I've got a Genesis Vagabond - 2016 model, so 10 years old 🙂
Love the bike, it's taken me to some great places, and overall been a very reliable steed for gravel/back road exploration and a decent amount of commuting.
It's getting pretty tired now, as I've done a fair distance on it (10k+ km). A fair amount of gravel and offroad too, so not just easy road miles.
I thinks it's on it's 3rd cassette and chain, second set of chainrings, and 3rd set of tires. Otherwise mostly original, including the heavy but functional wheels.
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Which brings me to my musings...
Do I give a facelift with new parts as the frame itself is fine, if a little scuffed in places?
It definitely needs new wheels, and potentially most of a new groupset - cassette, chain, rear derailleur, maybe cranks (though they're just scruffy), BB, and all/most of the finishing kit is a bit scruffy too. So pretty much everything!
It would probably end up being the best part of £500 totalling it all up, added to the fact that the frame is QR, so finding a decent set of QR 29"/700c disc wheels for not crazy money might be tricky (I'd love a set of Hope wheels on it, but budget probably doesn't stretch).
Or....
I buy a new gravel bike. My work does Cyclescheme, so I could save a few ££ that way too.
Probably only want to spend £1000ish. It'll be used an abused, so no need for anything too fancy.
I do love my Vagabond, but the newer versions of the Vagabond are quite expensive now - £1500ish compared to the £800(afair) I paid for mine.
Otherwise there's things like the Van Rysel/Decathlon Grvl AF - £850 with a decent Microshift groupset and carbon fork looks like a bargain.
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What should I do? 🙂
Adv 8.9 is £960 iirc in sale.
Adv 8.9 is £960 iirc in sale.
Just had a look, currently full price of £1200 🙁
Though with Cycletowork it'd be more like £850-900 I guess.
I got excited earlier when I saw Kinesis had 50% off, but its just the road bikes not gravel.
If you use Cycletowork or Cyclescheme do you still get the sale price?
Adv 8.9 is £960 iirc in sale.
I got one of these off Facebook market place a couple of years ago. It was like brand new and only cost me c£600 (bought off a Halfords employee who I think just used sale/staff discount price to buy it and then sell on!).
At the time it was recommended as best 'bang for buck' gravel bike 😳 and I've certainly been happy with it.
If you're not in a rush it's bound to be back at a sale price soon.
Dunno but I've just changed the chain, cassette and ring on my Arkose and it's still shifting rubbish and making a horrible noise... So now I need to figure out what mech I need. And I'm getting paranoid about the carbon forks.
Adv 8.9 is £960 iirc in sale.
Just had a look, currently full price of £1200 🙁
Though with Cycletowork it'd be more like £850-900 I guess.
I got excited earlier when I saw Kinesis had 50% off, but its just the road bikes not gravel.
If you use Cycletowork or Cyclescheme do you still get the sale price?
Sorry, was on sale last weekend, Halfords have started a new sale since.
If you're happy to do it yourself (as in you enjoy it, not just capable) I'd probably go for the refurb/rebuild option as it's good fun mostly and if you like the bike it's probably money well spent?
You can get hub adaptors for 12/15x100 and 12x142 wheel sets to run in a QR frame I believe for most hub types pretty cheap so a lot of unfashionably narrow XC mountain bike wheelsets could be used or Shimano actually still make QR disc wheelsets for decent prices such as these which although aren't fancy will probably work forever:
https://www.biketart.com/products/shimano-wh-mt500-mtb-wheel?variant=40809737683123
I personally would renovate.
You like this bike. You get to choose new, nicer kit that will be better. It will be cheaper.
A new bike won't have the same level of kit, and while nice to have new and warranty in a year or so time you are back to where you are with the Vagabond - needing some new kit.
Renew. My Cotic X arrived between Xmas and the start of 2010. It is as much of a gas pipe set up as it was then but it just keeps going. It is now running 11 speed SRAM as that was the cheapest way to go hydro discs a decade ago. Cassettes are cheap from China and last years at about 100 miles a week 30+ weeks of the year. QR are wheels are so cheap that I don't bother selling mine . I had, a couple of years ago, 4 near identical bikes in all 4 main materials and 12 pairs of wheels to share around. Down to the Cotic now in 700c QR and 6 pairs of wheels that are near worthless as Hope XC hubs can't be rebuilt with through axles and the rims are 20mm inner width max.
I'm pretty sure that if you were to buy Hunt wheels you can still specify hub caps for qr solid axles 10mm rear and 9mm front and Superstar were stocking the axles, fits qr dropouts and stiffer than standard skewers.
Could you buy the renew/upgrade parts on the cycle scheme? At my work you can use it for parts and equipment (helmets, lights, clothing etc).
I'd say keep the bike that you already love and make it better. You can probably stretch the budget that way too and end up with nicer wheels, group set etc if you like.
I'll be sixty next year and my beloved Singular Swift will be 10. I've been wondering about a new bike but keep coming back to the idea of sprucing up the Swift as it's just so nice; carbon wheels might be the answer.
If you really like the Vagabond updating it is certainly worth a look. However, there are lots of good bike deals around at the moment. Size availability depending this looks quite nice.
https://www.merlincycles.com/kona-libre-gravel-bike-2024-341857.html
There are Tripsters too, I don't know if you can do salary sacrifice through Merlin, but if you can it would bring them below the £1000 mark.
https://www.merlincycles.com/kinesis-tripster-at-apex-1-matcha-gravel-bike-2026-343296.html
If it's a just ride bike and you don't need faster, gnarlier, latest geometry trend then just renew the moving parts. A shiny new bike is a lovely thing but not having stiff shoulders after a commute on a bike that needs fettling to fit is worth a lot.
You can get hub adaptors for 12/15x100 and 12x142 wheel sets to run in a QR frame I believe for most hub types pretty cheap
Yes, I got some last month, around £13 delivered from Aliexpress. They fit and work perfectly.
Ignore me, I can't read
Cheers all.
I'm going to sit down and do a proper costing.
It will come down to price in the end...I've worked out that the Van Rysel Grvl AF (with 1x10 Microshift Sword) will come out at approx £600 when bought using Cyclescheme. So if buying the parts comes near or over that, I'll probably go for the new bike.
If money is deciding factor, then yeah go cheapest.
But, I'm sure you could get nicer kit on the existing frame for same budget...
If money is deciding factor, then yeah go cheapest.
But, I'm sure you could get nicer kit on the existing frame for same budget...
Potentially, but having done a quick cost up of just wheels, cassette, chain, chain set/rings, BB, and tyres, it's coming out around £450-500. That's with pretty basic Miche wheels and low to mid level kit (Deore) all from Bikeparts
If I decided to upgrade all the other bits too, ie. Seatpost, saddle, stem, bars, etc. then it's defo getting towards £650/700. And if I start looking at stuff like Hunt wheels we're talking £400+ just for wheels.
Well, decision averted (for a while at least!)
The old rear wheel is toast (cup and cone bearings are dead), as are the tyres, cassette and chain.
So, I had a look through my spares pile and realised I had some Mavic Crossroc(?) 27.5 wheels with QR adaptors, and some 27.5 x 2.1 WTB Riddlers. Went up tubeless no hassle, so wheels sorted.
I also found a brand new 11-36 XT cassette, SRAM 10spd chain, an unused 10/11 spd Microshift XLE derailleur, and a Nukeproof BB. I think that all dates back to the CRC fire sale! 😆
Other bits are ok for now, so the Vagabond lives again 🤘
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Still tempted by a new gravel bike on Cyclescheme though, so I'm weighing up the options 😁
I had this same conundrum recently.
There are a couple of potential problems with chucking money at an old bike
1) old standards - in the long term, if spending significant money on an old deprecated standard you'll be writing it off at some point (e.g. non convertible qr wheels)
2) Something else big might fail. E.g. if you could spend a load of wedge upgrading/replacing components only for the frame to fail. (Then, if you need a new frame, you have to hunt out something with the same old standards, or else you could have a new frame but none of your old parts will fit now...)
Those reasons, plus the threat of government removing the c2w scheme, led me to take advantage of it while it lasted and I bought a new gravel bike.
But then I kept the old gravel bike and turned it into a winter road bike anyway 😂 (I did keep the spend minimal, mind you!)
Well, decision averted (for a while at least!)
The old rear wheel is toast (cup and cone bearings are dead), as are the tyres, cassette and chain.
So, I had a look through my spares pile and realised I had some Mavic Crossroc(?) 27.5 wheels with QR adaptors, and some 27.5 x 2.1 WTB Riddlers. Went up tubeless no hassle, so wheels sorted.
I also found a brand new 11-36 XT cassette, SRAM 10spd chain, an unused 10/11 spd Microshift XLE derailleur, and a Nukeproof BB. I think that all dates back to the CRC fire sale! 😆
Other bits are ok for now, so the Vagabond lives again 🤘
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Still tempted by a new gravel bike on Cyclescheme though, so I'm weighing up the options 😁
I'm releived to hear I'm not the only person that has been known to do this... 😯
I'm releived to hear I'm not the only person that has been known to do this..
I know, it's not even put an obvious dent in the 'spares'.
Maybe this year is The Year of actually rationalising 2+ decades of bike bit hoarding 😅
