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BUYER'S GUIDE
10 smart bike upgrades for under £100 Nov 202110 smart bike upgrades for under £100 — get comfier, go faster, climb easier
Eddy Merckx once famously said that you shouldn’t buy upgrades, but should ride up grades. Riding more is almost always the best way to improve your cycling, but there are some component changes that will improve your comfort, safety and speed. Here’s a selection that each cost under £100.
10 great upgrades for under £100
- Continental Grand Prix 5000 tyres — £70.00/pr
- Shimano Dura-Ace brake cables — £28.99 & Dura-Ace gear cables — £29.99
- USE Duro Carbon Seat Post — £64
- Fizik Aliante R3 K:ium Saddle — £82.50
- Women's saddles: Selle Italia Lady Gel Flow — £49.99 | SDG Allure Women’s Ti-Rail saddle — £69.99
- Shimano Ultegra 11 Speed Cassette & chain — £93.50 - £97.70
- Ultegra brakes — £85.00
- Hope Stainless Steel Bottom Bracket — £95.00
- Shimano 105 R7000 SPD-SL Pedals — £71.60
- Wahoo Speedplay Walkable Cleats — £44.99
Continental Grand Prix 5000 tyres — £70.00/pr
Why: Faster rolling; improved comfort (if switching from 23mm to 25mm or 28mm)
Our long-standing tyre recommendation, the Continental Grand Prix 4000S II is no more, but its successor is superb and rolls slightly better, especially if you take the opportunity to switch to tubeless.
The Grand Prix 5000's main claim to fame is its low rolling resistance. As a tyre rolls along, it flexes, and this flex absorbs energy; the tyre literally resists rolling. Tyres with thin tread made from flexible rubber, and light, supple casings have low rolling resistance. Problem is, they also tend to be easily punctured. The success of the GP 5000 is down in part to a layer under the tread of fabric made from Vectran, a high-strength synthetic fibre. This helps ward off punctures, though they still happen. It’s not as effective as the thick anti-puncture layer in a tyre like the Schwalbe Marathon Plus but it’s considerably better than nothing.
While you’re buying new tyres, consider going up a size or two. The 28mm version of the GP 5000 rolls superbly and can be run at lower pressures to improve comfort and road holding.
A pair of these comes well under our budget, so consider adding Michelin or Vittoria latex inner tubes too (both about £10), to further reduce the rolling resistance. Can’t be bothered pumping your tyres up daily? Fit a pair of Continental’s 50g Supersonic tubes.
Read more
All tyre reviews on road.cc
Buyer’s guide to tyres
The best tyres for winter riding
Shimano Dura-Ace brake cables — £28.99 & Dura-Ace gear cables — £29.99
Why: Slicker shifting and braking
It's easy to forget about your cables. They deteriorate so gradually you might not notice your gears don't shift as well as they did when they were new, and your brakes need just a little more effort. These two kits have everything you need to spruce them right up and have them working like new — or even better if your bike manufacturer skimped on cables as many do. The polymer linings on the inner wires mean these cables keep working well for longer too.
USE Duro Carbon Seat Post — £64
Why: Less weight, less road buzz
USE is better known to road cyclists for its Exposure lights, but it has a long history as component maker, particularly of seatposts. At 162g in 300mm x 27.2 post, this is a light post.
Weight aside, carbon fibre seatposts have the advantage that they’re usually more flexible than those made from aluminium, reducing the road buzz that gets through to your bum.
Read more: All reviews of seatposts on road.cc
Fizik Aliante R3 K:ium Saddle — £82.50
Why: Improved comfort; less weight
At 215g, this classic saddle lops almost 100g off a typical stock seat and is famously comfortable. The usual caveats apply, of course: everyone’s bottom is different, so what suits other riders may still give you a bum rap.
More broadly, changing your saddle, and carefully adjusting its height, angle and fore-aft position, can be the biggest comfort improvement you can make. If you’re not sitting comfortably — if cycling is literally a pain in the arse — then go shopping for a better seat.
Read more
All saddle reviews on road.cc
Buyer’s guide to saddles
Buyer's guide to women's saddles
Buyer's guide to performance saddles — improve comfort & save weight in one upgrade
Women's saddles: Selle Italia Lady Gel Flow — £49.99 | SDG Allure Women’s Ti-Rail saddle — £69.99
Why: Improved comfort
We're listing two options here because experience shows women have considerably more problems finding the right saddle than do men. The Selle Italia Lady Gel Flow is a 178mm wide, the SDG Allure 143mm, so they fit different sit-bone widths and different riding positions. They are however both saddles that devoted riders swear by.
Shimano Ultegra 11 Speed Cassette & chain — £93.50 - £97.70
Why: Better shifting; less weight; chance to change ratios
For the most part, Shimano shifting systems work best if all their components are made by Shimano. If the company that made your bike shaved a few cents off the bill of materials by using a non-Shimano chain and sprockets, then you’ll get slicker shifting if you fit Shimano parts when they wear out.
With its alloy carrier, the Ultegra-level CS-8000 sprocket set is in Shimano’s value-for-money sweet spot. It can be found for around £70, weighs 212g in an 11-23 (the Dura-Ace cassette is feathery at 166g, but costs three times more) and Just Works™. In a bundle with an Ultegra chain, it’s a no-brainer.
Ultegra brakes — £85.00
Why: More stopping confidence
The brakes on many less-expensive bikes are, frankly, not great. In particular, the cheap unbadged brakes you often find on sub-£1,000 bikes lack feel and oomph. Replacing them with these solidly-built stoppers substantially improves braking feel and power, and if you can brake with more control, you can go faster.
Shimano says these brakes should only be used with Super SLR levers, but that’s all current Shimano brake/shift levers.
Hope Stainless Steel Bottom Bracket — £95.00
Why: Improved reliability and durability; pretty colours
Hope’s bottom brackets have an enviable reputation for durability, with plenty going strong after five years or more of mountain bike use. Your cranks spin on Swiss INA bearings, and the whole unit is very tidily machined.
Because the sleeve between the two threaded bearing holders is aluminium not plastic, the Hope bottom bracket is slightly heavier than a Shimano unit, but to make up for it you can have it in a choice of colours.
Shimano 105 R7000 SPD-SL Pedals — £71.60
Why: Light weight, excellent durability and reliability
Shimano’s SPD-SL pedal system is popular for its reliability and function. The 105 version is light thanks to a carbon fibre body and durable because of its stainless steel top plate and excellent, easily-maintained bearings. As with many Shimano pedals, you can remove the axle unit, fill the body with grease, and screw the axle back in, forcing fresh grease into the bearings.
Read more
All pedal reviews on road.cc
Buyer’s guide to clipless pedals
Buyer's guide to high-performance pedals
Wahoo Speedplay Walkable Cleats — £44.99
Why: easier walking for Speedplay Zero users
If you have a set of older Speedplay pedals, then you know the system’s biggest weakness is that the cleats are very awkward to walk in. To make things worse, any significant amount of walking, or even frequent touching down at lights, erodes the aluminium outer plate.
Speedplay’s Walkable cleats fix both these problems by putting a rubber cover over the cleat mechanism, so the metal is protected. This is the latest, all-black version of the Speedplay cleats. If you want the original yellow versions with Cleat Buddy plus to keep crud out when you're walking around, they'll cost you £49.99.
Explore the complete archive of reviews of bike components on road.cc
About road.cc Buyer's Guides
The aim of road.cc buyer's guides is to give you the most, authoritative, objective and up-to-date buying advice. We continuously update and republish our guides, checking prices, availability and looking for the best deals.
Our guides include links to websites where you can buy the featured products. Like most sites we make a small amount of money if you buy something after clicking on one of those links. We want you to be happy with what you buy, so we only include a product if we think it's one of the best of its kind.
As far as possible that means recommending equipment that we have actually reviewed, but we also include products that are popular, highly-regarded benchmarks in their categories.
Here's some more information on how road.cc makes money.
You can also find further guides on our sister sites off.road.cc and ebiketips.
road.cc buyer's guides are maintained by the road.cc tech team. Email us with comments, corrections or queries.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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38 comments
https://www.merlincycles.com/continental-gp4000s-ii-folding-tyres-with-2...
I just paid £55.00 for a pair plus innertubes.
I love the comment about the Conti GP 4000S II in this 9 upgrades for under 100 where it says: "the tyre literally resists rolling", so I am to assume the tire can't roll at all or is very difficult to roll!
If you want a groupset upgrade and are buying from ebay - New Tiagra 4700 Shifters and Mechs, but with a 105 Chainset and brakes is a great mix. Works perfectly together.
Almost as light as a full 105 groupset, fantastic shifting and braking - but with cheaper 10 speed chains and cassettes.
Agreed - works really well and I have that combo on both bikes. Meant that I could re-use an old 10-speed wheel for winter, and also use an Ultegra 6700 10-speed cassette I had knocking around.
Having used 105 5800 levers I can't tell the difference with 4700 - shift is light, precise, and fast.
'Eight great upgrades for almost £100 each'
would be a more approriate title...
Possibly, but I am pretty sure no one would be clicking on the link imagining they can make eight upgrades to their bike for £100 in total.
I thought this was a good challange so I took 10 minutes to create a tongue in cheek "10 upgrades to your ride for a £100 total"
Diet (£0)
- Lose cycling weight for nothing by cutting down on meal sizes and snacking
Take the stairs (£0)
- Avoid lifts and elevators and improve your cycling muscles on the stairs
Commute by Bicycle (£0)
- Transform either all or some of the dead time in your commute with cycling to improve your cycling skills at no time cost
Cycle to Work Scheme (£0)
- Buying the below items on a cycle to work could bring the cost down to under £100
Continental Grand Prix 4000S II (~£60)
- Lower your rolling resistance and add a little comfort
Charge Spoon (~£17)
- Typified by its lightweight (285g), supportive shape and pressure-relief channel the Spoon is the saddle of choice for XC, enduro and road riders alike
Finn Phone Holder (~£10)
- Turn your existing phone into a cycling GPS device
Swissstop Flash Pro Brake Pads (~£18)
- The brake pads on most bikes are let down by cheap brake blocks so these should deliver a significant improvement on braking performance
Fizik Performance Bar Tape (~£12)
- Remove some of the road buzz with this great bar tape
Finish Line Brush Set (~12)
- A clean bike runs so much better, and longer, than a dirty one
for the price of all those "upgrades" put together you could get a power meter.
a much better performance upgrade, and it improves the best bit of the bike too.
Which is certainly true. Meanwhile, in the real world, riders without all that money to spend in one go on a power meter (such as me) might be interested in one or two of the individual upgrades for around £100 each.
If you actually weight the USE seatpost I think you will find it’s about 45% heavier than claimed. Looks like they have not re-calibrated their scales from when I told them over a year ago. Poor.
you'd do better with the Rose XC-170(?) which has been touted as light and vibration-reducing, also affordable.
Is the R7000 rear mech specced to work with a 40T cassette?
105 (5800) brakes are good for £40.
Ultegra cassettes are available for £40, not much wrong with 105 at lower price though. KMC chains available for about £20.
Horses for courses I suppose.
Touch wood I've not had any issues with my Conti Gp4000s, good grip and no P's. I've seen one sliced open on the sidewall, but not one of mine. Gatorskins are bullet proof in my experience, but a bit wooden in feel and not confidence inspiring, and I've had them slide on me before.
My favourite tyre for summer is a Vittoria corsa cc with 320tpi carcass, super supple and comfy ride, great trip too. I prefer it to the Conti
I'm going to try out tubeless this summer, maybe some IRC's
Hope BB's are a great upgrade, all my bikes have them, replaceable bearings, no creaking or noises.
Both my bikes have 3 sets of different Contis each. Bit gutted that will not be able to put them on the new bike as they don't make a 27.5+.
Holiday mode engaged?
Conti 4000 sidewalls can be annoying in the extreme, I had to ditch a new tyre recently after I slid out on a corner and the sidewall was more ripped up than my shorts. However, I find them to be fairly puncture resistant, the wear to be average and the grip is the best I've ever had from clinchers in 30 years of competetive riding, in the wet and dry. As a race clincher they're incomparable in my experience (rough NZ road surfaces, 90 psi). As a training tyre there are better wearing tyres generally with less grip (Rubin pros are so slippy I think they are actually dangerous in the wet), but I can't bring myself to ride armadillos or gatorskins as they're about as supple as a plank of wood and feel really dead. IMHO Conti 4000 are the best all round and I'd consider them an upgrade over anything else (except tubeless. Haven't tried owning tubeless yet :-/). Vittoria open corsas are the only other thing I'd consider for grip and feel a dry race, except in NZ conditions they slash up terribly and they are very average in the wet.
I find the GP 4000s II sidewalls to cut too easily. The Pro 4 endurance too slick in the wet. The Vittoria Rubio Pro G+ are too easily punctured by thorns, etc.
That sub-£100 Syntace P6 seatpost on Amazon that you've linked to is the alloy version.
Me too, Grandprix GT on the summer bike and 4 Seasons on the winter bike. That said, the new Pro 4 Endurance V2 has me intrigued.
Conti 4000s for the summer and gatorskins for the winter. The 4000s are quick but not very resiliant, the gatorskins are more hard wearing. Both grip well.
I did try some Vittorias, lasted 1 ride only, scared the $41t out of me, a little rain and they felt terrible, grip did not compare at all.
Conti camp myself. Great tyres. Would like to test others, but when you have that 'good feeling' between your legs it probably would be foolish to go elsewhere.
Having run GP4000s, Pro4s and Ultremos, my favourites are the Pro4s. Maybe it's luck, but very rarely if ever flat and with Michelin latex tubes, are as smooth as silk.
It's wierd how Contis polarise opinion. I have 7 bikes and the only ones not wearing Contis in some form or other are the mountain bike (that's because I can't remember when I last changed them) and the track bike cos I haven't seen a Conti suited to that purpose.
GP4000s for the TT and road bike, Gatorskins for the commuter and tandem, Grand Prix for the winter hack. I even gravitate to Conti tubes by default, although I'm less fussy about that (Michelin Latex on the TT).
Not going to tempt fate by mentioning the 'P' word, but you can tell I'm perfectly happy with Conti's product range.
From talking to cyclists and reading endless tyre reviews I have to accept that you are in the majority; I'm one of only a few who can't seem to get on with Contis. It's not that I haven't tried, I've actually spent money on Gatorskins and I've had several bikes with different varieties fitted as standard. And, sure as eggs is eggs, I feel badly let down by them, every time.
Maybe I upset a German when I was one of the occupying troops in the sixties?
I've had good service from two sets of GP4seasons over more than 4000 miles, with very few punctures indeed and plenty of life left on the second set. (One in wet weather, the other three have all been pinches on potholes but I did hit them very hard). I have got a few little nicks in them but I do take them offroad sometimes!!
Most people who I've spoken to who have tried gatorskins reckon the grip is a bit rubbish, but they are durable.
However, I definitely wouldn't bother with Conti MTB tyres - I think Schwalbe are a far, far better choice.
The USE seatpost is not actually as light as advertised. I bought one and it was 25%! heavier at 217g. I was told they had used incorrectly calibrated scales and would have to re-weigh everything. This was a few weeks ago and they still have not changed the details.
That's wrong.
Ultegra pedals? Please. 105 are practically the same and will save a good chunk of money. And, frankly, the PD-R550 are £35.95 at Merlin and "lose" you an insignificant amount of grams.
..and come with cleats...
(not sure about the Ultegra version)
New tyres and latex tubes definitely, although there's so little difference between GP4000s and Pro 4s or Schwalbe ones, I'd go for whatever was cheapest.
I have used all three of them... GP4000s are the best by far.
I much prefer the Pro 4 (endurance) to GP4000. Much more grip and they feel almost bullet proof. My latest set of GP4000s seem to puncture every month.
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