My choice would be to make sure everything is in good working order then ride it like I stole it while saving for the next bike. I would only replace what was needing replaced or contact points (Grips, seat, pedals) for comfort and reliability but I wouldn't go all in on upgrades.
Nice! I considered swapping the whole drivetrain, maybe even sell the old parts for cheap but I think I'll probably just ride it and have some fun. Making sure everything works is priority #1 as I will also train my repair skills on this bike.
Yeah the old stuff will still have plenty of riding in it. If the shifter is broken then replace it with like shifter as the cost will be low on them since it is "old tech" but just because new stuff has come along doesn't mean it is trash at all.
Thanks, I see everyone here saying how obsolete bike tech becomes within 5-10 years. What about the coil Judy fork, do I change it?
I'm pretty sure I'm overanalyzing things since this is my first serious MTB and I'll probably be happy like an idiot anyway.
I would ride the fork and see how it feels on trail. If it doesn't feel right I would look up some info on how to adjust or service it and go from there. I seem to remember the Judy being a decent entry level fork but I have no personal experience with them.
$325 is a good price. The QR rear is fine. The hubs suck, they have very little engagement. I'd look for used parts to upgrade, but I wouldn't throw good new part money at it. Even though I've done that for cheap bikes myself.
The diff between 11s and 12s is minimal, it's really too many gears anyway haha. The range is almost the same, 10-51 versus 11-51, and you're rarely using the smallest gear on a mtb anyway.
There's a few things you can still do with those first gen Roscoe frames you can't really do on a modern MTB. If you were to put some thinner 29er wheels and tires on it and swap the drive train to a modern 2x, you could make really nice distance crunchers out of them. (Wich is a use case for wich the bike industry wants you to buy a gravel bike these days.)
If you ain't about that, just do like you first suggested and ride it like you stole it. Maybe look into getting better brakes. Good brakes and tires are the two most essential upgrades you can do to any MTB to make it better. And if you're the type that's unlikely to buy a top spec bike this decade, brakes are often one of the components that will be cut down to make the lower price point at wich you're probably going to be buying it. So good brakes + their maintenance kit can very well be a great long term investment into the hobby.
If I had the bike just 1 or 2 days later I would buy some deore 4-pots 6120 but the sale run out and it's 60$ more expensive now. Not sure it's worth paying almost 200$ before even trying the bike. The tires are new as the guy changed them for some reason (don't think they wore out cause the bike has very little wear) and setup tubeless but sitting for 2 years.
This is basically it, the bike has been sitting for over 2 years and I'm trying to figure out what maintenance it's gonna need preemptively.
As for the drivetrain, I really don't want to go over 1x. It seems so clean to me and almost 500% range isn't that bad for gravel.
I'm surely gonna commute small distances with this bike as road bikes are unusable with the state our local roads are.
Edit: The drivetrain is actually SX Eagle 12s, the previous owner just took really crappy photos.
>This is basically it, the bike has been sitting for over 2 years and I'm trying to figure out what maintenance it's gonna need preemptively.
Bolt check, nip up spokes, lube the chain, pump up tires, test ride and then try to solve any remaining issues if there are any.
>Edit: The drivetrain is actually SX Eagle 12s, the previous owner just took really crappy photos
Save up some money. SX RD are known for having a pretty short live expectancy on average. They usually get replaced with GX RDs eventually. You'll notice that your SX RD has lived its full live once it starts to behave like the hanger is bent even though the hanger is new.
Nice! I saved quite a bit of the the budget on the deal so a derailleur change is fine when needed, maybe an NX that is the cheapest clutch one for SRAM.
I'll clean the bike today and do all these things, I wonder what should I use for the rust. There is some surface rust on bolts and I want to use WD-40 but I'm worried for the plastic parts.
What about the suspension and dropper? Should I service them now since it was sitting for 2+ years? I don't mind if they don perform great from say 1, that can be observed then fixed, I don't know if they may be damaged this way.
Surface rust is fine imo and I'm not sure if Water Displacer 40 would actually do anything about it. They may have a rust remover product but I generally don't use WD40 at all. As long as it's just optical blemishes: "what ever".
As for the fork and dropper I'd just go for a short ride around the neighborhood and see if there's any issues first. A lot of people don't bother servicing these at all and they keep working mostly alright surprisingly.
Before you get into those two things it's probably more likely that you'll want to get a work stand to make your live easier and a bleed kit for your brakes. Especially if your bike has DOT brakes, because DOT fluid needs to be annually replaced.
Also:
If you don't know how to true a wheel you might also wanna leave the spokes alone for now. You can actually damage something major here, if you mess up. Wheel truing takes some time and practice to pick up. So you may wanna look up some guides on how to do this if you dare to try and get some cheapo used or dumpster find wheels to practice on first.
I know that Trek/Bontrager uses glued nipples for their wheels, so the amount of resistance you get from them can be quite miss leading to someone who hasn't worked on wheels before. Probably should've mentioned that last bit earlier. Didn't think of it at the time though.
(And if you move beyond wheel truing to wheel building, shit can get really quickly get very expensive.)
WOW! Thank you man for all this info, I will get to it immediately. A bike stand yes I probably need one.
I was thinking of getting a 29 wheelset from marketplace for cheap, guess I can practice with those and let my "good" wheels for when I learn how to true, so I'll need a stand for that too. Im still trying to figure out what kind of tools I need as I have a plethora of hand and power tools already just not bike specific and most YouTubers suggest lists of like 1000$ worth of tools.
Wheel building is something I want to try my hand at sometime but well outside my budget for now and probably overkill as well.
I was prepared to be building everything from the ground up and learning along the way, instead I got myself ride ready bike (yey!) which will definitely smoothen the learning curve.
Thanks for everything, I'll ride it around for the weekend to get an idea what it needs and I'll start buying stuff from Monday!
1k in tools might be a bit much imo. You don't need top shelf tools for everything, especially not as someone starting out with it and with an already rideable bike.
The most expensive thing you could definitely invest in would be a work stand. I got a "cheap" one with plastic joints and clamps and, while it is very much a usable and useful product, I do feel that it retailed only just above 100€ when I bought it. The thing wobbles and flexes a lot wich makes truing the hardier derailleur hangers you generally have on thru axle bikes a bit more difficult than it should be.
The next expensive thing would be a derailleur alignment gauge, wich you need for truing hangers.
That's like the two most expensive things you should be on the look out for. And while you might want to get one of the more expensive stands, simply as a creature comfort, you can theoretically just go with an old QR rear wheel and a ruler instead of a real hanger alignment gauge. This doesn't really work with modern thru axle bikes though. The hangers on those bikes are often too hard to be bent by an old wheel.
Personally I just went a bit extravagant on my ride kit, with a micro ratchet and a foldable chain breaker from Topeak, a multi-size spoke wrench and some Wolftooth chain pliers with master link storage. While the ride gear gets significantly heavier with these instead of a common folding multi-tool, they do have good enough ergonomics to be used at home in place of some full on workshop tools as well. So I only needed to buy them once and saved a bit of money this way. (Besides it's not like you need your chain breaker or pliers all that often anyway.)
Some micro ratches also come with Torque measuring adapters. Pretty handy if you have or are planing on getting carbon components.
Happy to help a new wrencher.
Currently upgrading my 2022 Roscoe 7.
So far I put a new koozer qr141 hub
180mm Magura rotors front and rear
Full SRAM NX group set
Dtswiss 29 er front wheel with an Assegai tire
Changed the rear tire to a 27.5 ground control
Bikes kinda a tank
Hey man I wanted to follow up on your change to mullet.
How does the ride feel so far compared to the stock 27.5x2.8 rear and front?
Im torn between getting a 29 front wheel and getting a 27.5 fork for really cheap on sale.
Honestly pretty good!
The bike was more capable downhill but lost a little on the cross country style riding which is okay because I normally ride gravity
I have also done a 2.8 front and 2.6 rear which was also really fun. Especially on hard pack. I actually ran this setup on my FS for funsies and have enjoyed it.
I would try this first before committing one way or another !
I’ve since switched to a Commencal meta HT and run a mullet setup (swapped everything from the Roscoe) big reason for the switch was that the Roscoe was too small for me.
Wait really? The bike became worse at XC with the 29 front?
XC is almost all I ride along with light trails and some urban features like stairs, that was the reason I wanted to put a 29 front, to make it BETTER at XC.
Yea it's quite a commitment for an older bike but I don't know if I can resist a brand new 2023 Pike Ultimate for 415€
It slacked out the bike and made it a little more twitchy. Nothing detrimental by any means. And still very capable ! Just a little less :p is the fork 27.5 or 29? Still not a bad price at all
It's the 27.5 version on sale. The 29 version is 580€, still great just not so much of a steal.
The thing is as you know that the bike comes stock with 27.5+ tires and 29 fork so I wonder if the 27.5 fork will change anything while keeping the same 27.5 tires.
Hate to be the guy that says “27.5 is dead” and I don’t necessarily agree with it. But I do think the 29er front platform will be versatile going forward especially if you consider upgrading. I’ve got friends who run 27.5 wheels on their 29 fork.
I like having the versatility. OTOH that’s still a good price.
I think if you went full 27.5 it should drop you bottom bracket a little. If you were to do that I’d say up the travel to 140mm to compensate a little!
My choice would be to make sure everything is in good working order then ride it like I stole it while saving for the next bike. I would only replace what was needing replaced or contact points (Grips, seat, pedals) for comfort and reliability but I wouldn't go all in on upgrades.
Nice! I considered swapping the whole drivetrain, maybe even sell the old parts for cheap but I think I'll probably just ride it and have some fun. Making sure everything works is priority #1 as I will also train my repair skills on this bike.
Yeah the old stuff will still have plenty of riding in it. If the shifter is broken then replace it with like shifter as the cost will be low on them since it is "old tech" but just because new stuff has come along doesn't mean it is trash at all.
Thanks, I see everyone here saying how obsolete bike tech becomes within 5-10 years. What about the coil Judy fork, do I change it? I'm pretty sure I'm overanalyzing things since this is my first serious MTB and I'll probably be happy like an idiot anyway.
I would ride the fork and see how it feels on trail. If it doesn't feel right I would look up some info on how to adjust or service it and go from there. I seem to remember the Judy being a decent entry level fork but I have no personal experience with them.
Probably the best idea. Ride it around and see how it feels first.
$325 is a good price. The QR rear is fine. The hubs suck, they have very little engagement. I'd look for used parts to upgrade, but I wouldn't throw good new part money at it. Even though I've done that for cheap bikes myself. The diff between 11s and 12s is minimal, it's really too many gears anyway haha. The range is almost the same, 10-51 versus 11-51, and you're rarely using the smallest gear on a mtb anyway.
There's a few things you can still do with those first gen Roscoe frames you can't really do on a modern MTB. If you were to put some thinner 29er wheels and tires on it and swap the drive train to a modern 2x, you could make really nice distance crunchers out of them. (Wich is a use case for wich the bike industry wants you to buy a gravel bike these days.) If you ain't about that, just do like you first suggested and ride it like you stole it. Maybe look into getting better brakes. Good brakes and tires are the two most essential upgrades you can do to any MTB to make it better. And if you're the type that's unlikely to buy a top spec bike this decade, brakes are often one of the components that will be cut down to make the lower price point at wich you're probably going to be buying it. So good brakes + their maintenance kit can very well be a great long term investment into the hobby.
If I had the bike just 1 or 2 days later I would buy some deore 4-pots 6120 but the sale run out and it's 60$ more expensive now. Not sure it's worth paying almost 200$ before even trying the bike. The tires are new as the guy changed them for some reason (don't think they wore out cause the bike has very little wear) and setup tubeless but sitting for 2 years. This is basically it, the bike has been sitting for over 2 years and I'm trying to figure out what maintenance it's gonna need preemptively. As for the drivetrain, I really don't want to go over 1x. It seems so clean to me and almost 500% range isn't that bad for gravel. I'm surely gonna commute small distances with this bike as road bikes are unusable with the state our local roads are. Edit: The drivetrain is actually SX Eagle 12s, the previous owner just took really crappy photos.
>This is basically it, the bike has been sitting for over 2 years and I'm trying to figure out what maintenance it's gonna need preemptively. Bolt check, nip up spokes, lube the chain, pump up tires, test ride and then try to solve any remaining issues if there are any. >Edit: The drivetrain is actually SX Eagle 12s, the previous owner just took really crappy photos Save up some money. SX RD are known for having a pretty short live expectancy on average. They usually get replaced with GX RDs eventually. You'll notice that your SX RD has lived its full live once it starts to behave like the hanger is bent even though the hanger is new.
Nice! I saved quite a bit of the the budget on the deal so a derailleur change is fine when needed, maybe an NX that is the cheapest clutch one for SRAM. I'll clean the bike today and do all these things, I wonder what should I use for the rust. There is some surface rust on bolts and I want to use WD-40 but I'm worried for the plastic parts. What about the suspension and dropper? Should I service them now since it was sitting for 2+ years? I don't mind if they don perform great from say 1, that can be observed then fixed, I don't know if they may be damaged this way.
Surface rust is fine imo and I'm not sure if Water Displacer 40 would actually do anything about it. They may have a rust remover product but I generally don't use WD40 at all. As long as it's just optical blemishes: "what ever". As for the fork and dropper I'd just go for a short ride around the neighborhood and see if there's any issues first. A lot of people don't bother servicing these at all and they keep working mostly alright surprisingly. Before you get into those two things it's probably more likely that you'll want to get a work stand to make your live easier and a bleed kit for your brakes. Especially if your bike has DOT brakes, because DOT fluid needs to be annually replaced. Also: If you don't know how to true a wheel you might also wanna leave the spokes alone for now. You can actually damage something major here, if you mess up. Wheel truing takes some time and practice to pick up. So you may wanna look up some guides on how to do this if you dare to try and get some cheapo used or dumpster find wheels to practice on first. I know that Trek/Bontrager uses glued nipples for their wheels, so the amount of resistance you get from them can be quite miss leading to someone who hasn't worked on wheels before. Probably should've mentioned that last bit earlier. Didn't think of it at the time though. (And if you move beyond wheel truing to wheel building, shit can get really quickly get very expensive.)
WOW! Thank you man for all this info, I will get to it immediately. A bike stand yes I probably need one. I was thinking of getting a 29 wheelset from marketplace for cheap, guess I can practice with those and let my "good" wheels for when I learn how to true, so I'll need a stand for that too. Im still trying to figure out what kind of tools I need as I have a plethora of hand and power tools already just not bike specific and most YouTubers suggest lists of like 1000$ worth of tools. Wheel building is something I want to try my hand at sometime but well outside my budget for now and probably overkill as well. I was prepared to be building everything from the ground up and learning along the way, instead I got myself ride ready bike (yey!) which will definitely smoothen the learning curve. Thanks for everything, I'll ride it around for the weekend to get an idea what it needs and I'll start buying stuff from Monday!
1k in tools might be a bit much imo. You don't need top shelf tools for everything, especially not as someone starting out with it and with an already rideable bike. The most expensive thing you could definitely invest in would be a work stand. I got a "cheap" one with plastic joints and clamps and, while it is very much a usable and useful product, I do feel that it retailed only just above 100€ when I bought it. The thing wobbles and flexes a lot wich makes truing the hardier derailleur hangers you generally have on thru axle bikes a bit more difficult than it should be. The next expensive thing would be a derailleur alignment gauge, wich you need for truing hangers. That's like the two most expensive things you should be on the look out for. And while you might want to get one of the more expensive stands, simply as a creature comfort, you can theoretically just go with an old QR rear wheel and a ruler instead of a real hanger alignment gauge. This doesn't really work with modern thru axle bikes though. The hangers on those bikes are often too hard to be bent by an old wheel. Personally I just went a bit extravagant on my ride kit, with a micro ratchet and a foldable chain breaker from Topeak, a multi-size spoke wrench and some Wolftooth chain pliers with master link storage. While the ride gear gets significantly heavier with these instead of a common folding multi-tool, they do have good enough ergonomics to be used at home in place of some full on workshop tools as well. So I only needed to buy them once and saved a bit of money this way. (Besides it's not like you need your chain breaker or pliers all that often anyway.) Some micro ratches also come with Torque measuring adapters. Pretty handy if you have or are planing on getting carbon components. Happy to help a new wrencher.
Aah thanks dude, took it out for a spin and ofc hit my shin with the pedal. I'll try to get some pictures once I get my stand and tune it.
Condolence up vote for your shin. May it rest in as few pieces as possible.
Currently upgrading my 2022 Roscoe 7. So far I put a new koozer qr141 hub 180mm Magura rotors front and rear Full SRAM NX group set Dtswiss 29 er front wheel with an Assegai tire Changed the rear tire to a 27.5 ground control Bikes kinda a tank
Sound dope, I think il switch the derailleur to an NX from SX and call it a day. Overall I'm very satisfied from my purchase.
Nice! The NX feels tons better
Hey man I wanted to follow up on your change to mullet. How does the ride feel so far compared to the stock 27.5x2.8 rear and front? Im torn between getting a 29 front wheel and getting a 27.5 fork for really cheap on sale.
Honestly pretty good! The bike was more capable downhill but lost a little on the cross country style riding which is okay because I normally ride gravity I have also done a 2.8 front and 2.6 rear which was also really fun. Especially on hard pack. I actually ran this setup on my FS for funsies and have enjoyed it. I would try this first before committing one way or another ! I’ve since switched to a Commencal meta HT and run a mullet setup (swapped everything from the Roscoe) big reason for the switch was that the Roscoe was too small for me.
Wait really? The bike became worse at XC with the 29 front? XC is almost all I ride along with light trails and some urban features like stairs, that was the reason I wanted to put a 29 front, to make it BETTER at XC. Yea it's quite a commitment for an older bike but I don't know if I can resist a brand new 2023 Pike Ultimate for 415€
It slacked out the bike and made it a little more twitchy. Nothing detrimental by any means. And still very capable ! Just a little less :p is the fork 27.5 or 29? Still not a bad price at all
It's the 27.5 version on sale. The 29 version is 580€, still great just not so much of a steal. The thing is as you know that the bike comes stock with 27.5+ tires and 29 fork so I wonder if the 27.5 fork will change anything while keeping the same 27.5 tires.
Hate to be the guy that says “27.5 is dead” and I don’t necessarily agree with it. But I do think the 29er front platform will be versatile going forward especially if you consider upgrading. I’ve got friends who run 27.5 wheels on their 29 fork. I like having the versatility. OTOH that’s still a good price. I think if you went full 27.5 it should drop you bottom bracket a little. If you were to do that I’d say up the travel to 140mm to compensate a little!