this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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Is it worth upgrading my cheap Chinese bike? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by doyun@lemmy.world to c/bicycles@lemmy.ca
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Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask. I decided to start commuting by bike as it's only about 15 minutes each way. So I got my first bike and learned how to ride. It's a cheap Chinese MTB from my country's version of amazon. This was a few months ago now. Since then I've been riding almost everyday and taking longer trips along the river trail near my home.

So I'm thinking about getting a lower end Shimano groupset. But I'm wondering what I'll get out of upgrading. Will there be a noticeable difference in performance? Smoother shifting? More speed in top gear?

Thanks for any insight you can share :) any essential gear recommendations would be great too!

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[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As you consider upgrading think about what you want not what an upgrade offers. Do you need smoother shifting now? If you do all the work yourself and buy used, upgrading just the group on a cheap bike can be fun and worth it but usually it's cheaper to just buy a nicer used bike than your current one. Speed is a function of gear ratio and cadence so not unless you add higher gears.

[–] doyun@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I started thinking about it because I thought going to 1x would be simpler for me. I was leaving the front chainring on the highest gear for a long time before I ever heard about cross chaining. Once I was looking at options I was thinking it might be worth getting a full set of nicer parts since I'm commuting every day but I wasn't sure what the benefit would be. Reading comments now makes it seem like it's not going to change much for me as everything I have still works fine. Maybe I'll see if I can just change the chainring

[–] WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I think you got a good handle on it