Upgrade or New Bike

matthew_fellows

Hi guys.

I'm at a cross roads with my bike. Giant trance x5 totally standard apart from an upgraded monarch shock and answer bars. Where she still rides ok and I have tried to maintain her the best I can, she's showing signs of age now, wheels keep untruing, brakes have lost their bite even after a bleed and new pads. Basically I am ready to either spend a bit of cash upgrading a few bits ie forks, brakes and wheels.

But I've priced the stuff I want and it adds up to about £1000+ so do I just sell up and put it towards a new bike or upgrade this old girl until the frame gives way? I ride bike park Wales and afan regular if this helps
Cheers

The Rookie

What age Trance?

Clearly if you really need to spend that to fix it up to as it was new, then it's not worth doing and you'd be better off selling the Trance and putting all the money into a new bike. That said I can't honestly believe it will cost that much to fix it up as it is now, if you are going for significant upgrades then the new bike may cost you a lot more to match and it may be worth upgrading your current bike.

matthew_fellows

she's a 2008 I was looking at sonething like a pike fork and hope enduro wheels. Kinda wanna future proof the bike. But I am open to any suggestions of better priced functional kit.

The Rookie

You can't really future proof the bike as it's the frame that will go out of date!

The Pike is nice, but you could consider the cheaper (and often rated just as good) X-fusion offerings, for wheel I'd go with Hope hubs and Stans rims which usually work out a bit cheaper (and people often rate the Stans rims better - pick the rim for the strength/weight you want/need).

matthew_fellows

Ahhh cool. Will have a look into those now see if I can get the costs down a bit. So basically your saying upgrade the bits you can and buy a new frame in a year or two?

daniel_owen_uk

Depends how much you want to chase the latest trend.

Fork will probably straight steerer, and 26" wheels.

Spend the money now on forks and it probably wouldn't accommodate the same wheel size in a few years.

That said, I would (and did) upgrade, is a new bike going to have the same quality components as your upgraded X5?

Antm81

matthew_fellows wrote:

Ahhh cool. Will have a look into those now see if I can get the costs down a bit. So basically your saying upgrade the bits you can and buy a new frame in a year or two?

Personally I'd be looking at some decent used parts, I had a 2009 Trance which I believe is the same frame, cracking bike and bar the fork and cranks it was all upgraded using used parts. Can see it here viewtopic.php?f=10017&t=12926440 I'd recommend a 140mm fork up front, works really well.

Fork will be straight steerer and due to the design of the head tube even changing the lower headset won't allow tapered to be fitted.

matthew_fellows

Yea I thought about used parts too bit with something like a fork souknt it be safer to buy new as you know where they have been etc. I thought the steerer was oversize lol shows how much I know. Ok guys thanks for the pointers. I'm sure this won't be the last you hear of me and my giant.

Antm81 what fork did you get for yours?

Antm81

Eventually a RS revelation, it's what I'm using on my 2014 Trance too

The Rookie

Good used parts makes a lot of sense, most my bike is made up of preloved parts (link to my Niota in my sig so you can get an idea), total cost of parts used is less than £900. Just got some Dual air (circa 2009/10) Sids for it for £95 delivered (god bless people ending auctions at silly times!), as now I'm riding faster the flex in the Manitou's is starting to be an issue.

Thewaylander

N+1


always +1!