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

This is really helpful! Thanks! From what you and everyone has said I think I'll skip the gearing for now. If it breaks or something it'll be a fun project to replace them later. So will big tires change the turning radius? I have 27.5 now. I'm interested in trying 29s but I do sometimes have to avoid cars and pedestrians as I don't have many bike lanes lol

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, turning becomes harder and if you're not snappy enough with your bike yet, getting through pedestrians at low speed is definitely more challenging. However, the pay off is getting up to and maintaining speed and absorbing bumps.

Sticking with 27.5 is fine. MTBs used to be 26, then 29ers came out, then 27.5 came out as an in between of speed and smoothness of 29, but agility of 26. I have both and prefer my 29er for commuting and light trailing/cross trail, and prefer 27.5 everything else. I used to commute 27.5, but had a lot of uphill and funky obstacles and shortcut sections over around 32 min trip. Once I moved to a flatter and more open town, I switched to 29 for the cruising. They are faster, but more of a handful.