I just want to say, I think Cade is the most honest and transparent bike channel there is. The original piece on the Triban was perfect and reflects my own view of (quality) entry bikes. They're brilliant, but of course they could be better. *Anything* could be better, but they're good. Elsewhere on YT it feels like if it isn't a Pinarello, Specialized or an Orbea, you're some kind of second rate pauper that needs to re-assess your life choices. This channel is a gem and I hope, that side from having more of Ben in every 'adventure' - because he's a legend, that it doesn't change.
The thing that really strikes me is the absurd prices that companies charge for those with an endless pot of money. £100 for one single bearing is an absolute joke, it doesn't cost that, no matter how much you want to try to argue the case. To highlight, I bought a set of bearings for my ZZR1400 at the start of the year and that only cost £43 for 3 bearings in the set, including stainless steel gaiters, per wheel! That's a total of 6 bearings, built to support 260kg of bike alone, engineered to be able to let the bike do 0-100mph in 5 seconds, all for the price of one XD15 bicycle bearing!! Considering that my new bearings are also about 4 times the size and weight, each, you can see the disgustingly outrageous prices that cyclists are charged.
The argument is also on efficiency, which is achieved through exceptionally precise engineering, the problem is these changes are measurable on a graph and people see that it's better and want it, bikes are so over engineered at this stage it's quite ridiculous, so a £100 bearing is the result of some minor level of watts saved.
@@fewik8567 Show me the graph for the bearing-related watt savings, especially regarding "precision". There's none, there's just theoretical calculations or word-of-mouth. There's also no talk about watt savings over degradation, e.g. ceramic vs steel bearings after half a year. The degradation will always be greater for the ceramic bearings. Ceramic bearings have been invented to be used in industry-grade machinery with RPMs over 20.000. This is where the 0.05 watt savings are coming into play and adding up, but for a low RPM use case such as biking with not even 10% the RPM, bearings aren't even close to being tested to the limit. Maybe a negative take, but IMO the bicycle market is a show-off market in a sustainable-oriented society, where cars aren't "tune-able" and "showe-able" anymore.
@@basti9522 it would be lab testing combined with marketing. All for gains that even the pros probably aren't going to notice. I'd argue that a bigger difference would be made simply by how you happen to feel that day or how bloated and/or hydrated you are that day. It's all marketing to people who will never notice or benefit from it.
And it is universal, across components. For $3500-4000, you could buy carbon wheels for a motorcycle. Then there's suspension. You can upgrade the entire suspension on your Ninja for top tier Ohlins for $2500. There are MTB suspension sets that cost that money, last for 2 days before needing to be rebuilt, and aren't supporting a 300+kg system going 300+km/h. It is absolutely bonkers.
After years of touring on a hybrid with 4 full panniers, I’d been looking for my first, budget road bike for commuting when I saw your glowing review of the Triban RC120. Got it on sale here in Sweden before Decathlon left the country and, having been made aware of its potential for gravel, I went all out on upgrades. In august I did week-long ride on rural gravel, double and occaisionally even single track. Never had so much fun on a bike! Upgrades: - 165mm cranks - 48-32 chainrings + Microshift Acolyte 11/38 cassette + Microshift Marvo RD (gaining one lower granny gear at 7.5 gear inches - without even using a Wolftooth!) - 650B MTB wheels with 40mm gravel tires (I swap them out for the stock 700C road wheels when commuting) - TRP Hy/Rd hydraulic brake calipers - Aluminum mud guards - Rear rack - Suspension seat post + Redshift suspension stem Even with all the upgrades the total cost of this gravel monster was less than 1000 GBP. Thanks for the inspiration! /Patrick PS: There's been a photo in your RateMyRide-inbox for about a month
My RC500 has been given the full Ali Express treatment with Elite Ent carbon wheels, Continental tyres with TPU tubes, lightweight Ali crankset, carbon bars, stem, seat post and seat, plus Ti skewers. It has gone from 10.7kg to 8.6kg. All this has cost around about £470 so considering I bought the bike for £599 I have now got a fantastic bike for just over a grand.
I got a used RC520 about 4 months ago for the steal of ~350 gbp (including Conti GP 4season tyres in 32mm size and shimano spd pedals with flat pedal inserts). I did over 700 km since and the Shimano 105 set has been amazing, the TRP HY/RD brakes do the job well, it's been a great experience so far.
In the middle of pricing out upgrades for my Neo Modern Fusion Chambéry D’Huez(200$ Carbon OCLV Greg LeMond 55 frame 08’ LeMond/Bontrager Carbon Alpe D’Huez fork.) comes out to around $3,790.76 so about 4 Grand of upgrades. Redshift Stem & dual seatpost compliments of Cade media lol, Hunt sprint aero alloy wheels, onyx vesper hubs, wolf tooth headset, new old stock Bontrager 52/42/30 & gonna fiddle with seeing if I can make a 11speed work on a triple crank. Coefficient AR 36mm dropbars & finally Gravel King SSR 28mm tires for stability & grip.
Great point brought up at the end. My 2014 Giant TCX has Post Mount brakes and QR open dropouts, and upgrade options for those are getting limited if you restrict yourself to Shimano and SRAM. For wheels, the best option would be to have them built up for you custom. Novatech and Bitex still make hubs that can convert between QR and through-axle fitments. For brakes, you could bodge Shimano Post Mount MTB calipers and hook them up to your hydraulic-brake STI levers; indeed, the old R785 and RS785 Post Mount brake calipers for road bikes were just rebadged Deore XT M785 units with the banjo bolt swapped out for an inline hose connection.
I've been riding my RC500 for about 3 years now, mostly for commuting. Thanks to some savvy second-hand shopping, it’s now sporting Whyte wheels with 38mm gravel tires, Giant Contact flared bars, and a full Shimano 105 groupset. It rides like a dream especially long distance and touring-though, it’s not a featherweight (but hey, it's far from the worst climber!). I like to think of it as a modern classic
There's an interview with Decathlon where they say that the gravel frame is different to the road frame. The welds are stronger for one thing for the bottle carriers. You can find it online.
The bike the got me back into road cycling 10 years ago was the Btwin Triban 3a. I upgraded the forks to carbon, upgraded the gears, wheels, tyres, saddle, seatpost. It still has the best geometry of any frame have had and is still in use today after 1000’s miles.
This past Spring 2024, I bought an RC520 road bike. This channel made me aware of the decent, inexpensive bike with Shimano 105 components and I just couldn't resist. The stock bike needed a few changes before I fell in love with it, but after I changed the long nose narrow saddle out for the one I'm used to and the stock drop handlebars out for a Redshift clone kitchen sink/top shelf style handlebars (WEERAS drop handlebars) the bike rode great. I also got a stronger 32 hole rear wheel and 11-34 cassette to get a 1-1 granny gear (I'm 100+ kilos and felt I might be breaking spokes on the stock 28 hole wheel) other additions were Redshift Cruise Control Drop Bar grips and after trying the 28 mm tires, I decided to go with Bontrager AW3 32 mm instead. The rear AW3 only lasted about 1,500 miles before I kept getting flats so I just replaced it with a 32 mm Bontrager H2 Hard Case Ultimate. Oh and of course I replaced the pedals with Crank Brothers Candy pedals. I just completed a 160 mile (258 k) ride this past week on the Triban and it's working out really well. Thanks for featuring the RC520 on your channel. At half the cost of a Trek AL5 Domane I am very pleased with it.
I got a pair of entry DT Swiss wheels for my 2016 Giant Defy which is quick release. Even entry level wheelsets from good companies are miles better than stock wheels. The original wheels on the bike, the rear hub broke as I pushed off at a traffic light and I almost chinned the handlebar. So to get me by, I got a very very cheap set of wheels which were noticeably heavy and slow. But after a while I decided to "upgrade" to a decent set of wheels. It made a huge difference! Thankfully DT Swiss has a quick release conversion kit for their hubs, they've been the best upgrade ever and not too expensive at under £200. I recommend anyone who wants to upgrade a cheaper bike, get some good wheels, and they don't have to be expensive ones, just better ones. Also upgraded my mechanical discs to the Tektro hy/rd brakes and while not as good as full hydraulic brakes, a big improvement on purely mechanical disc brakes. And from my bike fit I got a new saddle and narrower handlebars and shorter stem and it feels like a new bike! Just need shorter cranks, but not found one in my budget yet. I'd say I've added £400-500 worth of upgrades and a bike that retailed at £1700, makes a new bike without having to spend new bike money!
QR disc is a right pain when shopping for wheels especially looking at lower end stuff. Even ones that are adaptable often can get obscenely expensive when you need a set of endcaps. Think dt Swiss is about £35 per wheel which adds up.
Not exactly. Look at the Ztto or Koozer wheels from Ali. Around 150 euros per set and are delivered with all adapters for QR and TA. And are pretty light too...
I’m riding a steel frame all-city that came with straight bars, apex 1 and a brutaly uncomfortable saddle. It now has mechanical GRX 820, an SLR boost and zipp 303s and I’m loving life with it!
I have the RC 520 Microshift road bike and I have upgraded the saddle, chain (with hot melt wax treatment), handlebars (to 38 cm alloy ones) and tape, the tires and tubes (to Tubolito S-roads), and finally the wheels (alloy from Scribe). And though I have never ridden a super bike, I think for a beginner-level rider it is a fantastic bike for not that much money.
I just upgraded the wheels on that bike to DtSwiss G1800 and the difference was massive, my Triban came with Shimano 105 11s 11-34 and two praxis sworks chainrings and I'm quite happy. I mounted Pirelli cinturato H and I fly on this bike
Second topic suggestion: You have (a Triban) frameset, and you'd like to use it for road and gravel+packing. Two set of wheels, 100% interchangebility, what to look for? How to do it
About 5yrs ago I bought a 2013 Trek Alpha 1.2 as my first ever road bike and loved it. As time and budget have allowed upgrades it's now only the frame and fork that are left . . . DT Swiss wheels, latex tubes, Vittoria Corsa tires, 11 speed 105 (rim brake), shorter stem and narrower bars (Deda zero 1, thanks bike fit Tuesday!), carbon seat post and fizik carbon saddle. Took 2kg off!!! Just back from Italy where it kept pace (and beat!) Many carbon super bikes. Cost less than a grand to get to this spec including the price of the bike. Super happy with it!!! Bonus feature of all the upgrades, had enough bits left over to build a solid commuter bike too. Only thing is as it's QR and rim brake the bike industry will forget these bikes exist and stop supporting it eventually. Huge shame.
I have done the opposit many years ago. I bought a Decatlhon RR500 and after 1 year I have change the frame and ... amazing bicycle. Many years ago the decatlhon is now a Yeti SB5T and rides like a dream.
well, did not start with a triban, but an 1499€ AL rose pro sl disc, bought in 2018 it was my first step into road biking and building stuff myself, and nothing on that bike, apart from the frame itself is original anymore. it was not 10.000, but more like 5.000-6000€ invested because i did buy some things second hand (like the ultra/dura-ace di2 mix) and i opted for quality chinese (light bicycle) rims with dt swiss hubs instead of 3 times as expensive zipp options (note: dt hubs much much better, and no problem in converting the rear to QR) but i also throw on some more botique weight wheenie stuff like berk saddle and darimo stem and seat post. the bike is totally perfect now the way it is and i never thought about replacing the frame. i happily advice anyone to do the same journey and enjoy the process of choosing parts, learning how to fit them together, and see and feel the difference they make. you also dont need to invest nearly as much to have a big gain. first thing should be tires. then sensible but quick and light wheels. a good flexing seatpost and fitting saddle will greatly transform the ride feel of even the harshest AL frame. from there on, everything else is more like personal tuning and will not make much of a difference individually but can be seen as a nice upgrade to your hobby.
I have a 2015 Trek Emonda ALR that I upgraded to SRAM Force AXS, it is rim brake quick release, so I had to find the shifters that work with rim brake, but everything is standard AXS kit. Its lovely to ride. I recently needed to get some new wheels as my old wheels brake track was shot. I thought my max tire width was 28, however, discovered the Shimano 8100 brakes will accept a 30mm tire. Just a lovely riding bike.
My steel winter bike has disc brakes but post mount and quick release. It feels like I’ve bought beta max and the industry has decided that we are going with VHS. I think this is the winter the frame will be relegated to the shelf for something with flat mount and 12mm through axels, as my winter hack it gets abused and finding decent replacement bits is getting too much faff.
I did a similar thing to a Halfords Carrera Zelos. Bought the frame for 30 quid off eBay. Put on a 105 groupset, carbon bars/seat/stem, and a pair of Ksyrium Elite wheels with Conti 5000's. It rides as well as just about any other decent bike costing 5x the price. OK, it's not as responsive as a carbon race bike, but it's more comfortable on longer rides and it's just as quick (with me pedaling it) as my Ridley Noah. I use it as a winter runaround with mudguards on it. If you have to buy your own bike then £10K+ bikes are just jewellery.
Supple tyres all the way! I'm currently in my journey of exploration to find the supplest (but still affordable and reliable) tyres for every occasion. So far I have Panaracer paselas on my touring and city bikes. Next will be Veloflex corsa evo's for my road bike, but my current tyres are taking very long to wear out.
Tbh the thing they don't tell you about the aerodynamics of a bike is that the frame doesn't have a great amount of impact as the cross sectional area is tiny, when compared to the person riding it. This basically means that the frame you use isn't crazy important, your positioning has more of an impact really. Another thing is that wheels and their spokes create a massive amount of turbulence, so aero wheels actually do help a lot. overall if you put some aero wheels and maybe an aero front fork with less clearance to the tire, you're gonna 90% of the way there.
I used FFWD wheels with some Pirelli tyres set up tubeless, which come with a QR kit included and used the SQ Lab's seat I had kicking around now I have 700c gravel wheels on a RC520 second life bike now I have a super Bike packing / gravel bike /winter bike , which rides well and I'm not too worried about scratches ect. a good video
As a Decathlon fanboy, I'd say just get even the RC 120 then just get whatever Chinese cheap wheels, any version of GP5k, a power meter of any kind, and call it done. Because the other stuff including the shifting system doesn't make you any faster. If you are a beginner you might want to go 10/11/12 speed because that's how you experience sports/performance bikes or you might always want that "in-between" gear as a result of the lack of fitness. But for anyone who has reasonable fitness 8 speed is more than enough. The saddle, handlebar and seat post you should choose those to your fitting purpose instead of the property of those components themselves. You might get a $10000 bike but in the end you still have to changes these things because they just don't fit. Those Triban frames really have a very interesting geometry that is LONG and HIGH. The high is understandable for the fact of most people might need that saddle level with bar position to get started. But the long is really inline/ahead of the current industry trend. By making bike itself longer it becomes more stable by itself. Then we fit it with a short stem, like the 80mm usually came as standard, to negate the fitting issue, and make it more responsive to rider's steering input. This way we have a bike that is stable inherently, but when you give it an input, it's also responsive. This has already happened to the MTB world. Now not only Triban, you'll see a lot of expensive brands are also going this ways that's why we see more and more shorter stems. I think if you find it too high, you can either go for a smaller size frame or use some crazy negative stem like I did with my other bike.
You are wrong. This is NOT same frame as in road version. In GRVL version tire clearance are slightly larger, and reach is longer to avoid toe overlap (this is why stems are shorter in grvl version compared to road one)
A topic suggestion: Supercool lots of quick release system bike owners are here. it would be lovely to have a detailed long video to show us how we can convert our quick release bikes to be able to buy better wheels, etc. Maybe a 4-5 price range upgrade "manual" of you guys? For eg grab this decathlon frame set or RC500, RC520, and ugrade it with 200-500-800-1200-1500+USD worth of wheelset and groupsets? What to look for when switching from Shimano to Sram, back and forth, from 11 speed to 12speed, etcetc. 6-screw to center lock disc brake system, quick-release to through-axle Thank you in advance :)
I love the utter ridiculousness of a project like this. Polishing a turd to the extreme. But I keep thinking of what Greg Lemond said "Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades."
I had an older All City Macho King that I LOVED but let it go because it had post mount brakes, 20mm front axle, qr rear axle. Not future proof and too complicated to upgrade over time.
I have been wonder when the new Addict would come out. I loved mine but it got taken out by a bad driver. I would definitely buy another. Thanks for the video GC!
"These £4,000 Grand Deep Rims are awesome in crosswinds" That's the clincher for me ! 😂 Take it Jimmy's just got back from "Part of the Queue" for No way sis tickets !
Here's one: get the Ozark Trail gravel bike from Walmart shipped over to y'all, and fit it up with 105 Di2 and decent road wheels and decent finishing kit and see how it does.
Have you guys done a 'sweet spot' bike/build vid? I'm a fan of you championing entry level bikes, even then there's items/components to avoid if possible, but as Bike, they will still Bike very effectively. RACING a Bike is a different kettle of sour potatoes for wants & needs. (probably just a talking heads type vid I guess) I'm thinking on two fronts; - Price to performance (+durability/repeated replaceability) likes - Personal feel faves (completely subjective, but still in the realm of bargain type purchases)
3 місяці тому
It's not exactly the same frame as the RC520 Road, which has lower tires clearance and a shorter frame (they say it may cause toe overlap). The SRAM Apex and the Subcompact are gravel evolutions of the road version.
Question just damaged my old rim brake frame, forks fine all equipment good, so try and find a frame or cheap bike and Upgrade or just a modem disc cheers
Could you please touch on the power transfer and stiffness characteristic beacause thats what the only thing that matters in the frame. Accerelation could be slower due to weight or might as well lacking stiffnes in bb area resulting in loss of power transfer? how did it feel when you a tremendous torque. did it flex or went straight ?
Great video!!! Pretty much what I did with my caad 13 frameset 😂 but it was just 6k euro upgrades and it's weight 7.2 kg probably because it's rimbrake
13:22 how did you solve the post mount problem on the frame? If the Frames are identical to the normal RC 520 that would be a problem. At least on my non-gravel RC 520 the brakes are post mount only in the rear, and a post mount with an adapter in the front as well. Makes upgrading to full hydraulics not worth it for me.
Actually grvl520 and rc500 have different frame. The grvl one has wider tires clearance and the brakes are flat mount, the rc has postmount brakes, less clearance and less butted bolt
Just checked, pretty much worldwide, Triban RC520 (road version) with about 36-38mm tire clearance. Is out of stock, atleast from their sites, in all sizes or most. UK, FR, IN, US Something is definitely worng! I have been waiting from past 8 months to get it here in India in size S. But theres only 1 in size L. @decathlon wonder what they are planning on.
Don't look for Triban as décathlon is stopping the brand to only use the brand van rijsel for the road and gravel. That's why the stock are lowering before their start the rebranding
@@hman72y thats a interesting insight. I wonder how long do I have to wait for their rebranded line up. Where i was thinking to get RC520, which costs about 1400$ in indian value. Im having to look for bikes like Speedster 10 or domane AL5 for that 105 groupset, and spiked up budget to 2500$, in indian value. i have been really patient. I did consider merida scultura 400 dsc which costs around 1800 here.., but it dont have tire clearance of more than 30c. bummer!! i think next financial year should be new with the rebranded triban launches.
Cross winds: My 57mm deep carbon Scope wheels are easily better than my 32mm deep alloy DT Swiss wheels in the cross winds. So much so that I'll probably not switch them back in the winter.
Completely unrelated but Nick, I found your brother from another mother, bizarrely enough he works for Ingrid components and pops up on the ’Path less pedaled’ youtube channel, on the series of videos about the MADE show in America. Check out the one about accessories, the likeness is uncanny!
Now do pinarello dogma f frame with triban parts and compare ride feel.
Haha that would be great
Yes do that!
Do it Cade media or Jimmi is a pumpkin 🎃
Jimmi! Jimmi! Jimmi! 😅
omg yassss
I just want to say, I think Cade is the most honest and transparent bike channel there is. The original piece on the Triban was perfect and reflects my own view of (quality) entry bikes. They're brilliant, but of course they could be better. *Anything* could be better, but they're good.
Elsewhere on YT it feels like if it isn't a Pinarello, Specialized or an Orbea, you're some kind of second rate pauper that needs to re-assess your life choices.
This channel is a gem and I hope, that side from having more of Ben in every 'adventure' - because he's a legend, that it doesn't change.
The thing that really strikes me is the absurd prices that companies charge for those with an endless pot of money. £100 for one single bearing is an absolute joke, it doesn't cost that, no matter how much you want to try to argue the case. To highlight, I bought a set of bearings for my ZZR1400 at the start of the year and that only cost £43 for 3 bearings in the set, including stainless steel gaiters, per wheel! That's a total of 6 bearings, built to support 260kg of bike alone, engineered to be able to let the bike do 0-100mph in 5 seconds, all for the price of one XD15 bicycle bearing!! Considering that my new bearings are also about 4 times the size and weight, each, you can see the disgustingly outrageous prices that cyclists are charged.
The argument is also on efficiency, which is achieved through exceptionally precise engineering, the problem is these changes are measurable on a graph and people see that it's better and want it, bikes are so over engineered at this stage it's quite ridiculous, so a £100 bearing is the result of some minor level of watts saved.
@@fewik8567 Show me the graph for the bearing-related watt savings, especially regarding "precision". There's none, there's just theoretical calculations or word-of-mouth. There's also no talk about watt savings over degradation, e.g. ceramic vs steel bearings after half a year. The degradation will always be greater for the ceramic bearings.
Ceramic bearings have been invented to be used in industry-grade machinery with RPMs over 20.000. This is where the 0.05 watt savings are coming into play and adding up, but for a low RPM use case such as biking with not even 10% the RPM, bearings aren't even close to being tested to the limit.
Maybe a negative take, but IMO the bicycle market is a show-off market in a sustainable-oriented society, where cars aren't "tune-able" and "showe-able" anymore.
@@basti9522 it would be lab testing combined with marketing. All for gains that even the pros probably aren't going to notice. I'd argue that a bigger difference would be made simply by how you happen to feel that day or how bloated and/or hydrated you are that day. It's all marketing to people who will never notice or benefit from it.
The high quality NTN bearings that a controversial UA-camr recommends are about 8 EUR per piece
And it is universal, across components. For $3500-4000, you could buy carbon wheels for a motorcycle. Then there's suspension. You can upgrade the entire suspension on your Ninja for top tier Ohlins for $2500. There are MTB suspension sets that cost that money, last for 2 days before needing to be rebuilt, and aren't supporting a 300+kg system going 300+km/h. It is absolutely bonkers.
After years of touring on a hybrid with 4 full panniers, I’d been looking for my first, budget road bike for commuting when I saw your glowing review of the Triban RC120. Got it on sale here in Sweden before Decathlon left the country and, having been made aware of its potential for gravel, I went all out on upgrades. In august I did week-long ride on rural gravel, double and occaisionally even single track. Never had so much fun on a bike!
Upgrades:
- 165mm cranks
- 48-32 chainrings + Microshift Acolyte 11/38 cassette + Microshift Marvo RD (gaining one lower granny gear at 7.5 gear inches - without even using a Wolftooth!)
- 650B MTB wheels with 40mm gravel tires (I swap them out for the stock 700C road wheels when commuting)
- TRP Hy/Rd hydraulic brake calipers
- Aluminum mud guards
- Rear rack
- Suspension seat post + Redshift suspension stem
Even with all the upgrades the total cost of this gravel monster was less than 1000 GBP. Thanks for the inspiration!
/Patrick
PS: There's been a photo in your RateMyRide-inbox for about a month
Thanks for sharing
I want to see it now.
Yo post some pics
How is the clearance with the 650b 40mm tires?
@@saikat0511 Clearance is clearance. 😂
@@tomahoks Yeah try riding gravel with 2mm gap 🙄
11:50 Now you need to make a video of a Pinarello Dogma F with Shimano Claris 2x8. PLEEEEEEEEEASEEEEE 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
actualllyyyy yeah
That would be good but I think they would have to buy a frame for that. Can't do that with a borrowed bike.
My 520 is 8.7kg! Lots of Ali and cheap Prime wheels. Happy to show ya lol
My RC500 has been given the full Ali Express treatment with Elite Ent carbon wheels, Continental tyres with TPU tubes, lightweight Ali crankset, carbon bars, stem, seat post and seat, plus Ti skewers. It has gone from 10.7kg to 8.6kg. All this has cost around about £470 so considering I bought the bike for £599 I have now got a fantastic bike for just over a grand.
Do you have the links for these parts? Not sure which seller to buy from. I have a 520 I want to upgrade, too
I've done exactly the same, plus an extra set of elite carbon gravel wheels with some 40mm pirelli cinturatos for when I want to go off road
Albeit mines the RC520, think it's pretty much the same bike
Same as everyone ! I want to upgrade my 520, please give us the links of everythings !
Yeah bro share the sauce
I got a used RC520 about 4 months ago for the steal of ~350 gbp (including Conti GP 4season tyres in 32mm size and shimano spd pedals with flat pedal inserts). I did over 700 km since and the Shimano 105 set has been amazing, the TRP HY/RD brakes do the job well, it's been a great experience so far.
In the middle of pricing out upgrades for my Neo Modern Fusion Chambéry D’Huez(200$ Carbon OCLV Greg LeMond 55 frame 08’ LeMond/Bontrager Carbon Alpe D’Huez fork.) comes out to around $3,790.76 so about 4 Grand of upgrades. Redshift Stem & dual seatpost compliments of Cade media lol, Hunt sprint aero alloy wheels, onyx vesper hubs, wolf tooth headset, new old stock Bontrager 52/42/30 & gonna fiddle with seeing if I can make a 11speed work on a triple crank. Coefficient AR 36mm dropbars & finally Gravel King SSR 28mm tires for stability & grip.
Great point brought up at the end. My 2014 Giant TCX has Post Mount brakes and QR open dropouts, and upgrade options for those are getting limited if you restrict yourself to Shimano and SRAM. For wheels, the best option would be to have them built up for you custom. Novatech and Bitex still make hubs that can convert between QR and through-axle fitments. For brakes, you could bodge Shimano Post Mount MTB calipers and hook them up to your hydraulic-brake STI levers; indeed, the old R785 and RS785 Post Mount brake calipers for road bikes were just rebadged Deore XT M785 units with the banjo bolt swapped out for an inline hose connection.
I've been riding my RC500 for about 3 years now, mostly for commuting. Thanks to some savvy second-hand shopping, it’s now sporting Whyte wheels with 38mm gravel tires, Giant Contact flared bars, and a full Shimano 105 groupset. It rides like a dream especially long distance and touring-though, it’s not a featherweight (but hey, it's far from the worst climber!). I like to think of it as a modern classic
There's an interview with Decathlon where they say that the gravel frame is different to the road frame. The welds are stronger for one thing for the bottle carriers. You can find it online.
I may be wrong, but I thought Francis said they were the same in geometry.
The bike the got me back into road cycling 10 years ago was the Btwin Triban 3a. I upgraded the forks to carbon, upgraded the gears, wheels, tyres, saddle, seatpost. It still has the best geometry of any frame have had and is still in use today after 1000’s miles.
And nowadays even the cheap triban bikes have carbon forks as standard
Bloody hell that’s a full bike
Roval Rapid and Enve 3.4 or 4.5 will transform any bike to a super bike.
This past Spring 2024, I bought an RC520 road bike. This channel made me aware of the decent, inexpensive bike with Shimano 105 components and I just couldn't resist. The stock bike needed a few changes before I fell in love with it, but after I changed the long nose narrow saddle out for the one I'm used to and the stock drop handlebars out for a Redshift clone kitchen sink/top shelf style handlebars (WEERAS drop handlebars) the bike rode great. I also got a stronger 32 hole rear wheel and 11-34 cassette to get a 1-1 granny gear (I'm 100+ kilos and felt I might be breaking spokes on the stock 28 hole wheel) other additions were Redshift Cruise Control Drop Bar grips and after trying the 28 mm tires, I decided to go with Bontrager AW3 32 mm instead. The rear AW3 only lasted about 1,500 miles before I kept getting flats so I just replaced it with a 32 mm Bontrager H2 Hard Case Ultimate. Oh and of course I replaced the pedals with Crank Brothers Candy pedals. I just completed a 160 mile (258 k) ride this past week on the Triban and it's working out really well. Thanks for featuring the RC520 on your channel. At half the cost of a Trek AL5 Domane I am very pleased with it.
I did the exact same thing my 520 Only with cheaper Aliexpress parts. Still a fantastic bike. I can send a picture if you want ;)
which bars and wheels did you buy?
You should make a video detailing the parts, how much they weigh and cost, and explaining if some parts were a struggle to fit! would be interesting.
Same here.
Would be interesting to see how they fitted brake calipers :)
"Ali boma ye!"
"Ali boma ye!"
I got a pair of entry DT Swiss wheels for my 2016 Giant Defy which is quick release. Even entry level wheelsets from good companies are miles better than stock wheels.
The original wheels on the bike, the rear hub broke as I pushed off at a traffic light and I almost chinned the handlebar. So to get me by, I got a very very cheap set of wheels which were noticeably heavy and slow. But after a while I decided to "upgrade" to a decent set of wheels. It made a huge difference!
Thankfully DT Swiss has a quick release conversion kit for their hubs, they've been the best upgrade ever and not too expensive at under £200. I recommend anyone who wants to upgrade a cheaper bike, get some good wheels, and they don't have to be expensive ones, just better ones.
Also upgraded my mechanical discs to the Tektro hy/rd brakes and while not as good as full hydraulic brakes, a big improvement on purely mechanical disc brakes.
And from my bike fit I got a new saddle and narrower handlebars and shorter stem and it feels like a new bike! Just need shorter cranks, but not found one in my budget yet.
I'd say I've added £400-500 worth of upgrades and a bike that retailed at £1700, makes a new bike without having to spend new bike money!
What wheels exactly did you get?? Looking to upgrade my wheels but don’t want to spend too much
@@ChapatiMan DT Swiss P1800 the 32mm deep wheels
QR disc is a right pain when shopping for wheels especially looking at lower end stuff. Even ones that are adaptable often can get obscenely expensive when you need a set of endcaps. Think dt Swiss is about £35 per wheel which adds up.
pre built wheels are a scam, learn to build your wheels
Have a look at Scribe wheels. They have good compatibility and reasonably priced wheels.
Not exactly. Look at the Ztto or Koozer wheels from Ali. Around 150 euros per set and are delivered with all adapters for QR and TA. And are pretty light too...
Love this. Looking at my Triban RC500 differently now.
I’m riding a steel frame all-city that came with straight bars, apex 1 and a brutaly uncomfortable saddle. It now has mechanical GRX 820, an SLR boost and zipp 303s and I’m loving life with it!
10,000 pounds of upgrades on a Triban? That is so wrong.
And so good.
And it made sod all difference
I have the RC 520 Microshift road bike and I have upgraded the saddle, chain (with hot melt wax treatment), handlebars (to 38 cm alloy ones) and tape, the tires and tubes (to Tubolito S-roads), and finally the wheels (alloy from Scribe). And though I have never ridden a super bike, I think for a beginner-level rider it is a fantastic bike for not that much money.
I've been waiting 3 months for my Scribe Race-D's for my RC520 after the ship they were on had to go around the coast of Africa. Can't wait!
I just upgraded the wheels on that bike to DtSwiss G1800 and the difference was massive, my Triban came with Shimano 105 11s 11-34 and two praxis sworks chainrings and I'm quite happy. I mounted Pirelli cinturato H and I fly on this bike
Second topic suggestion: You have (a Triban) frameset, and you'd like to use it for road and gravel+packing.
Two set of wheels, 100% interchangebility, what to look for? How to do it
Ah yes, the weather where you work never disappoints. It is always bad. I always enjoy the road tests in the bad weather.
About 5yrs ago I bought a 2013 Trek Alpha 1.2 as my first ever road bike and loved it. As time and budget have allowed upgrades it's now only the frame and fork that are left . . .
DT Swiss wheels, latex tubes, Vittoria Corsa tires, 11 speed 105 (rim brake), shorter stem and narrower bars (Deda zero 1, thanks bike fit Tuesday!), carbon seat post and fizik carbon saddle. Took 2kg off!!!
Just back from Italy where it kept pace (and beat!) Many carbon super bikes. Cost less than a grand to get to this spec including the price of the bike. Super happy with it!!!
Bonus feature of all the upgrades, had enough bits left over to build a solid commuter bike too.
Only thing is as it's QR and rim brake the bike industry will forget these bikes exist and stop supporting it eventually. Huge shame.
On rim brake road bikes, it is 130mm at the back. Not 135.
Great video ! How did you manage to do cable routing for hydraulic brakes while the frame is made for a mechanical brake system?
I have done the opposit many years ago. I bought a Decatlhon RR500 and after 1 year I have change the frame and ... amazing bicycle. Many years ago the decatlhon is now a Yeti SB5T and rides like a dream.
Can not wait for producer Emily to return and watch the first episode after for her comments on this project!
That air pump under the top tube was the cherry on top. This bike is on point. Fresh!
Wait, what world are we living in where _Jimmi_ is allegedly the responsible one in the group?
well, did not start with a triban, but an 1499€ AL rose pro sl disc, bought in 2018 it was my first step into road biking and building stuff myself, and nothing on that bike, apart from the frame itself is original anymore. it was not 10.000, but more like 5.000-6000€ invested because i did buy some things second hand (like the ultra/dura-ace di2 mix) and i opted for quality chinese (light bicycle) rims with dt swiss hubs instead of 3 times as expensive zipp options (note: dt hubs much much better, and no problem in converting the rear to QR) but i also throw on some more botique weight wheenie stuff like berk saddle and darimo stem and seat post. the bike is totally perfect now the way it is and i never thought about replacing the frame. i happily advice anyone to do the same journey and enjoy the process of choosing parts, learning how to fit them together, and see and feel the difference they make. you also dont need to invest nearly as much to have a big gain. first thing should be tires. then sensible but quick and light wheels. a good flexing seatpost and fitting saddle will greatly transform the ride feel of even the harshest AL frame. from there on, everything else is more like personal tuning and will not make much of a difference individually but can be seen as a nice upgrade to your hobby.
I have a 2015 Trek Emonda ALR that I upgraded to SRAM Force AXS, it is rim brake quick release, so I had to find the shifters that work with rim brake, but everything is standard AXS kit. Its lovely to ride. I recently needed to get some new wheels as my old wheels brake track was shot. I thought my max tire width was 28, however, discovered the Shimano 8100 brakes will accept a 30mm tire. Just a lovely riding bike.
My steel winter bike has disc brakes but post mount and quick release. It feels like I’ve bought beta max and the industry has decided that we are going with VHS. I think this is the winter the frame will be relegated to the shelf for something with flat mount and 12mm through axels, as my winter hack it gets abused and finding decent replacement bits is getting too much faff.
Don’t worry, do your thing! All the best👊
I did a similar thing to a Halfords Carrera Zelos. Bought the frame for 30 quid off eBay. Put on a 105 groupset, carbon bars/seat/stem, and a pair of Ksyrium Elite wheels with Conti 5000's. It rides as well as just about any other decent bike costing 5x the price. OK, it's not as responsive as a carbon race bike, but it's more comfortable on longer rides and it's just as quick (with me pedaling it) as my Ridley Noah. I use it as a winter runaround with mudguards on it. If you have to buy your own bike then £10K+ bikes are just jewellery.
Supple tyres all the way! I'm currently in my journey of exploration to find the supplest (but still affordable and reliable) tyres for every occasion. So far I have Panaracer paselas on my touring and city bikes. Next will be Veloflex corsa evo's for my road bike, but my current tyres are taking very long to wear out.
Tbh the thing they don't tell you about the aerodynamics of a bike is that the frame doesn't have a great amount of impact as the cross sectional area is tiny, when compared to the person riding it.
This basically means that the frame you use isn't crazy important, your positioning has more of an impact really.
Another thing is that wheels and their spokes create a massive amount of turbulence, so aero wheels actually do help a lot.
overall if you put some aero wheels and maybe an aero front fork with less clearance to the tire, you're gonna 90% of the way there.
The bit where you were looking for the other tyre. I watched it over and over, and it just got funnier every time 😂
My RC500 has a carbon seatpost, 35mm tyres for road trip.
This is absolutely brilliant!
MY GOD that was an entertaining video. Great job guys.
Purely from the esthetic point of view, the main difference is done by high profile rims and internal cable routing.
I used FFWD wheels with some Pirelli tyres set up tubeless, which come with a QR kit included and used the SQ Lab's seat I had kicking around now I have 700c gravel wheels on a RC520 second life bike now I have a super Bike packing / gravel bike /winter bike , which rides well and I'm not too worried about scratches ect. a good video
As a Decathlon fanboy, I'd say just get even the RC 120 then just get whatever Chinese cheap wheels, any version of GP5k, a power meter of any kind, and call it done. Because the other stuff including the shifting system doesn't make you any faster. If you are a beginner you might want to go 10/11/12 speed because that's how you experience sports/performance bikes or you might always want that "in-between" gear as a result of the lack of fitness. But for anyone who has reasonable fitness 8 speed is more than enough. The saddle, handlebar and seat post you should choose those to your fitting purpose instead of the property of those components themselves. You might get a $10000 bike but in the end you still have to changes these things because they just don't fit. Those Triban frames really have a very interesting geometry that is LONG and HIGH. The high is understandable for the fact of most people might need that saddle level with bar position to get started. But the long is really inline/ahead of the current industry trend. By making bike itself longer it becomes more stable by itself. Then we fit it with a short stem, like the 80mm usually came as standard, to negate the fitting issue, and make it more responsive to rider's steering input. This way we have a bike that is stable inherently, but when you give it an input, it's also responsive. This has already happened to the MTB world. Now not only Triban, you'll see a lot of expensive brands are also going this ways that's why we see more and more shorter stems. I think if you find it too high, you can either go for a smaller size frame or use some crazy negative stem like I did with my other bike.
You are wrong. This is NOT same frame as in road version. In GRVL version tire clearance are slightly larger, and reach is longer to avoid toe overlap (this is why stems are shorter in grvl version compared to road one)
Yes, more upgrade comparison videos!
A topic suggestion: Supercool lots of quick release system bike owners are here. it would be lovely to have a detailed long video to show us how we can convert our quick release bikes to be able to buy better wheels, etc.
Maybe a 4-5 price range upgrade "manual" of you guys? For eg grab this decathlon frame set or RC500, RC520, and ugrade it with 200-500-800-1200-1500+USD worth of wheelset and groupsets?
What to look for when switching from Shimano to Sram, back and forth, from 11 speed to 12speed, etcetc.
6-screw to center lock disc brake system, quick-release to through-axle
Thank you in advance :)
I start to get Top Gear vibe near the end of the video, which isn't a bad thing. Well done to all of you. I laughed out loud 🎉🎉🎉
I think someone should say it: all this top line bike parts lying around in bins reminds me of a certain GCN presenter! ;) Great video!
The reality is that this is a great frame. So this kind of makes sense to me
I love the utter ridiculousness of a project like this. Polishing a turd to the extreme.
But I keep thinking of what Greg Lemond said "Don't buy upgrades. Ride up grades."
Anyone else find the sound of tubeless tires snapping into the bead the most satisfying sound ever?
It would actually be an interesting experiment, to figure out how important frames / components are!
Video about me and my Triban gravel bike!
Any video with Nic is...a great video 😂
I have just bought this bike on market place. Can not wait to change a few things on it.
I had an older All City Macho King that I LOVED but let it go because it had post mount brakes, 20mm front axle, qr rear axle. Not future proof and too complicated to upgrade over time.
Quality vid, loved the weird shots and fun edit!
I have been wonder when the new Addict would come out. I loved mine but it got taken out by a bad driver. I would definitely buy another. Thanks for the video GC!
Huge Respect Cade Media
👌👌🤙🤙👍👍
Jimis entrance was great 😂😂😂😂
@ 12:07, I can feel a bike wheel giveaway coming on 😉😉😃
Best video in a while!
I wanna know how post-mount calipers are considered rare. They're still plenty from the MTB side of things because it's still their standard.
Love this kinda stuff!
The CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG portion was so well executed. The bike is ridiculous, but that's the point right?
Love the MashSF shirt Nick. Fixed gear gang.
Regarding post mount calipers - you could just use MTB caliper since post mount is the standard there.
"These £4,000 Grand Deep Rims are awesome in crosswinds"
That's the clincher for me ! 😂
Take it Jimmy's just got back from "Part of the Queue" for
No way sis tickets !
Here's one: get the Ozark Trail gravel bike from Walmart shipped over to y'all, and fit it up with 105 Di2 and decent road wheels and decent finishing kit and see how it does.
Quarq spider power meter + Garmin power meter pedals = twice the power! The dentist way to double FTP w/o training.
Have you guys done a 'sweet spot' bike/build vid?
I'm a fan of you championing entry level bikes, even then there's items/components to avoid if possible, but as Bike, they will still Bike very effectively. RACING a Bike is a different kettle of sour potatoes for wants & needs.
(probably just a talking heads type vid I guess)
I'm thinking on two fronts;
- Price to performance (+durability/repeated replaceability) likes
- Personal feel faves (completely subjective, but still in the realm of bargain type purchases)
It's not exactly the same frame as the RC520 Road, which has lower tires clearance and a shorter frame (they say it may cause toe overlap). The SRAM Apex and the Subcompact are gravel evolutions of the road version.
You got yourself a top of the range bike with a frame that will outlive you, it won't snap no matter how hard you run, unlike plastic ones
You should get together with Alex from GCN Tech and his orange Pinarello Restomod.
Fantastic video. Everything looks better deep section wheels.
Doesn’t matter what the bike is, Jimmy is always to find anything harsh when climbing lol 😂
Surprisingly, my £250 elite wheels have qr adapters available which was a cool upgrade for my old boardman cx bike.
Congratulations, you have become GCN.
My 2010 Merida Scultura with full Dura Ace group, and Reynolds carbon wheels cost me $1500 aussie dollars and weighs bang on 7.5kg!
Question just damaged my old rim brake frame, forks fine all equipment good, so try and find a frame or cheap bike and Upgrade or just a modem disc cheers
You two are hilarious, more of these videos 😂
Could you please touch on the power transfer and stiffness characteristic beacause thats what the only thing that matters in the frame. Accerelation could be slower due to weight or might as well lacking stiffnes in bb area resulting in loss of power transfer? how did it feel when you a tremendous torque. did it flex or went straight ?
I've been riding a bike I paid £95 for second hand about ten years ago, good to know I could have (almost) bought a single wheel bearing instead.
Bit of a random one, what width is your wedding ring 3:22 ? Is it 3mm? I need to buy mine and not sure on the size! Top video as always 🚲
Great video!!! Pretty much what I did with my caad 13 frameset 😂 but it was just 6k euro upgrades and it's weight 7.2 kg probably because it's rimbrake
Now it needs a decal that says Ten Band 💵
Have you guys ever upgraded a front dual pivot break to a cable actuated disc break and is it worth it?
13:22 how did you solve the post mount problem on the frame? If the Frames are identical to the normal RC 520 that would be a problem.
At least on my non-gravel RC 520 the brakes are post mount only in the rear, and a post mount with an adapter in the front as well. Makes upgrading to full hydraulics not worth it for me.
Why? You can use any of hydraulic Shimano MTB caliper. It worka no problem with 105 shifters
The 520 GRVL is flat mount on the rear and front 😅
Actually grvl520 and rc500 have different frame. The grvl one has wider tires clearance and the brakes are flat mount, the rc has postmount brakes, less clearance and less butted bolt
That comment “need the dogma F.” 😂😂😂
8:04 Now looks like built for the moon landing or sth. 🙂
Just checked, pretty much worldwide, Triban RC520 (road version) with about 36-38mm tire clearance. Is out of stock, atleast from their sites, in all sizes or most. UK, FR, IN, US
Something is definitely worng! I have been waiting from past 8 months to get it here in India in size S. But theres only 1 in size L.
@decathlon wonder what they are planning on.
Don't look for Triban as décathlon is stopping the brand to only use the brand van rijsel for the road and gravel.
That's why the stock are lowering before their start the rebranding
@@hman72y thats a interesting insight. I wonder how long do I have to wait for their rebranded line up. Where i was thinking to get RC520, which costs about 1400$ in indian value. Im having to look for bikes like Speedster 10 or domane AL5 for that 105 groupset, and spiked up budget to 2500$, in indian value. i have been really patient. I did consider merida scultura 400 dsc which costs around 1800 here.., but it dont have tire clearance of more than 30c. bummer!! i think next financial year should be new with the rebranded triban launches.
Great video, big enjoy!
How did you guys manage to put a thru axle for the rear wheel? And do you recomend it to upgrade some older generation bikes?
Cross winds: My 57mm deep carbon Scope wheels are easily better than my 32mm deep alloy DT Swiss wheels in the cross winds. So much so that I'll probably not switch them back in the winter.
Completely unrelated but Nick, I found your brother from another mother, bizarrely enough he works for Ingrid components and pops up on the ’Path less pedaled’ youtube channel, on the series of videos about the MADE show in America. Check out the one about accessories, the likeness is uncanny!
Who needs the right parts when you have a lathe and a milling machine ;-)