How often do you replace or upgrade your bike?



Apr 26, 2018
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Hello cyclists!

Our bikes age and it will go through wear and tear especially if we use it regularly. Even though we love our bikes, it will have to be replaced or only some parts of it because it is far beyond repair. So this thought comes to my mind and got me curious as to how you approach this situation.

How often do you replace or upgrade your bike? Is there a certain time interval on when you buy a replacement? Do you impulsively buy another bike if you see a model that you like?

I would like to know your thoughts.
 
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I rarely upgrade or replace. I have a bike that I raced and train on that I bought in 1984 and it has over 150,000 miles on it, the only thing I upgraded was the rear cluster from 6 to 7 speeds and I think that's all I ever did besides the usual wearable stuff, the big wearable thing was the wheels which my last upgrade was to Torelli Master Series rims from Mavic which I can't recall the model.

Most of the time there is no need to upgrade or replace. If you maintain your bike the components should last a very long time, and if something does require replacing then figure out if you upgrade what benefit will the more expensive upgraded part will give you and whether or not that benefit is worth it to you. Replacing a bike depends on if a person has a low end bike but gets serious about riding and wants a better bike, or, like in my case, the bike is 30 plus years old and it's time to get new one because I didn't want to put more wear on vintage components, and I wanted a titanium bike for a bit more riding comfort plus the frame will last forever.

The average rider usually won't benefit from buying upgraded parts, nor will they benefit from buying a more expensive bike.

When I bought my last new bike, the TI job, I upgraded a few things BEFORE I took possession of it because I could swap parts and only pay the difference between what the bike came with and what I wanted, so I swapped the rear 105 derailleur to Ultegra, standard Shimano cables to DA9000 cables, low end FSA headset to Cane Creek 110, and lastly a generic carbon fiber fork to Enve 2.0. And basically I can't see any reason if something fails to upgrade to say Ultegra brake levers from 105 because the 105's work just fine as does everything else that is still 105, so I would probably replace whatever failed with another 105 component. I don't suspect any of my components to fail for at least another 15 years, and as history of components go the Dura Ace technology today will in 7 to 8 years filter down to 105 so by the time I have to replace something I'll get older Dura Ace technology labeled 105 for cheaper then the DA cost when the technology was new. My wheels will probably wear out first, and I will probably upgrade those when the time comes but I won't go nuts on the wheels either since I don't race, so I'll look for the best aluminium wheel for the price.

Obviously this is just the way I do things, there are people that will buy a new bike just because a crank for example failed, or buy a new bike every 5 years because they think they have too many miles on the bike (which may only be 20,000 plus or minus for a person that constantly rides), that's fine, that's their thing, but I'm a tightwad so I can't see doing that and find any logic in it financially. However carbon fiber frames is a different story, there is evidence now that says that CF frames become soft as the miles go by, not sure how many miles that is but there is definitely an issue with that, and once a CF gets too soft it can simply snap. So CF riders will need to replace their frames a lot sooner than aluminium, steel or titanium, in fact the last two you will never need to replace those.
 
I really can't afford to upgrade yearly, I own 2 Mtb's and sometimes it takes 2-3 years before I buy another one. What always happen is whenever I put one of my bikes to sell, one of my friends would suddenly appear selling a good bike so I always end up selling my old bike and buying a newer second hand bike, that happened to me thrice already, the last time was last month, when I sold this GT 2.0
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and a friend sold me a chucker 3.0
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I replace parts/ upgrade almost every 1 or 2 years, but it's still the main bike even after how many years since it still has a good performance and doesn't look bad for its age.
 
As often as they get stolen! Okay that's a little bit of a sad joke, but also true to some degree.

I've had about two or three bikes get stolen from me throughout my life, and those were just about the only times that I've outright had to buy a new bike. Usually, my bikes have always stayed in really good condition.

For one thing, I came to realize that buying cheap bikes should be avoided. The cheaper the bike, the sooner you're going to have to replace it. I always bought a relatively expensive bike, and then regularly maintained it. Nothing complicated either, just oiling it up and tightening loose screws.

I think I could easily have a bike last me at least a decade or two.
 
As often as they get stolen! Okay that's a little bit of a sad joke, but also true to some degree.
I've had about two or three bikes get stolen from me throughout my life,

When you say cheap, how cheap is cheap to you?

Where the heck do you live? That's a lot of bikes stolen, I've never had a bike stolen and I'm 64 years old, and I use to live in Los Angeles for about 10 years, and other large populated places in California including one of the worse areas, besides LA, for stolen bikes at the time was in Santa Barbara CA. There was a bike theft ring that was in business in Santa Barbara at the time I was there, I knew this for a fact because I bought parts off the guys! Shame on me, but I was in junior high and high school with not enough money to go to a bike shop and pay full price for a new part, so I got used stolen parts for real cheap, I knew I couldn't get busted for anything but they sure did about the time I was 18 or 19 years old, the one guy later started a legit bike shop in a strip mall...at least I think he sold legit used parts!

Of course I always had two bikes, one bike was a Schwinn Traveler which I took to college, work and rode it on the wet ocean sand and got it drenched with sea water lots of times, the other was a nicer bike that I left at home and rode it for training and racing. The Traveler I only ever used a cheap cable with a very good padlock, I still have and use that system today. The only thing I've ever had stolen was when I accidentally left my bike pump on the bike at work, when I got done working the pump was gone. I even left the Traveler locked outside of my apartment(s) only because I didn't have space with my Trek TX900 inside, and no one ever bothered it either in Santa Barbara or Los Angeles. This bike theft ring in Santa Barbara was stealing bikes off the college campuses around town but never touched mine, and they didn't know that bike was mine, I guess they didn't like Travelers. When I got to LA I had to park the bike outside at the college there as well as outside at the apartment, but my work allowed me to bring it into my office.

Even where I live now my wife left the garage door open all night and I have a bunch of bikes now including my Lynskey all hanging from the ceiling and no one helped themselves to any of them or my tools.
 
When you say cheap, how cheap is cheap to you?

I'd say anything less than around $200? I feel this because I've only ever bought bikes above that price range, and they've always lasted me very long through plenty of abuse. On the other hand, my parents were always a bit stingy when buying bicycles, and so I've seen them go through a model easily every one or two years.


Where the heck do you live?

I used to live in Brooklyn, New York. I wasn't in an exactly dangerous neighborhood, but let's just say you'd sometimes feel the need to look over your shoulder and see if someone's tailing you. I think twice it was that someone snipped the chains on bikes I had locked up outside of my high school, but one of the times was my fault. I had ran into a store just for a second to buy something, and didn't want to lock my bike up because I was in a hurry. In the 30 seconds I was gone, someone sat on my bike and rode off with it. Incredible.
 
It's depends if I saw equipment online and it's looks like applicable to my bike. I will surely buy it if I have extra cash during that time. I'm not usually upgrading my bike.
 
I'd say anything less than around $200? I feel this because I've only ever bought bikes above that price range, and they've always lasted me very long through plenty of abuse. On the other hand, my parents were always a bit stingy when buying bicycles, and so I've seen them go through a model easily every one or two years.

I used to live in Brooklyn, New York. I wasn't in an exactly dangerous neighborhood, but let's just say you'd sometimes feel the need to look over your shoulder and see if someone's tailing you. I think twice it was that someone snipped the chains on bikes I had locked up outside of my high school, but one of the times was my fault. I had ran into a store just for a second to buy something, and didn't want to lock my bike up because I was in a hurry. In the 30 seconds I was gone, someone sat on my bike and rode off with it. Incredible.

I agree a $200, and heck in today's world even a $400 bike is considered cheap and won't last like they did 20 years ago but inflation has taken that $400 bike and made it worth really just $300 in 20 years ago money.

Brooklyn is pretty bad alright, but LA wasn't much better. I don't know if I had just plain dumb luck or what! But I would always park my bikes next to nicer bikes that had similar cable locks in hopes the thief would take the better bike and not mine, not sure if anyone that was ever parked next to my bike ever had theirs stolen or not. But I gave them plenty of opportunities to steal the bike and it never got stolen. I knew a guy when I was college wanted a really nice bike to ride because he felt the reliability was worth the risk, so to lessen the risk he repainted a $1,200 (40 years ago, today that bike would have to sell for about $5,000!) bike with a paint brush and doing a nasty job, when he got done with it he then beat with a bicycle chain to make look like a real piece of ****, then he took a metal buffer on a electric drill and whacked off the engraved brand markings on his components and rode it to college and work a never got it stolen.
 
I don't really replace my bike. I've used it for a really long time. I occasionally replace broken or ineffective parts due to continued use. Other than, I have it checked every so often.
 
Interesting question. Possible deeper personality issues of circumstance here? With kids and a mortgage, I was usually repairing or replacing components. But always on a budget. This while I watched friends who were either sponsored racers or working in the Industry show up at the trail head with the latest Swag. As a daily commuter, I would gripe to myself everyday while my derailleur jumped, rims rolled untrue and other maladies were either beyond one more tuning OR over my budget. My theory is that if you wait long enough, what you're riding will come back into style!? I wasn't fighting/avoiding Disc Brakes, Full suspensions and Carbon Fiber, I was riding tough and old school!
 
I don't remember having a plan of buying a new bike for replacement of the old one. For me, the bike is not just an equipment but a companion. When I ride, I feel like my bike is alive and we are moving together not only literally but in the right vibration. That's why my advice to the newbie who is buying a bike is to get a feel of the bike before you buy it. Try it for size by riding maybe for half a kilometer before making the final decision. However, I believe that 10 years is just fine for the lifespan of the bike.
 

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