Originally Posted by
Fatandre
Well Guys. Talked to the guy and it looks like he is a good friend of a friend. The bike was servised last summer and all is in great shape. Got it for 50$. How good is the frame. Is it light compared to other bikes? I know it is no carbon, but is the bike worth upgrading? It turned out he just needed to get rid of it out of the garage as he got a better one. Here is a picture I found on the net. It seems to have a mount for disc brakes.
Bike Specs:
2002 Trek 4500
For $50 it's a bargain.
Upgrade parts as they break, get worn or don't work as well as they should. The old fork would be a good part to upgrade. If you're doing a lot of road riding get some road friendly tires.
The frame/bike is for XC riding and would of been classified as either 'Recreational' or 'Beginners' model, it's not a expensive super light XC racing frame and it's not a cheap rubbish department store frame.
The 2002 4500 frame doesn't have disc brake mounts on it, but you can bolt a IS disc brake mount onto it.
Trek bolt on disc mount:
http://www.evanscycles.com/products/...wards-ec012048
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Trek-Klein-G...item2a1c92f9f1
Trek recently started using this brake mount again on the 3 series bikes, if you do decide to put a disc brake on the frame you should be able to get this mount from a Trek dealer for a lot less then what the ebay sellers are asking for it.
The current wheels on the bike wouldn't be disc compatible so that's another cost if you were to put discs on it.
Disc brakes aren't essential on a bike, plenty of people still ride with v-brakes without any problems.
First thing to do is to ride the bike and see how well it performs.