Felt F95 Road Bike - Upgrades or Upgrade?

[nathb]

Hello,

So I bought a Felt F95 in September for £365 as an entry into the road cycling world.

Since then I've done over 600 miles on it and I'm truly enjoying this sport. I've only just fitted SPD's to it last week and did a 50 mile cycle without falling off.
I'm finding the wheels to be a bit cumbersome/heavy?

Here's the bike:

Now my question is: Would you upgrade the components or save up for a better bike for next year? (is it pointless upgrading this bike due to the limitations of the frame (weight for instance)?)

Component upgrades wise I was looking at:
- Mavic aksium (or similar) wheelset = circa £150 new
- 105 - 5800 groupset = circa £285-£300 new
(obviously happy to upgrade to second hand parts)

Bike upgrade wise:
- Ribble Gran fondo/Pro evo carbon ultegra bikes are circa £1k at the moment

Thanks in advance

 

[EarlofBarnet]

Wheels and tyres will make a big difference. I'm sure I picked my Askiums up from merlin for £125 without tyres. Bargain for nice wheels.

I'm not sure if go to the extent of changing the groupset on it. Giant do a fully 105 Defy for £900 and the bike in general should be better specced as well as the groupset.

If I was you I'd keep the Felt as a winter bike and look at getting a £800-£1000 bike. You should be able to get a carbon 105 equipped bike for that.

 

[hamster]

I'd only buy things well worth transferring onto a new bike. Aksiums are a decent wheel but are almost impossible to repair after the spokes start to go. I'd look for a set of wheels at £250+ or forget about it - the improvement will be minimal.

It's a decent bike, its light and has decent kit. Frankly I'd run it for a year or two until you have tried a few different types of ride and can then zero in on what you want it for: time trials, racing, audax, sportives, light touring, day rides etc etc. Then you will be able to buy something that really suits you. The Felt will be a really good winter bike regardless of which way you go. 600 miles is not much to get used to any bike.

For a cheap simple upgrade of the wheels, buy lighter tyres.

 

[nathb]

Cheers for the responses guys!

I found this:

So I'm going to use the opportunity to upgrade from rigid 23s to folding 25s.

 

[hamster]

You'll get loads like that on almost any road tyre, provided it's not cut the carcass threads it's fine to continue. Stick them up with superglue!

 

[nathb]

You'll get loads like that on almost any road tyre, provided it's not cut the carcass threads it's fine to continue. Stick them up with superglue!

Cheers.

I actually decided to use the opportunity to upgrade my tyres to see if they transformed the bike.

I have gone with Vittoria Rubino 3 slicks.

I also managed to source a rear wheel for use exclusively with the turbo trainer, so the old tyres will not go to waste.

 

[nathb]

I decided to do a little bit of upgrading to this bike...

To start with my bike weighed 10.3kg

Tyres - Swapped Zaffiro Slick to Rubino Pro Slicks - (280g)
Chainset - FSA Tempo swapped for Shimano 105 5800 - (436g)
Cassette - Sunrace 11-25 for Shimano Tiagra 11-25 - (54g) (only upgraded due to needing a cassette for the turbo trainer)
Total = (770g)
New bike weight = 9.53kg


Possible future upgrades:
Wheels - a set weighing 1600g would save 461g
Skewers - ti skewers weighing 48g would save 74g

I'm sure there is more things I could save weight on too without going silly.. but the above would bring the bike down to 8.995kg

 

[cce]

stems and seatposts on these cheaper bikes tend to be pretty heavy

 

[nathb]

stems and seatposts on these cheaper bikes tend to be pretty heavy

I think they've used the same ones as their more expensive ranges (non carbon).

The ones fitted are:
Stem: Felt SuperLite, +/-7° rise, Ø31.8mm 110mm
Seat Post: Felt SuperLite Road, Ø27.2mm, 300mm length

I've not thought to weigh them yet, and google isn't being much use.

I'm thinking the seatpost is probably around 320g and the stem around 140g.

Using:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Felt-SL-Superli ... 5d56d332dd
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Felt-Superlite- ... 2edf054304

 

[EarlofBarnet]

Plenty to loose on seatpost then. Stem seems pretty lean though. Carbon seatpost could loose 120g off the weights you've quoted, for little money. Make things a bit comfier too.

Good weight loss so far!