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I've had a Vitus Rapide since August and love it,althoygh a bit miffed its now cheaper than when I bought it.... With the sales being on at present, what do people think are worthy upgrades? I fancy a dropper, would carbon bars make any difference? Anything else to look at?
Spec below:
https://www.wiggle.com/p/vitus-rapide-29-vr-mountain-bike
ITS A RABBIT HOLE
Depends on your riding, A dropper is a great addition, looks like its compatible for an internal routed dropper, will add weight but great for more demanding trails, or if your of an age just getting on and off easily ; ). Some carbon bars can be harsh/trail buzzy for not a lot of weight saving.Its not an overly heavy bike anyway.Tubeless tyres and set up are another good upgrade.
Control points also ,some good grips, can be thicker or thiner depends on your hand size, and correct saddle width can keep you riding more distance in comfort and increase fun and fitness, and decent pedals to keep your feet planted on rougher stuff, paired with grippy shoes(or go clipped in).Also some weather appropriate clothing is quite useful.
There’s really no obvious weakness on that spec, just the lack of a dropper.
Good advice from sparkyrhino. Definitely look at some suitable clothing to keep you out and comfy in all weathers.
Dropper yes - will make the single biggest difference to your riding once you’re used to it. Corner better, descend better etc.
After that it’s all little gains here and there.
The most weight in your bike will be in the wheels and Deore groupset. Carbon bars might save you 100g or something but not a huge difference.
From memory Deore cranks and cassette are both heavy and I think your wheelset is probably a bit porky. Changes the wheels probably won’t make you materially faster, but the bike will feel different with less weight in the rims. Something like Huny XC race wheels (alloy) would probably make it feel nicer whipping into and out of corners etc.
Cassette is a harder one to save weight on easily as it’s 11 speed on an HG freehub so 12 speed cassettes generally aren’t going to fit (at least not the light / nice ones). Something like a Gabaruk cassette might come in 11-50 / 11 speed but it’s quite spendy.
Crank wise I found Sram Dub are pretty light in the carbon versions - either GX / Truvativ Descendant carbon are middling price wise with a decent weight saving. Normally come with a forged or machined sram chainring which is pretty light. Will run fine with something like a Sram X1 11 speed chain.
@milky2341
I'm looking at one of these as a pootle about bike, maybe for some long distance stuff. How are you finding it? Not too stretched out or racy?
@woody2000 the longest I've done so far is 4 hours. No issues about being too stretched out for me. It's racer than th Voodoo bizango it replaced, bt with it being an XC focused bike, I was expecting that.
What dropper post should I be looking at?