Should I or can I upgrade my bike?
 

Hello everyone and Happy Memorial Day weekend to you all.

I own a Trek FXS5 (2018) that I bought last year and I am desiring to upgrade it basically doing an over haul like changing the handle bars to a road bike, upgrade the gears to Ultegra or higher etc. Here is the bike: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...ode=black_grey.

What do you think? Should I go for it? Is it worth it? How much will it possibly cost to do so?

Thank you very much for all your help.

probably not worth it. may be better off selling it and buying another bike with drop bars and upgraded components

i am guessing that is pretty snappy already. changing bars and brifters is going to cost a chunk, let alone all the other stuff. i would ride as is and save your money towards the bike you think you want, then maybe trade in or sell the one you have. the thing is, i have three bikes i regularly ride, one with inverted mustache bars that i tour on, one with porter bars that i commute on and one with drop bars for when i am trying to keep up with someone fast. i wouldnt want to give up any of the options. you may find you regret losing your flat bars after you switch,

ymmv.

The bike wouldn't be a bad candidate for a drop-bar conversion, as far as the frame / geometry / spec is concerned, but it won't be cheap.
A quick look around finds the STI 'brifters' for your 10-speed Tiagra / hyd disk setup ( the RS405) for ~$300. You'll need a bar, most likely a new stem, and some other bits like cables and tape. Figure another $100-$150 or more, depending on what kind of bars you choose.
Add in labor / shop fees if you have a shop do the conversion for you.

The bike's only a year old, so changing the driveline out to Ultegra or the like would probably be more trouble and expense than it's worth.
If you really want to go to Drop bars, 11+ speeds, and electronic shifting, you would be better served by trading in your old bike, or selling it towards purchasing a new one.

The Domane 5 is pretty much the drop bar equivalent of your FXS, although they all seem to be 11-speed 105. The aluminum frame disc bike is about the same price as your FXS, the Domane SL carbon (rim brake) is about the same price as your FX, plus the conversion parts, The SL Disc is about $300 more.

I'm guessing the cost of doing the drop bar conversion will be $$$. You probably won't be able to get much by selling the old components. I'm not sure what the resale value of the bike is, but I'm guessing selling this bike and purchasing a road bike will cost less than the conversion. You could try doing a cost analysis.

My issues is its definatey gravel ready but they sell it with words like a shimano 2x9 drive train no name . one more issue is its price is 1700 like wtf its a trail / city bike at best . you have so many better options at thay price point on bikes that would poop all over that bike from like the early 2000s in any situation. I really wonder how they can sell bikes like that assuming you paid full price . but damn man 1700 and you have to upgrade .

But think of it as a pure change not an upgrade ultegra wont change much you can get the same range with tiagra claris or sora . i built a 1x9 with alivio and a sora shifter for well under 200 . if you shop around you can find a good deal on shifters . switch the bars thats line 40 bucks to 150 . switch the stem if you have to.

You will be fine if you just start on the bars . if you are not happy with the flat bars and want road or gravel bars i dont see why not , if thats what you want , ...

If it was me though i could see that bike as a city or gravel ride for me get a nice set if bars 9 speed claris or sora shifters are easy . if you need ultegra you will need to decide the range. I would go long cage, that about 60 to 80 you could even keep the thumb shifters and use adapters. Really the options for bikes have no real rule or limit maybe your pockets.

so if it has 105 just change the bars you are good to go .
If you need a different range then focus on a new ring and cassette . thats cake .
rear mech. 60 to 80
bars. 150
Shifters. 170
Cassette. 30 to 80
chain. 20 to 40

:foo:

You could strip it down to a bare frame and upgrade everything.

Whether it is economical to do... it is hard to say.

If done right, you're around $800 for a complete R8020 hydraulic groupset. Plus the bars and a few other things, and you'll have close to $1000 invested in your upgrade. So, you'll have a lot of money invested into the bike.

However, if you were to sell the bike as-is, you'd also take a huge beating on the price. So, with that in mind, perhaps an upgrade would be called for.

One thing I'd check is whether your cassette has a spacer behind the cassette. If yes, then the wheels will support 11s. If not, then you'll be mostly limited to 10s, or 11s with cassettes larger than 34T. Or, of course, wheel upgrades.

If you do choose the upgrade, I'd probably do a conservative approach as above, and simply add drop bars, and matching Tiagra 10s hydraulic shifters. Whew, those are EXPENSIVE!!!

Upgrading can quickly turn into a large $$ expense with marginal return on that investment. For my $$, I would look for a used road bike and make sure that the drop bar configuration is really what you want. You'll still have your current bike to ride while waiting on components to be shipped. Builds *always* take longer than you expect.

But I will admit that wrenching on bikes is fun too. Making sure that your derailleurs will work with your shifters and that the brakes are compatible with the levers does sometimes take a bit of digging, and asking the questions here will help you to sort that out as well. So I suppose that argument supports my suggestion that you find a nice used road bike and wrench the heck out of it. Since you're starting with a complete bike, likely plus some consumables like tires, tubes, brake/shift cables, and grease in the appropriate places, followed by adjustments in those same appropriate places, you'll finish with a lot more knowledge than you started with.

There's nothing wrong with N+1, don't let anyone tell you differently. If you find yourself choosing the same bike to ride, you can always move the second one on to someone else.

"Return on investment" only matters if your objective is to sell it. Here's another way of thinking about it:

It's a hobby! Assuming that you bought your bike to ride and to have fun, do that. Modify it however you think would make it either more functional or more beautiful. Worst case, you'll hate the new configuration. If that's the case, you can change it back.

Return on investment, as I intended it, meant that you enjoy bicycling more. That really has no bearing on whether or not the bike is ultimately for sale. That's a different topic.

Cost of a Ultegra 6800 hydro disc groupset is about $900USD. Then there's the handlebars, and if you want carbon it's maybe $150. Stem-$50. Eleven-speed wheelset--...Unless you really, really want to do this and don't care about the cost, it's not going to be worthwhile. Save your money toward a second bike. If you do go for it, it'd likely cost you upwards of $1500. You can get a second real road bike with hydro disc brakes and 11-speed Ultegra for a few hundred more.

Keep in mind, if you paid $1700 for the flat bar road bike, even just a few months ago, and it is still a 2018, you'd likely have a tough time selling it for $1000.

So, you're not necessarily better off just selling the old bike and buying new.

Also, your flat bar Tiagra Hydro groupset isn't without value, depending on whether you sell it complete, or keep parts like brake calipers. You'd have to check E-Bay prices, but I'd guess you could recover $300 to $500 on the old groupset, depending on what you sell. Wheels?

As mentioned earlier, check to see if you have a spacer behind your 10s cassette for 11 speed compatibility.

So, say you start with a $1000 bike, strip it down, and sell off all the major components, you'll be left with a $500 to $700 frame.

It really isn't too bad, assuming that is what you really want to build back up.

Of course, there are a lot of really nice used frames that you could buy for around $500 too.

Hey Everyone,

I am so sorry for the late reply here. Thank you so very much for all the great answers. It will be tough to answer all one by one right at this moment, but, it is looking like I am getting from the majority is to leave it alone and it looks like I will do that. It seems like too much of a hassle and the cost makes it better to invest into a rode bike later on.

Let me know if it is OK to post in this thread about some bikes that might be of interest and your thoughts or I should start a new one?

Thank you and as I absorb all these answers more I probably will have a few more questions. I hope everybody had a great memorial day weekend.

Remember the big company that built the bike in the first place, bought all the parts in lot sizes of thousands.
so payed a fraction of what you will pay for one..

I'd say N+1 get another drop bar CX/Gravel bike , rig the one you have for Shopping..