Originally Posted by momoman

Rather than start a new thread I’ll revive this thread. I bought a Liberte from Costco in 2019 in the $3xx range. It was an impulse buy. My son and daughter have now moved 100’s of miles away and when I visit them I take my Liberte in the back of the car or SUV so I can ride to explore and stay in shape.

These are the mods I’ve made so far, with more to come.



Brooks C13 Cambium Carbon saddle, Ergon GP5 grips, Litepro S42 Aero aluminum wheels with Schwalbe One tan wall tires. May switch to bullhorn bars in the future. The bike weighs about 20-21 lbs. I’m trying to get it to sub-20 lbs without spending too much more.

edit: I originally mistaken the grips to be GP3, but they are the Ergon GP5 model.

The Ergonomic grips are heavy and I can’t position them too far up from the brake levers or the bike won’t fold properly. I’m contemplating bullhorn bars with a trigger shifter. I like the water bottle higher up on the bike so I have a Velcro mounted cage that swings out of the way when I fold the bike.

The Litepro 406 S42 Aero aluminum wheels are 19mm external and 13.2mm internal. I wished they were wider but I like the look for the price ($85/set) during the Aliexpress 11/11 Singles Day Sales.

The 406 size wheels swapped in without requiring any brake pad adjustments so I can swap between these and the stock wheels easily. The rims are narrower than the stock but adjusting the barrel adjusters get the brakes to work good enough.

I installed 25g Ridenow TPU inner tubes. They are ultra thin and ultra light.

The Schwalbe One tires measure 26mm wide on the Litepro rims. I would prefer 28mm but the 26mm are good for smooth trails and streets. The bike definitely feels like it accelerates faster with the lighter wheels and narrower tires at 100 psi. These wheels with Ridenow TPU 25g inner tubes weight almost 1-1/2 lbs lighter than the stock wheels.

Some other parts I ordered from Aliexpress. Slightly lighter weight V brakes in silver, silver Bolany crank arms with 52t Litepro chainring (stock is 48t), red aluminum jockey wheel. I ordered silver and black aluminum folding pedals which are arriving soon. Thinking about future upgrades like replacing the 8-sp setup with a 9 or 10 sp setup with a trigger shifter instead of the grip shifter. I’ll replace the kickstand with a lighter weight version.

Aliexpress sells titanium and carbon handlebars, seat posts, and a carbon fork that’ll fit but those are expensive and don’t save much weight over the aluminum parts.