what to buy

The engine.

If you just bought a brand new bike, why upgrade anything?

What's up with this insatiatiable urge to upgrade new bikes?! Ride it like it is for awhile, and then you will be able to decide for yourself what, if anything, you might want to upgrade. All that you will get from this thread is what other folks have upgraded or want to upgrade on their own bikes. Also, you'll keep seeing "Upgrade the engine". C'mon people, unless someone tells you that they are out of shape, isn't it a little presumptuous to assume that they have a lot of room to upgrade the engine?

your mistake was buying a GT Chucker 3.0. No offence, its not bad, but when you instantly ask what to upgrade, you are going to rack up costs quicker than you can imagine and pretty soon you will be way over what a Chucker 1.0 or the much better STP costs. Ride it, break it, buy a better one. Cheapest way to upgrade is buy a high specced bike initially. Aftermarket parts will forever cost much more than their OEM specced twins.

And for reference, if you really ride it, you'll break it pretty quick. Even with regular maintenance, I broke a GT Avalanche 2.0 by using it for XC racing. I snapped a couple of chains (this is normal anyway, but considering what I paid, it racks up 4 or 5% of the total bike cost each time. Not worth it), Broke the lockout system on the fork (RST = absolute [censored]), bent the hanger, bent the little chainring (I have no idea either), wore through a bottom bracket, somehow seized up the shifter and got fed up with slipping pawls on my hub (though the frequent re-greasing helped keep this to a minimum. God awful sound though) and then gave up. This is less than a season. Light, really good frame, but not built to last. The only thing I kept was the rear changer and the non-mechanical parts (bars, stem, post etc.) and converted it into a singlespeed hybrid commuter frankenstein thing.

bobbyOCR said:

your mistake was buying a GT Chucker 3.0. No offence, its not bad, but when you instantly ask what to upgrade, you are going to rack up costs quicker than you can imagine and pretty soon you will be way over what a Chucker 1.0 or the much better STP costs. Ride it, break it, buy a better one. Cheapest way to upgrade is buy a high specced bike initially. Aftermarket parts will forever cost much more than their OEM specced twins.

And for reference, if you really ride it, you'll break it pretty quick. Even with regular maintenance, I broke a GT Avalanche 2.0 by using it for XC racing. I snapped a couple of chains (this is normal anyway, but considering what I paid, it racks up 4 or 5% of the total bike cost each time. Not worth it), Broke the lockout system on the fork (RST = absolute [censored]), bent the hanger, bent the little chainring (I have no idea either), wore through a bottom bracket, somehow seized up the shifter and got fed up with slipping pawls on my hub (though the frequent re-greasing helped keep this to a minimum. God awful sound though) and then gave up. This is less than a season. Light, really good frame, but not built to last. The only thing I kept was the rear changer and the non-mechanical parts (bars, stem, post etc.) and converted it into a singlespeed hybrid commuter frankenstein thing.

hey guys thanks i just wanted something to muck around on and well i dont do anything big like only 4-5 foot drops max so yeah and i dont need to upgrade the engine cos its got plenty of power.😄