Hey I have an aluminium framed bike I bought 2nd, 3rd hand off these forums many years ago. It’s 9 speed with varying parts from Shimano. 105 crank, ultegra rear derailleur, tiagra shifters.

I’ve got an itch to do some upgrades.

I don’t look after the bike as well as I should and I’ve been meaning to go to a co-op bike shop to learn better bike maintenance.

The chain occasionally comes off in a big gear shift but that might be because I was playing around with the front derailleur… It might also be because the teeth are worn?

Anyway just wondering what if any upgrades/ replacemens people would suggest? I really only ride to commute 8 miles a day.

Fairly tempted to get some hunt wheels and replace break pads, gear and break cables, chain. Would like to have new levers with neater cable routing but the tiagra although looking shit seem to work fine.</span>

Being a cyclecross bike not being able to mount mudguards is fairly annoying too…

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I really only ride to commute 8 miles a day.

I would replace brake pads and brake and gear cables as routine maintenance. The rest, I would ride it till it died and then replace it with another secondhand bike.

Yeah, I don’t think I’d throw much money at that tbh.   Whilst it’s working fine I’d just maintain it with the above – new brake pads / consumables like chains / tyres etc. You might just need to tweak the high limit screw if the chain is coming off the largest chainring – should be fairly quick to do.

If you’ve got the urge to speed the bike up / make it lighter I think I’d be looking at a new bike. Either bike to work if your work do it or look for a 2nd hand bargain. Loads of people have bought Boardman cyclocross / road bikes on bike to work then don’t use them – several years later they sell them for not a huge amount of money. Some of them are pretty light for what they are – a disc braked cyclocross bike would probably make a good commuter.

Start putting £50/month away for when something big goes and head off to the got bored of classifieds for a much nicer bargain

All sensible suggestions and pretty much what I knew I should be doing. I don’t cycle enough to justify a new 3k bike and my current bike serves its current purpose well enough.

I’ve been checking out adventure bikes as like the idea of a cyclecross style bike but with mounts that I can use on the road, tracks and perhaps a cycling holiday in the future.