seatpost/handlebars to put on at some point, which will save weight and improve comfort - but will probably go through the winter with what I have and wear those cranks out with all the winter muck on the roads first then replace the whole drive train in the spring.

plutus

.Kinesis Crosslight CX costs too much (320euros, I paid the bike 500!)
what about something more affordable like the mavic crossone?

concerning the fork...any suggestion?

does a carbon stem/seatpost really increase the comfort?

hybrid comp rides on 700x28 tyres...not sure a 700x32 will increase my speed, I was focusing more on 700x25 but I might be wrong

thanks for your help!

apreading

I dont think the Mavic Crossone is much, if any lighter than the standard wheels. They are heavy and not worth the money in my opinion. I would stick with what you have rather than waste that money.

Kinesis are the cheapest wheels you can get that would be considered a significant upgrade - and dont forget they can be transferred to a more expensive bike in the future...!

I cant advise about specific carbon forks, because I bought the Hybrid team mainly due to the fact it came out of the factory with them already. They made a HUGE difference to comfort compared to the alloy forked bikes I tried. the boardman ones to replace were about £200 though, so not really an effective upgrade later. I do know that you would need either forks with a tapered steerer (wider at the bottom of the steerer tube) or you would need some kind of adapter for the headset.

Carbon stem/bars/seatpost can increase the comfort if you dont buy really stiff ones because they can absorb the road 'buzz'. Not always that cost effective an upgrade though unless you get them cheap or second hand (as I did).

If you still have the original tyres then the best upgrade would be to more supple, grippier, less draggy tyres like the Continental GP4000S or Michelin Pro4. 25 or 28mm would still be better in every way to the original tyres fitted to the bike.

To be honest, apart from the wheels (which can be transplanted to any future bike) I would probably only consider the tyres as sensible with that bike as a start point in terms of making it faster. Its a pretty light bike already and to improve would require much more expensive kit and smaller gains.

plutus

thanks for your suggestions!
mavic crossone are btw quite bulkier than Kinesis...I'll check if there are some offers

apreading

Cheapest place is here: http://www.freeborn.co.uk/kinesis-cross ... isc-wheels but they dont have stock for a while - I think they have been so popular that the UK distributor has run out and all the shops are out of stock till a new batch arrives! That is probably because they are the only reasonable option at these sorts of prices.

For about £300 you can get handbuilt, even better though...

If you are working in Euro's I dont know where you are based though - you may be able to find some even cheaper from some of the german websites, and they may have stock.

snowster

20km is that each way? seems a lot of expense, just pedal faster and harder.

supersonic

Cheap weight saver:

Grips - http://www.cyclesurgery.com/pws/UniqueP ... lsrc=aw.ds

100g saved for 10 quid.

The Rookie

I wouldn't go to 25's, you could look at getting better lighter tyres and lightweight tubes, good weight saving for not a huge amount of money.

Foam grips as pitted to by SS are a nice cheap way of saving weight.

Another possibility is binning the front mech and going to a single front ring (if you can cope with the gearing) as that will save about 350g and it's what I have on my commuter.

After that you are into looking at each component in turn to see how competitive it is and how much for an upgrade worth doing, stem, seatpost, saddle, etc etc