Best bike upgrades: Extract more performance and speed from your bike
A select few upgrades can shed significant weight and increase your comfort and performance
We all know that riding a shiny new bike is always a great feeling. Likewise new wheels, or even new bar tape. But beyond the placebo effect of having something new, upgrading your bike can offer genuine performance benefits.
Some offer aero gains, others save weight, others might improve comfort, and if you're really lucky, you might find an upgrade that offers all three. But which are the best?
We’ve collated a list below of what we reckon are the best bike upgrades. Of course, depending what bike you already have, not all will work for you, but upgrades can take a chunk of weight off many bikes, increase your performance, make your ride more comfortable, or simply make it look better.
Although some upgrades can be expensive, some cheap bike upgrades can improve your ride without too much expenditure.
So let’s get on with our choice of the best bike upgrades.
Lighter/more aero wheels
High on most people’s list of upgrades is a new set of wheels. Although potentially expensive, this one makes sense. Many bike brands have upped their wheel game on new bikes, but there are still plenty which come fitted out with penny-pinching wheelsets.
The best lightweight wheels can lower your bike’s weight significantly, while stiffer wheels will can make your bike feel more sprightly.
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Deep section carbon fibre wheels are de rigueur on the latest aero bikes, but again you may not find that your new bike is supplied with the best wheels of optimal depth to deliver the greatest aero benefits and make you faster – or provide that pro look.
In addition, brands put a lot of work into fine-tuning the aerodynamics of aftermarket wheelsets, so you can expect aero gains. With modern wheels, you’ll get a wider internal rim width, which delivers the benefits of wider tyres without the additional weight of nominally wider rubber.
Better tyres
There’s a lot to be gained from an upgrade to the best road bike tyres or best gravel tyres. Tyre makers pour their best tech into their premium tyres, so not only will you maybe save a little weight, but a higher quality tyre will probably have lower rolling resistance.
A better quality tyre may well raise your grip level as well. The best winter tyres like the Continental GP5000 AS TR are made with rubber compounds which are designed to increase traction in wet/cold conditions and offer increased puncture protection. Continental's all-season tyre also has reflective sidewalls for some additional safety when riding in winter gloom.
A comfortable saddle
Saddle comfort is something that is often a problem for riders. There’s no guarantee that the saddle that comes fitted to your bike will be a good shape and fit for you, which is crucial when you’ll be spending so much time sitting on yours.
If your saddle isn’t comfortable, it’s worth searching for one that may improve things. Many saddle brands have a fitting process which can help you to find the ones that might work for you, based on your sit bone width, flexibility and other factors.
Some brands go further and have a range of test saddles available in bike shops, while others offer a money-back guarantee if you find after a few weeks that you don’t get on with it.
If you’ve found the best bike saddle for you, it’s worth considering which grade of saddle to buy. There’s a chunk of weight that can be saved by upgrading your saddle to one with a lighter base and with carbon or light alloy rails, but be aware that the switch to carbon can affect the comfort it offers.
We will also add that a saddle upgrade may not always be the answer to your comfort problems and a more thorough look at your position on the bike, perhaps with a bike fitter may be a better strategy.
Carbon seatpost
If you have an alloy seatpost, another option to save weight at the rear of your bike and maybe add extra comfort is one of the best bike seatposts. Easy to fit, a carbon seatpost should be lighter and more compliant than an alloy post. Don't forget to use carbon gripper paste to avoid slippage and help stop the seatpost from seizing, though.
It’s worth noting however that many modern bikes don’t use a standard round seatpost anymore, so you may be stuck for an upgrade here.
If you suffer from saddle discomfort, a seatpost with added compliance features, such as the Canyon/Ergon VCLS CF or the Redshift ShockStop may help. Gravel riders may want to fit a dropper post if their frame allows so that they can lower their saddle for tricky descents.
New handlebars
Another item that can be uncomfortable is the handlebars. They may be the wrong width for you or have the wrong shape, perhaps with too deep a drop. A standard round handlebar may also not give you a comfortable grip.
There are many upgrade options if you're looking for the best road handlebars or gravel handlebars. A bar with a back sweep may be more comfortable for your arms and shoulders, there are different shapes and depths to the drops and some bars have oval tops which can be more comfortable. Often they are designed to route the cable internally or in a groove, making the grip more comfortable.
As with your seatpost and saddle, carbon is an option to save weight; carbon handlebars are often designed to improve aerodynamics as well and offer a wattage saving over a round bar. A one-piece bar/stem can save even more weight and give your bike the pro look, although at the expense of some adjustability.
One further advantage to swapping to carbon bars is that it conducts heat less readily than alloy bars do, which comes in handy in the winter months.
Inner tube upgrade
The latest TPU inner tubes present a viable alternative to tubeless. They’re a lot more expensive than standard butyl inner tubes, but also a lot lighter. It’s a one-off cost though, unlike tubeless, where you need to add more sealant regularly.
The price of a non-tubeless tyre is usually less than a tubeless tyre and the weight with a TPU inner tube can be less than a tubeless set-up. Some pros were running TPU inner tubes at the Tour de France grand départ in 2023.
Unlike tubeless, there’s no maintenance as long as you don’t get a flat. You can repair a TPU tube though, so your investment should last longer.
Lighter bottles
One of the cheapest upgrades in price per gram saved is to swap to lighter water bottles. The go-to bottle for low weight is the Elite Fly, which is used by many pro teams. While a standard 500ml bottle weighs between 75g and 100g, the Elite Fly weighs just 51g, so a pair will save you between 50g and 100g in weight for a price of less than $20/£20. It’s a lot cheaper than upgrading to carbon bottle cages and will save you as much weight or more.
Unlike the pros, most of us don’t throw our water bottles away when we hit a hill, so it’s not the weight we dispense with when riding, even if we can tip out the contents.
Of course, it’s the contents that matter, so make sure you’re properly hydrated on your ride, as being even slightly dehydrated can make a significant difference to your power output as well as potentially impair your judgement.
New bar tape
Another budget upgrade is fresh bar tape. Most bar tape fitted to new bikes is pretty good nowadays, but if yours isn’t very soft or has seen better days, bar tape is worth replacing with something better quality - check our picks of the best bar tape.
Particularly for gravel bikes, some extra padding on the bars can make your riding more comfortable. The best gravel bar tape is usually thicker than road bike bar tape and designed to provide extra grip, which can be useful, particularly in wet weather. If your hands suffer, gel inserts under the tape can make your ride more comfortable.
Electronic groupset
An electronic groupset can really upgrade your shifting effectiveness from a mechanical system. The best electronic groupsets from Shimano and SRAM include all their top tech and will make woolly shifting a thing of the past.
It’s not just that shifting is crisper, lighter, faster and more precise. Electronic groupsets allow you to set up shifting logic that’s not possible with a mechanical system, such as compensating and sequential shifting. You can also set up satellite shifters on your bars, so you don’t have to use your levers all the time.
Electronic systems offer more drivetrain speeds than all but the top-spec mechanical groupsets and are usually lighter too.
A power meter
If you’re serious about training and racing, a power meter is worth considering. Although these can be pricey, there are a range of cheaper options available, particularly if you’re prepared to sacrifice dual-sided power measurement.
Not only can you follow your power during a ride, but a power meter will provide you with loads of data that you can analyse to track your fitness over time and potentially provide some huge gains. Read our post on how to train with a power meter and our pick of the best power meters to find out more.
Cleaning kit
Keeping your bike clean isn’t just about it looking nice, it also reduces maintenance requirements later on. Although you can just hose it down or use a bucket and sponge, specialist bike cleaning products will help enormously.
A decent set of bike cleaning brushes will allow you to get to places that are hard to clean, like behind the bottom bracket and the wheel hubs. They’ll include brushes specially designed to clean the cassette and derailleur jockey wheels, where gunk can accumulate. Use them with specialist bike cleaning products that are designed to help remove road grime and dirt.
A chain cleaning tool and chain degreaser will also help to keep your drivetrain clean and lower wear.
Finally, many bike polishes are formulated to help prevent dirt and road grime from sticking to your bike.
Quality chain lube
It’s worth investing in one of the best bike chain lubes that’s specifically formulated for bicycles. This will penetrate the chain and help reduce friction and wear between the links. It will also help prevent rust from setting in after you’ve washed your bike and degreased your chain, or if you’ve been riding in wet conditions.
Drivetrains on bikes are pretty expensive these days, and replacing a chain and cassette every season or two due to high wear can be an expensive and frustrating business. If you take some time to research and use the best chain lubricant for your needs you can take advantage of prolonged drivetrain life and hopefully a lowering of drivetrain drag and friction
Regular servicing
To keep your bike running smoothly, it’s important to keep on top of servicing. Many parts wear out quite quickly and others can also deteriorate over time.
The bike’s chain and cassette, in particular, need checking for wear regularly and may need replacing to keep shifting sweet. A chain checker is an inexpensive addition to your toolbox as is a quality chain lubricant as discussed.
Cables can stretch and fray and may need cleaning or replacing. Brake pads can also wear out quickly, particularly when riding in the winter and rim brakes can also wear through alloy wheel rims over time.
A bike fit
As many as half of all riders aren’t riding bikes that are set up optimally, so a bike fit may provide you with enormous benefits. These may come from a more comfortable ride position that reduces aches and pains. You may also be able to ride faster if your leg extension and upper body position are improved.
Compared with the price of many of the upgrades above, a bike fit is small change and it’s something that you can port to a new bike, should you decide to upgrade your whole set-up in future.
Paul has been on two wheels since he was in his teens and he's spent much of the time since writing about bikes and the associated tech. He's a road cyclist at heart but his adventurous curiosity means Paul has been riding gravel since well before it was cool, adapting his cyclo-cross bike to ride all-day off-road epics and putting road kit to the ultimate test along the way. Paul has contributed to Cyclingnews' tech coverage for a few years, helping to maintain the freshness of our buying guides and deals content, as well as writing a number of our voucher code pages.
