Originally Posted by Chad953

I suppose both? Mainly educational, I'd like to do the upgrade myself much like it's enjoyable to do (some kinds of) repairs myself on the car. I know the Escape frame was paired with the deore set on the 0 variant in the past so I assumed it wasn't "too much" poured into that level of hardware for the frame. I'm not particularly concerned with the cost accounting at the moment, as I'm just trying to figure out what components I'd actually need for the bike. I plan on keeping this bike as the dog-hauler and around-town indefinitely, so I don't really see anything lost in even a marginal upgrade considering my goal is just to learn about the hardware and who doesn't like tinkering with cool gadgets? I'll probably add a road bike next summer for more distance and speed, but I enjoy these kinds of projects and it's a great way to hands-on learn this stuff.

I'll start looking into the pads, thats certainly easy enough. Is there a crowd favorite in tires or pads? My wife swapped out her Sedona tires for some 700c and they're Kenda Kwest brand so the LBS carries at least that line, and they're slicker than the ones on the escape. When you guys are saying "sportier" tires do you mean just slicker in general? Will smoother tires affect pulling the 100 lbs of dog + trailer significantly?