This is going to shock you. I’ll say it anyway.
Not all of your problems will be solved by a new bike.
I’ll revise that: not all of your problems need to be solved by a new bike.
Some can be solved by upgrades to your existing steed.
So in this post:
- why you should upgrade instead of buying new
- what’s worth spending the money on and what’s not, and
- which upgrades will most benefit your cycling enjoyment – our key objective.
All told through the cosmic lens of reviewing the changes to my own best bike over the past 12 (count ‘em!) years.
So why upgrade?
Cost
Well, it’s obviously cheaper than changing the whole job lot.
Actually, that might not be true. Ceramic-bearinged griffnuts can cost more than a bike. But at least I’m not dropping £5,000 in one go and there are no bike-shaped delivery boxes to alert my wife.
Laser-guided
Upgrades can focus on what really needs changing. No need to start, and spend, again from scratch, when all the bike needs are some new spokey dokies.
The Principle
For me, there’s also a point of principle. I self-identify as a man… that does light mechanical maintenance on bikes and is from Yorkshire.
Spending carefully on upgrades and fitting them myself aligns with my perception of self. Delusional perception as it happens, when I waste cash on needless changes and fug up the installation.
What else?
Looks
A few focused changes – some deep dish wheels, a reconfigured cockpit, those fugly rear mirrors in the handle bar ends – can transform the look of a bike.
Wear and Tear
Components wear out. You’re spending on replacements anyway. Perhaps you want to spend a bit more on each to eke out some extra performance – or some extra show off points in da clurb.
Fit
Your current bike fits already, right? Or is close enough but would benefit from a few tweaks. Unless it’s right out of whack, upgrading – or fettling – is clearly the more rational option versus starting afresh with a new bike.
Uniqueness
It doesn’t look like everyone else’s bike. Many new bikes, however shiny and high spec, can seem a little off-the-shelf. Even if it’s a diamond shelf. Upgrades, even ham-fisted ones, mean personalisation. Once spotted, they surely must denote you know what you’re doing when it comes to velopeding.
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And finally, whisper it, maybe you’ve got an emotional attachment to your current bike. You’ve done a lot together. The verge-of-vomit climbs. The sketchy descents. That time you shat yourself [record scratch].
Surely you’re not going to set it aside when a newer model comes along?
But wait… I acknowledge that I am a hypo-gruff. I champion upgrading, which in the case of my best bike I’ve done … whilst also buying or building three other bikes in the meantime. Whatevs. Bite me.
A Brief Word on My Trek Domane
…So you have the background.
This is a 2013 Trek Domane 4.3. I bought it new and it cost £1,800. So what’s that? A million pounds in 2025 money.
The 4.3 denotes a mid range spec. It came with a Shimano 105 groupset, which at the time was 10-speed. It still is 10-speed.
The frame is carbon and I think it’s high quality. It’s not the lightest variant or layup available but I’ve always been happy with it – if we ignore Trek’s BB90 bottom bracket abomination. I like the matt grey paint job – I refuse to say colourway – when it’s visible under the Derbyshire roadshizzle.
I got a bike fit both before and after buying it so it’s the right size for me. The endurance geometry suits my MAMIL persuasions.
Oh and it’s rim brake.
I am a committed conscientious objector when it comes to the Culture Wars(TM) so I won’t be shouldering my
If you’ve followed my blog or this channel for some time, you’ll see I’ve done loads of work on it, replacing components, full overhauls and upgrading various bitsnbobs.
So let’s look at some of those upgrades in more detail, starting with…
Wheels
Supposedly, and I’m not a science guy, the weight of your wheels is more important than other bits of your bike because … they get even heavier when they spin?
Who knows. Presumably science guys
Anyway, in the Domane’s lifetime, I’ve upgraded the wheels twice.
My first purchase, a pair of Campagnolo Zondas, replaced the original Bontrager pair, after the rear hub gave up the goat.
I chose the Zondas partly for a slight weight saving, but mainly for quality. And the price. At around £350, it felt like the right sort of money I should spend for wheel on a bike like this.
And they’ve been great. The Zondas have given rock solid performance dealing with the UK’s great variety of wartorn roads. I’d still recommend them.
My second upgrade was a pair of Hunts – I said Hunts. They came fairly recently – in 2024. I didn’t need to upgrade but they were on sale at an attractive price. And they are carbon.
At some point in a MAMIL’s life he will strike on the irrational notion that he needs a pair of carbon wheels.
I tried to justify it by pointing to the amazing weight reductions but in my heart I was mainly motivated by the looks.
To be fair I’ve been pleased on both counts.
The bike does feel a lot lighter and the deeper carbon rims do, IMHO ROFL SNAFU, work really well with the Domane’s gun metal livery.
My only caution if you’re considering carbon wheels for rim brake bikes is stopping performance. I’m worried my nervous descending won’t play nice with the carbon braking surface over time. Guess we’ll see.
In the meantime, wheel upgrades get a big thumbs up from the Sportive Cyclist algorithm.
Groupset
Before we stumble down one of my trade mark rabbit holes, the summary advice here is that the groupset on your bike is likely to be excellent in all material ways and not worth the money to upgrade as a big bang exercise.
Buying a groupset standalone, without a new bike attached to it, always seems very expensive.
Di2 fanciers will no doubt dispute this but I’ve always found that replacing ‘serviceable items’ (cables, sometimes the cable housing) gives more groupset upgrade feel than fitting more expensive components.
Modern lower spec group sets – Shimano Tiagra, SRAM Apex – are very close in performance to what the pros used in the Tour de France not that many years ago.
So cool your beans… Monty.
Over the years, because of cross compatibility in the Shimano range, I’ve upgraded bits of my original 105 groupset to Ultegra… and then back again. Because I couldn’t tell the difference when I did it piecemeal, I wasn’t performing Ultegra levels of maintenance and the subsequent cost of replacing bits was more expensive.
So I’ve always come back to 105.
Having said all that… I’m a fraud and a charlatan. A blowhard and a wazzock. I’m upgrading my drivetrain.
My Trek’s 10 speed 105 is about twelvety generations old. I’m struggling to find components, particularly if I want to tweak things like crank length.
So I’m going to ignore my own advice and do a full groupset replacement. Tar me with feathers and chase me up the ginnel.
If you have anything faintly more modern, I’d stick with it and maintain it well (or pay others to do it) rather than throw the derailleur out with the sonic cleaning water.
Or something.
Look out for that groupset upgrade video in due course.
Bottom bracket
This one is curiously Trek specific. Or rather BB90 specific.
The BB90 bottom bracket, which I think Trek has now demised, is a press fit affair. Notorious for creaks and rusty bearings, but that last one might just be my knees. Also they’re a pain for the amateur to replace.
After a couple of goes with press fit bearings, I switched to a third party thread-together jobby, the Token Ninja BB3724. I did a video on it. I’ve since got some weirdly, er, forceful comments for not doing a performance over time follow up.
To avoid boring the masses, I’ll do that in the groupset replacement video.
The headline is that it has worked fine for 3.5 years and is now due a replacement. I’d be fine buying another Token but for novelty YouTube reasons I’ll likely try something else.
I guess the more general point for this video is that bottom brackets are more a serviceable item, to replace if knackered, rather than worth upgrading.
Upgrades tend to involve the word, ‘ceramic’. We can all agree that for most MAMILs, ceramic equals very expensive with minimal improvement which you’ll fug up anyway with poor maintenance.
That said, I reserve the right to ignore that advice for this upcoming replacement. In the interest of scientific experimentation. I’m an enigma wrapped up in a quandary. I’m sure you understand.
A Power Meter
Continuing the theme of expensive upgrades you likely don’t need, my Wahoo Speedplay power pedals. Power in the sense of measuring it, rather than in the sense of outputting extra of it.
I’ll be honest, I only bought them because I get a little cash from these media endeavours and I might make some videos about them. A Yorkshireman does not spend £680 on pedals. He becomes a road and mountain bike phe-nom and gets given them.
Bike-based power meters, whether pedal-, crank- or somewhere else based are a luxury item. Getting a smart trainer, with power built in, means 99% of my power measurement needs are met.
On the bike, the power pedals don’t improve my performance in the moment. Or, in the way I use them, at all.
They provide some interesting data that validates why I might be finding a climb or headwind difficult.
They could be useful for curbing my enthusiasms should I ever do a long, mountainous event where survival relies on staying well below threshold.
One to put at the bottom of your upgrade list, unless money is not object.
My Position
On a whim, and for reasons of ego, not too long ago I ‘slammed’ my stem.
Which is classic masculine shorthand for getting out a hex key, removing your headcap bolt, sliding your stem off the steerer tube, removing a couple of spacers and then putting it all back together again with this so macho little chimney poking out the top.
As upgrades go, there’s a lot going for it. It’s free. It might make you more aero. It makes the bike look better. More so if you have the cojones to cut down the steerer tube and eschew the pooter.
It does risk ruining that carefully honed bike fit you spent all that money on. Luckily for me, my most recent fitter condoned the lowering. She did suggest keeping the ability to revert it, so for now the steering chode remains.
Also, I guess this isn’t an upgrade for everyone. You’ll need to have a more traditional handlebar setup, and some spacers, to begin with. Not one of these new-fangled ‘integrated cockpits’.
But if spacers you have, give it a try you should. There’s no cost and you can always revert if your neck says no.
Talking of which…
Handlebars
Now there’s an upgrade to get excited about.
I guess you could swap out your reasonably-light-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things alloy bars for some wafferweight carbon ones.
But that’s not the subject of my TED talk.
Instead, my ‘upgrade’ has been to swap out the original 44cm Deda bars for … exactly the same model, just 6cm narrower.
The reason? A recommendation from my aforementioned bike fit.
I knew the original ones were too wide. When I bought my
The bike fitter suggested that neck ache on longer rides could be down to the Domane’s wider bars forcing my arms akimbo. Which I took as a medical recommendation – a prescription if you like – to get some new ones.
Also, I know as well as the next bike egotist that narrower bars look cooler.
Slight issue. I haven’t actually fitted them – I’ll do that with the full groupset swap – so I can’t yet vouch for the anticipated ache reduction. But I can safely say they’ll look the business and handling shouldn’t be too affected – I’ve got the same width on my
Bike computer/light/camera mount
Is this really an upgrade?
I guess it involved replacing some stem bolts and now it’s semi-permanently attached to the bike, so let’s say yes.
This is a combined GPS, camera and light mount made by Insta360. It has the mount at the end for the X4 or X5 360 degree camera, which not everyone will need.
But the general concept of having a robust multi-purpose mount, firmly attached to your bike, is a good one. Most riders these days have a bike computer, but also want to run a front light or an action camera. A combined mount reduces cockpit clutter.
This one is quite good in that bolting to the front of the stem, it can support a lot of weight nae bother. I’m sure there a plenty of other good options.
Functional. On the face of it, a little boring. But it’ll probably improve your cycling enjoyment, so I’ll give a good mount a Monty thumbs up.
Now, a quick canter through some …
Upgrades I haven’t done
The frame. Well, it’s a bit Trigger’s broom innit. A new frame is a new bike.
The saddle. I could go lighter or for a larger pressure release channel. But the original Bontrager affair, from my gooch’s POV, taint nothing wrong with it.
Electronic gears. There are more options for disc brake bikes but Chinese brand Wheeltop do a rim brake variant. They’re well covered on the Inter-Tubes. Perhaps worth a look if you’re changing group set anyway.
Now, let’s bring things in to land with…
Which upgrades are worth doing?
Wheels probably make the biggest difference. They’re generally the compromise on a new bike so there’s plenty to go at, even with a reasonably priced aftermarket pair.
I haven’t spoken about tyres – mainly because they’re boring.
If you have heavy all weather tyres, or knobbly gravel ones, and you’re happy to up the puncture risk, marginally, switching gets you more speed for not that much money. (I’m a Continental GP5000 fanboy, for what it’s worth).
If you’re struggling on the steeper slopes, and your rear derailleur can handle it, a cassette with a more-toothed large cog could be worth all the wealth in Christendom.
And that’s probably about it. Everything else is personal preference and the stories we tell ourselves to justify another bike purchase.
But to be clear, nothing justifies a product that contains the word, ‘ceramic’.
Monty. Out.