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Love Kirroughtree. Ride it 3-4 times a year at least. Black Crags is one of the best descents in the country! Only just come home south after 10 weeks looking after my Mum who lives south of Stranraer. Really hurt not being able/appropriate to ride there.
If you are getting the Trek for free, you could just spend enough to keep it maintained, ride it and that might give you the best idea of what you want to to do to it or whether you want to change it. One thing I would do from the get-go is set the tyres up tubeless. Makes a big improvement to how the bike will ride as well as mean less punctures. Plenty of youtube videos on how to do it and make a Soda-bottle ghetto inflator.
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Agree with others - if it's free, get it rideable and enjoy - but don't spend much. It's unlikely anything that will make a significant performance improvements will be transferable to a new bike. Even with the wheels, any newer frame will have a different wheel size and different axles, so obsolete.
The main thing I'd look to do is get it set-up 1x and ditch the front mech. You can probably do this with just the purchase of a new narrow wide for the front, and then look to see if you need a bigger cassette at the back. I ran a 32 x 11-36 for a while fine. Drop it to a 30 chaining if you want better climbing and you'll only miss out on gearing on long straight descents.
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velosaurus
Scrabble
@Jw89
Bike radar say a great frame worthy of update. Obviously that was a contemporary review but still. I live 5 minutes from Kirroughtree in Scotland which has lots of fast single track, not so much downhill, so I think a priority would be lighter wheels etc. Yeah I'll be giving it a service asap.
Spec:
Brakes Juicy 3
Seat Angle 71.5
Wheelbase (in) 43
Top Tube (in) 23.5
Seat Tube (in) 16
Chainstays (in) 16.75
Bottom Bracket Height (in) 13
Weight (lb) 30.1
Weight (kg) 13.7
Stem Bontrager SSR 100mm
Shifters X.5 trigger
Saddle Bontrager R
Cranks M442
Rims Bontrager Ranger
Rear Wheel Weight 2735
Rear Shock Float RP-2 w/Pro Pedal
Rear Derailleur X5
Head Angle 69
Front Wheel Weight 2110
Front Derailleur Deore
Frame Material Alpha Red Aluminum w/ABP Race
Fork Tora SL w/coil spring 120mm
Tyres Bontrager XDX 2.2in