Ever wonder how you can improve the ride and handling of your existing Bicycle without either breaking your bank account or springing for a whole new ride?
"Performance engineered upgrading" or very specific upgrades that can make your Bike perform at a higher level.
Here's a few area's you can reasonably upgrade your ride for a higher level of ride performance:
If your ride has old-style Shifters and the shifting is sluggish you can upgrade to a higher-level or new type of Shifter
"Thumb Shifters" give the poorest shifting performance (especially non-indexed types) and they are also awkward and clumsy to use,upgrading to a good set of Twist Shifers or Push-pull RapidFire style Shifters can vastly improve your riding pleasure.
If you have STI style shift/brake levers on your road bike,a major improvement would be to dump your "Shimano Sora" button style STI's for even the entry-level Tiagra Levers. A good set of Twisters or RapidFire style levers will run you about 60.00 a set.
Derailleurs:
Dump those cheap low-end "stamped steel" Derailleurs for a nice set of aluminum alloy,and watch your shifting improve over 60%!
Both Shimano and SRAM now make some excellent alloy Derailleurs that won't break your bank account.
Your Wheels:
"rolling weight" on your bike matters..a LOT! If you have a nice reasonably lightweight set of alloy Wheels on your ride but are using 400-450 gram (each) low psi recreational tires on these wheels,they can feel sluggish and make the bike slow responding.
Upgrading to a high-end set of lightweight Kevlar Folding Tires weighing no more than 255 grams(each) with a LOW rolling resistence high pressure (100psi)dual compound tread design can give your bike a spirited FAST performance Ride.
High performance lightweight Kevlar Tires can be found for about 35 dollars each and up.
Shaving off poundage:
If your ride is adorned with a lot of steel parts you can replace these parts and shave off as much as 2-3 pounds off your bike.
Swap out those cromoly(steel) handlebars for a nice 606-T-6 Aluminum alloy bar.
Do the same with that Cromoly stem.
get a nice lightweight Aluminum Seatpost too.
If your Bike has a Cromoly Fork for about 170.00 you can get a lightweight Carbon Fiber Fork and shave off TWO POUNDS from your ride and a Carbon Fork will vastly improve the responsiveness and comfort of your ride!.
The above Performance upgrades don't cost a king's ransom and will make your bike perform higher than it currently does.
I recently spent about 220 dollars for high performance 110psi Racing tires a Higher level SRAM rear Derailleur and an Edge Technologies Polycarbonate Teardrop Fairing for my Recumbent bike and it turned it into a "SuperCruiser"! and it sure beat springing about 1.800:00 for a higher-end Recumbent!