Upgrade Time!

[mythste]

Right, for the sake of avoiding the usual responses to such a thread, I'm going to try and word this very carefully.

I have a hypothetical friend, who would like to throw some fun money at his Trek Emonda SL8. Probably about a grand. Because he wants it to look dead cool and be able to tell his riding friends at the cafe stop about how cool his bike is.

As he see's it, there are two obvious options

1. Upgrade the current SRAM RED group to Etap. Electronic shifting is gnarly, dude, and the current RED system is a little fatiguing, especially towards the end of a 70mile 7000ft ride.

2. Upgrade wheels from the current bontrager race wheels. Deep section and carbon? He knows the ladies love that.

So, if you were my hypothetical friend, would you choose option 1? Or option 2? If option 2, which wheels and why? Ignoring my friends pre-conceptions, he's opinion harvesting.

Ta

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Hmmmmm.

 

[mythste]

Hmmmmm.

That's a better reply than I'd expected.

 

[Spiderweb]

Tell your friend he's a womanising show off and a bit of a tit!

 

[mythste]

Tell your friend he's a womanising show off and a bit of a tit!

He's hypothetical, He's impervious to insults.

 

[Nibor]

Tell him to buy an adventure bike with the grand it would make him sub zero cool.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Oh, the etap, definitely. It's got no cables or wires. How cool is that? And you can put little gear changing buttons wherever you like, so you can change gear by scratching your arse. My hypothetical friend sometimes considers money-wasting coolness-oriented exercises and etap is top of his list.

 

[Spiderweb]

He's hypothetical, He's impervious to insults.

So you have a hypothetical friend?
Not dissimilar to an invisible friend which my primary school friend had, he didn't go to the same secondary school as the rest of us!

 

[S-Express]

Buy some coaching, so you can drop your hypothetical friends who have wasted money on pointless 'go-faster' tat when they could have invested it in their physical fitness/performance instead. Nothing cool about being last to the cafe.

 

[mythste]

Buy some coaching, so you can drop your hypothetical friends who have wasted money on pointless 'go-faster' tat when they could have invested it in their physical fitness/performance instead. Nothing cool about being last to the cafe.

Why would I want to drop him? He's my friend.

 

[mythste]

Oh, the etap, definitely. It's got no cables or wires. How cool is that? And you can put little gear changing buttons wherever you like, so you can change gear by scratching your arse. My hypothetical friend sometimes considers money-wasting coolness-oriented exercises and etap is top of his list.

And really, He could flog the existing RED bits and recoup some money to go towards new wheels in the future as well couldn't he... Hmm.

 

[Milkfloat]

I asked my hypothetical friend that knows about these things. Given the tight constraints of the question he chose option 2. However, he also stated that if your friend was fatigued from changing gear, that they should just buy a fixed gear bike and learn to be smug.

Myself - I am worried, that your hypothetical friend could be be the same person as my hypothetical friend and therefore I have a friend that suffers from dissociative identity disorder.

 

[mythste]

I asked my hypothetical friend that knows about these things. Given the tight constraints of the question he chose option 2. However, he also stated that if your friend was fatigued from changing gear, that they should just buy a fixed gear bike and learn to be smug.

Myself - I am worried, that your hypothetical friend could be be the same person as my hypothetical friend and therefore I have a friend that suffers from dissociative identity disorder.

Did he have any opinions on what wheels he would opt for in that budget?

I'll ask him if he knows you, but his response may also be hypothetical.

 

[Milkfloat]

Did he have any opinions on what wheels he would opt for in that budget?

I'll ask him if he knows you, but his response may also be hypothetical.

He is a big fan of Flo wheels - a Flo 90 on the rear and 60 for the front. http://www.flocycling.com/store_cc_front_wheels.php

 

[vickster]

Decent reduction

http://www.sigmasport.co.uk/item/Mavic/R-SYS-SLR-Limited-Edition-Clincher-Wheelset/DTUN

The reviewing MAMILs are happy