2018 Trek Dual Sport 2 upgrades
 

Hey guys,
What would you guys recommend would be a solid upgrade for my ds 2? Ive always liked to tinker with stuff so im looking to optimize bike further and make it overall better just not sure how. Any suggestions?

Tires will likely give you the most notable difference for the price. Saddle, pedals and grips are other good upgrades if you are unhappy with what you currently have.

Other upgrades will likely not be worth the price over buying a different bicycle.

Where do you ride? Rails to trails, canal trails, city riding, paved trails, dodging cars? Depends on how you ride on what upgrades would work for you.

I ride on the side of the road and on trails, changed the saddle i got the bike wasnt a fan of it. First thing I want to do is getting a wider set of tires, not really a fan of the skinny ones. Anyone have a set they recommend?

Really depends on what you want to do. I myself have the slightly older Conti's that are identical to these: Continental AT Ride They are great on my gravel riding with the GAP and C&O.

I also have these to use when I'm primarily road riding: Specialized Nimbus

I would suggest taking a look at Bike Tires Direct They have many different tires for gravel, road and Cyclecross that would work on our bikes.

a high end , really expensive air-oil suspension fork...

I think the Schwalbe Hurricane is a perfect fit for your type of riding. It's available in 29x2" size, which should fit your Trek DS. It has a completely smooth center section with some side lugs for additional "grab" on loose surfaces. I have a set of these tires and I enjoy them.

Thanks everybody so far for your suggestions, gonna buy airfork first. You guys are recommending 2inch tires. If i get something wider and it would only be for aesthetic purposes, would it hurt overall performance of the bike on the road? For example a 2.5 or 2.7" tire? Also Would like to convert to a 1x drive train, can you guys recommend a good cassette, chain ring, chain? Nice crank arms or pedals?

After looking at front air forks, i have no idea what im looking at. Can anyone recommend a good fork 400$ below? Fox or rockshox?

Wider tires will not generally hurt road performance, as long as you stay with a smooth or semi-slick tread. Knobby tread will definitely add rolling resistance and slow you down. I think 2" is about as wide as you'll be able to fit in your frame. Check the clearance at the seat stays and the chain stays at the rear of the bike. It's very unlikely you'll be able to get more than a 2" wide tire there.

Thanks everyone for feedback, so far picked up continental race Kings 2.0s and a SRAM NX Eagle Groupset: 175mm 32 Tooth DUB Crank, Rear Derailleur, 11-50 12-Speed Cassette, Trigger Shifter, and Chain.

Gonna get an airfork and call it. Just no clue which fork is best bang for the buck between 400-600$ range

Paragon Gold:

https://www.sram.com/rockshox/products/paragon-gold-rl

The DS comes with a 63mm travel fork, and you'll probably want to stay close to that spec. I've read that you can safely go plus or minus 20mm in travel and not impact geometry too much. If that is true, you might be able to consider 80mm travel MTB specific forks as well as the 63mm Paragon that @travbikeman links above.

would the paragon or similar fork be worth the upgrade over the sontour? would there be a noticeable difference in the ride?

I've read that it is a big improvement if you want a suspension fork. It's an air fork so of course it's lighter and adjustable to what you want.

There had been discussion about this a few years ago: RockShox Paragon Review

I have been throwing around the idea of getting this, but also thinking of just getting a touring kind of fork for my Crosstrail.

Yes.

Suntour NEX hlo: coil spring (crudely adjustable for your weight); hydraulic damping; lock-out (on or off); 2650 grams

Paragon Gold: air spring (properly adjustable for your weight); hydraulic damping with low-speed compression adjustment (to lock-out if desired); 1860 grams

Summary: you'd preserve the designed steering geometry of your bike, knock 1.7 lbs of dead weight off the front end of your bike, gain the ability to tune the fork's response to your liking, and get rid of steel parts (steerer, stanchions), which in a suspension fork improves longevity.

The NEX is a perfectly decent fork for the price. The Paragon Gold is in another league altogether, and for not a lot of money. There are Suntour equivalents -- the NCX E Air, for example -- but these can be tricky to source after-market.

Even though i already bought it, is this a good drivetrain for both road and some trail riding?
SRAM NX Eagle Groupset: 175mm 32 Tooth DUB Crank, Rear Derailleur, 11-50 12-Speed Cassette

With your tire size (29x2) and your gearing, you'll have a gear inch range from about 18" to 82". 18" will be the easiest/slowest, and will be quite slow. This will be good for getting up super steep climbs off road. My mountain bike has a 17.95" low gear, and I rarely use it, except when going up something so steep, it's almost worth it to just walk. :-) On the other side 82" for a high gear isn't real high, but you should be fine at more moderate speeds. A 70 RPM cadence with your top gearing will be about 17 mph. 100 RPM will be about 25 mph. So you won't be dropping the peloton with that gearing, but it'll be good for moderate speeds.

If you don't anticipate a lot of rock crawling, and want a faster gear, perhaps consider a 34T or 36T chain ring instead of a 32T.

You can calculate ground speed at certain cadences with different gearing options using this site. You can also certainly adjust certain specs (like your chain ring) to see how going up or down will impact ground speed at certain cadences.

You do realize that after all of these cool upgrades, you are now on the hook for some pictures to show all of us that have offered advice!!!! Right????

We will need to see what this bike looks like after the updates!

:innocent:

Will post pics when I'm done, however I did just buy a Cannondale trigger 3. It was a 2018 model and it was 1k off regular price of 4k. For now my upgrades that are on the ds are a baby seat and the tires. Drivetrain I'm gonna return for now. This bike will now be more for road and work commuter instead of trail like I originally wanted to make it. I will most definitely be getting the rockshox gold fork because it looks cool.

^ ^ ^
TravBikeMan said what I was about to! We want to see the finished product!

Edit: N+1 strikes again! Pic of the new machine then?

OHhhhhh, the evil N+1 disease!

Trigger 3, that is a serious mountain bike!

Can someone give me a link to a 34t or 36t chainring hookie is suggesting that will work with the sram group set I have laying around?

Can someone give me a link to a 34t or 36t chainring hookie is suggesting that will work with the sram group set I have laying around?

Or a links to the components from the Shimano m6000 series to save some money. Not really sure how to piece it together

https://www.sram.com/sram/mountain/p...agle-chainring

The Eagle chainring, if that's what you have, is available in 30/32/34/36/38 tooth counts.