Least Cost Effective Bike Upgrades | Tech's Marginal Gains

Upgrading your

bike

is fantastic. If you're a cyclist like me, there are few things that are more exciting than installing shiny new components for your pride and joy, especially when these components will make you faster and look amazing, no matter how the

bike

s can be upgraded. They are often very expensive and some offer much more bang for your buck in terms of performance than others and with this in mind I will give you what I consider to be the

least

cost

effective

upgrades

and then armed with this information you will have an idea of ​​where it is. better to spend your hard earned money - first ceramic bearings, now ceramic bearings may have lower friction than steel bearings but having spoken to several engineers jewels seem to be unaware of their benefits in applications cycling, other elements of The bearing must be taken into account not only the balls themselves, but also the carrier and the race, but regardless of whether they provide a performance gain or not, it is only stated that it is a pair of what there is here or there, so if we take the marketing claims at face value in terms of

cost

savings per watt, it pretty much represents the icing on the cake of

upgrades

and that's when we talk about ceramic bearings in places like the bottom bracket or jockey wheels or wheels. themselves, but in other locations on your bike, such as the headset, that are not exposed to high rpm, then they represent the gold leaf on top of the cherry on top of the upgrade cake, the sets of top level groups now bear with me.

In this one I am talking about Shimano Jura Ace Sram Red Campagnolo Super Record. These beautiful components made from exotic materials are the ultimate in bicycle jewelry. They are the lightest components, smoothest running, and also have the sharpest shifting, but these groupsets are typically double the size. price of second tier groupsets and while they are double the price, they are arguably not double the performance, they are certainly not half the weight. Second tier groupsets like shimano ultegra and sram force are absolutely excellent thanks to the drip

tech

nology and even below the second tier groupsets we are talking about things like shimano 105 they are excellent and from our experience The biggest leap in performance comes when you switch to electronic shifting and something we've seen in recent years is that that's no longer the case. reserved for high-end groupsets, it has filtered down to that second level in the case of, for example, ultegra and sram force, high-end components are lighter and independent studies have suggested there are efficiency savings too of the drivetrain with the high-end parts, although this is only in the region of a couple of watts here or there and that, with cost-

effective

spending in mind, a second-tier group set is the way to go carbon fiber Ridiculously light exotic weight, all I mean, we could make a whole video about some kind of decadent exotic carbon fiber parts and the bike industry loves to try to make absolutely everything with carbon fiber, if it means that You can save a couple of grams here or there, this means that carbon gets used to doing everything, even when the material properties are probably not the best for that particular application and a quick search on the Internet reveals that if you It happens, it's out there, I'm talking about carbon fiber chain rings carbon fiber cassettes carbon fiber disc brake rotors carbon fiber computer mounts carbon fiber seatpost clamps, even levers for carbon fiber rims, I mean, there are all kinds and these components are ideal for lightweight builds where every gram matters, but for everyday use they often lack the durability and robustness of slightly heavier materials, meaning they can be quite impractical tubular wheels and tires, now tubular wheels and tires, also known as tubs, should not be confused with tubeless wheels, they are different, a tubular tire is a cylindrical tire with an air chamber sewn inside and then you stick the rim on the wheel if you're not familiar and yes the pros use them and yes they are lighter than a traditional clincher wheel and tire setup but if the pros get a flat on the side of the road they can just Raise your arm and wait for the team car and get a spare tire.

You or I often don't have that luxury. The main reason professionals continue to use tubular tires is for safety. If you get a puncture in a tub it is still possible to go a longer distance than you can do in a clincher, this is important because in a race situation it means you can simply move to the back of the pack and keep moving forward which means that they will waste less time while waiting for the team car to arrive with the part. wheel or if they are going downhill and get a flat, it is a little safer and easier to control that flat tire and stop than it would be with a clincher tire which has been shown that such clincher tires offer rolling resistance much higher than the resistance to the rolling.

The savings on a clincher tire is so significant that it actually offsets the weight penalty of being a slightly heavier system and this is why we have started to see professionals using clincher tyres, particularly in time trials, and well, Julie and Alaphilippe used them on stage. two of this year's tour he won, but the entire professional peloton has not yet converted because this kind of safety reason is the main objection, but please note before you know to upgrade to professional tubular tires, they are a lot more. Expensive tubular tires usually cost twice as much as clinchers and will probably slow you down too. lightweight titanium bolts Now, in an attempt to save about two grams on his bike, a college friend of mine who will remain anonymous said he went to great lengths and spent a lot of time and money looking for a large number of titanium bolts to replace the ones. steel that came with this bike.

He was really proud of himself until he went to adjust the seat post halfway through an epic hundred mile ride at the furthest point. away from his house possible from him and he discovered that the titanium bolt of his seatpost has all the material properties of metal cheese and he completed fun moments instantly. Specially treated chains now, waxed and specially treated chains can have a performance benefit on your drivetrain, typically saving in the region of around five watts now for a best day race or for a time trial where you've Been training for months. It's something I think is worth installing on your bike.

It's something I've used in the past and would continue to do so. but if you buy a pre-treated chain or send your chain to be treated this is really expensive and you can save a ton of money by just doing it yourself and if you're not sure how to do it right we have a video that will tell you everything What you need to know, waxing your chain takes quite a bit of time, so if you want to do something that is much faster and saves almost as much in terms of drivetrain efficiency, then a premium lube.

As this dirt-removing hydrodynamic lubricant is a good alternative, a wax treatment will be a little quicker in normal dry conditions, but if there is any chance of rain or your event could be wet then it doesn't last long. and your transmission won't be very efficient after a long time driving in the rain and in that case something like hydrodynamic lube will work much better, so all that money you spent on the fancy wax chain might be for nothing, my motto , anything. for easy living, that's our list, but it's by no means definitive, so let us know your suggestions for the

least

profitable upgrades in the comments section below, maybe you've even done some of them yourself and if you enjoyed this video.

Please support the channel by giving us a "like" and we'll see you in the next one.