Which components do you upgrade right away?

[lamerecycles]

Just bought my first emtb and am patiently awaiting for it to arrive. I’ve already bought new wheels and a better shifter, plus a new bike stand if you want to count that in. It seems many people upgrade a lot of their components right out the gate. I see people here throwing ona fox Factory fork and even push elevinsix shocks. Do y’all just have a hole burning in your pocket or are you just rich? Which components do you usually upgrade right away?

Or you could just order exactly what you want from LaMere Cycles.... maybe a 45.4lb eMTB with 5" of travel, the new EP8 motor and 630Wh battery like this one attached..... or a bigger 720Wh battery and bigger suspension..... just sayin.....

 

[Motoxfreak]

Ergon Saddle, Grips Peateys, and Vault Pedals

 

[emtbPhil]

I always fit my own grips and pedals. I'll give the saddle a try before changing that too. Contact points are important.

But as for "upgrades", the first thing I do is to go tubeless. Once I've ridden for a while, I might change the tyres depending upon how I get on with them. But that is the limit of what I would change right away.

This!!

There's a lot of similarities between bikes and my days doing track days in cars
People buy a car and upgrade absolutely everything before really learning how to drive

Seat, Grips, Pedals are usually cheap horrible shit and worth upgrading for contact points
Depending on the price level of the bike a lot come with crap tyres so they're worth upgrading as it's your contact point with the ground
In my case the first bike I bought had awful brakes that over-heated so I upgraded them

But beyond that it's more about how you ride and your own skill than anything else

I got stuck with an entry level hardtail emtb because of stock issues - struggled with a lot of the red route downhill stuff. Convinced myself the bike wasn't up to it so upgraded to a carbon full suspension. Still had to walk a section a few weeks back that a guy went down on a gravel bike clipped in.

I'd spend money on tuition now before upgrading parts

 

[Banktramp]

Grips, pedals, tyres.

 

[Pauliemon]

Bars, grips, saddle. After that,...everything.

 

[Manc44]

The cassette, but it's not an upgrade as such, it's just one with a far smaller low sprocket (12-23t as opposed to what came off, an 11-32t) to get smaller gaps between gears. On the flat I'm usually doing about 13 MPH in PAS 2/5 and in the gear 48x16 or 48x15.

The 32t (or even 28t) is totally pointless now I have a motor on. Hills that used to need 22x32 are now climbable in 36x23 with less effort - a lot less! The granny ring is now an ornament - only left on to hold my PAS magnet disc.

Another upgrade was a half twist left throttle because I change gears way more with my right hand. I only use the throttle to set off up hills from traffic lights, then get pedaling and the PAS takes over at which point I let go of the throttle.

 

[lightning]

Well, l changed nothing on my new Kona Remote 160
l certainly wouldn't biff hundreds of pounds on new parts before it was even delivered.

On delivery the bike seemed fine, even the saddle and grips (had to change the grips on my Foxy, as the OE grips were like concrete)

l guess that's the sign of a well thought out bike.

 

[IRideBikes]

largely depends on the bike, but usually, just the seat and make it tubeless. this time with my rise im changing seat, grips, bars/stem, discs for larger ones and a rear tyre insert, just because ive been riding my friends for a while and know what changes id like to make straight off to make it more comfortable for me then after that usually comes wheels because i have this rubbish habit of ruining them lol

 

[Mcharza]

Just 35mm stem and bar, because I don't like them. Too stiff to my ride. Always switch to 31.8mm stem and bar. Usually Spank Vibrocore bar or Renthal alu bar.
Luckily I have them at home because every time I sell my old bike I exchange the originals for them.