I can’t deal with all the negativity in the other thread right now, so let’s have a thread of *best* bike improvements.

I’m going to start with direct mount chainrings finally going mainstream.

I had a direct mount chainring on my ancient Middleburn cranks years ago, but it always seemed like if you wanted nice cranks you needed those awful slotted bolt monstrosities. I used to dread switching chainrings over as I knew it would be such a miserable experience, usually involving either an electric drill or a mole wrench.

But Shimano’s latest XT offering now comes with a nice easy-to-use direct mount fitting. Even better the tool you need is a standard BB tool, which I had kicking around already.

Probably indexed gearing for me

Bolt through axles on road bikes

Bolt through axles with the wheel located in the drop outs

Disc brakes, dropper posts, 1x gearing

Probably indexed gearing for me

Yeah, I remember upgrading to dx thumbies. You could turn the indexing on or off. On for when it was nice and clean and off for forcing mucky changes. Awesome.

Dropper posts

Jedi +1.

Revolutionised my riding, even if I was a stick in the mud and couldn’t see the point until 2013.

Droppers, disk brakes and tubeless.

I had forgotten that we used to have non-indexed gears! Can’t imagine what that would be like now.

Suspension fork surely?

Disc brakes.
Tyres in compounds and tread patterns that that are fantastic.
Modern geometry.

Road bike disc brakes, road brifters, carbon forks, carbon frames. Such a massive upgrade from the affordable road bikes pre-2000.

Dropper posts (possibly the biggest single improvement for me)
29″ wheels (26″ always felt ridiculously small for my 6’1″ height)
Large headset bearings (the original standard was woefully inadequate for 130+ travel forks)
Bolt through axles (original flimsy QR standard was crap)
1x drivetrains
Carbon frames (now they are properly designed)
Tubeless tyres
Wider tyres/rims
Wider bars
Longer, lower, slacker geometry (up to to a point)

Most things have improved really. People whining on the other thread should all be made to ride something from the early 2000s.

Suspension fork surely?

How far back are we going here? How about derailleur gears or pneumatic tyres?

Well indexed gears were earlier and they have been mentioned several times!

Tyres.

Tubeless tyres
Threaded BB conversion
Quality headset bearings (Hope)
Carbon wheelset ( i didnt believe it either but its true!)

For mtb I would say dropper post and tubeless.

For road I would say disc brakes. Best decision I made with my new road bike was switching to disc.

Dropper posts, suspension and disc brakes.

Tubeless is good but I file it under “incremental changes”, it just makes nearly every aspect of the tyre’s performance a bit better. The same for wider bars, geometry that’s not based on a road bike, and the honing of the weight of the bikes.

And I get that it would still be fun without all these things, but so would fell running.

Threaded BB conversion

Isn’t that just a bodge to make a press fit frame more like a threaded BB, rather than a fundamental improvement?

Chain drive and pneumatic tyres

I would say suspension that works.
I’ve ridden early suspension bikes, they were crap.
I then went a couple of decades without bothering, so when i had a shot of my mates cube stereo i was blown away at how much it had improved.
I don’t use one, but dropper posts, everyone who has one says it changes their riding.
Indexed gearing likewise.
Things like tubeless/1X/geometry, good though they are, are all incremental imo.

Mid-drive motors.

In my riding lifetime definitely
– Indexed gears
– Suspension forks
– Modern tyres (way better than 80s Ground Control etc)
– Carbon frames

I think back to the clunkers we rode in the 80s, fully rigid, weighed a ton. Now compare all that with an XTR equipped Scott Scale etc. Miles apart.

Disc brakes and suspension. I came to mtb from motorbikes in the early 90s and just wondered why off bikes didn’t have them. What a faff to set up canti brakes and how rubbish they were when covered in mud. Tubeless, brilliant, can’t remember the last time I had to fix a puncture, pulled a big bent nail out the tyre a week ago about 4mm diameter and it still sealed up.

650b

Tubeless by a country mile (which includes a mile of thorns lining the bridleways to the local trails)

In the 30ish years I’ve been riding MTBs the things I’ve had the most benefit from are:
– better tyres
– disc brakes
– general reliability of components

Apart from those (and peripheral things such as Gore Tex) few if any of the things I’ve tried have been revelatory, and few if any of the things I haven’t tried have appealed.

1. Suspension forks
2. Dropper posts
3. Disk brakes

For me it’s,
29″ wheels
Disc brakes
Good tyres

Most things have improved really.

This, a hundred times this. I’m no gear killer but even I can remember the times that you had to rebuild forks after a couple of weeks every winter if you wanted them to be even remotely usable or brakes that needed bleeding every few weeks, or replacing snapped BB axles, or truing wheels…These days everything works, I use a 170mm fork for every day riding! that has damping tuning where 1 click of say, rebound has a definitive effect on performance incredible stuff when you stop to think about it.

Clutch mechs, narrow wide chainrings.

Isn’t that just a bodge to make a press fit frame more like a threaded BB, rather than a fundamental improvement?

If it means i can tackle my local climb without a click, click, creak, creak i would say the bodge is definitely worthwhile

Goretex onsies – makes winter riding much less minging

Dropper posts, hydraulic disk brakes and suspension, in that order.

If you look at it as the one thing that, if removed, would affect your riding, then a dropper post for me.

Dropper post for a single component.

160mm FS enduro bikes for basically finally giving us a pedallable machine that can go anywhere, and allow those of us that wanted it, one MTB to rule.

Spoke skins to match cockpit colourway.

Disk brakes then droppers for me in terms of gear that actually enabled me to have the confidence to press on. Great to see disk brakes on road bikes now. Nice consistent efficient braking irrespective of the conditions and weather. The next is skills….but i’m still working on that.