Cometh the winter, cometh the season to plot how to spend whatever disposable income and free time you can seek past your significant other in the pursuit of next summers cycling goals.

For most cyclists this is a pretty clear nivarna – we all want to be faster, look cooler (and slimmer!) and perhaps most importantly bolt shiny new stuff to our rides to perpetuate the myth that upgrades must always make you quicker.

So, what is the Declining Cyclists first upgrade of the winter? It’s the long awaited and long scrimped and saved for 11 speed upgrade to the road bikes drivetrain. Now this is an upgrade that is long overdue, and anyone who follows me on facebook knows there’s been much agonising over which groupset to go for, if new or secondhand is the was the way to go, etc etc.

In the end I decided that if I bought secondhand of eBay or the small ads I’d always wonder if I’d somehow short-changed myself in some way. despite there being some very tempting second hand prices around due to people continuing to upgrade to eTap or Di2 systems, I just felt I’d be always be a little bit disappointed that I wasn’t the first person to put a scape onto the shifter hood by carelessly leaning the bike against a wall. Weird maybe, but that’s just how I roll.

So after deciding that new was the way to go this pretty much locked in my choice to the Shimano 105 7000 series kit. I did seriously consider the previous generation 5800 series 105 groupset which is still available new in many places online, but again I felt that I’d always feel like I’d short changed myself somehow if I didn’t push the budget a little and get the current setup. After all seeing as my current transmission was circa 2009, (I like to make sure I’ve had full use out of equipment sometimes) this stuff was likely to be on my bike awhile so it didn’t seem right to start out with a generation already one behind the current standard.

So after getting all that decided the thorny issue of how I was going to pay for all this 11 speed goodness had to be confronted. There’s no escaping the fact that its very difficult, in fact I would say nigh on impossible to justify these sort of essential upgrades to non-cycling significant others. Awkward questions such as ‘so WHY do you really need to spend that much?’ pop up. Statements which are hard to refute like : ‘but the gears you have already work fine’ get aired, and then most cuttingly comments like ‘do you really think its going to make you any faster ?’ Are rhetorically thrown over shoulders as the conversation ends.

No, this upgrade had to be cost neutral as far as the family finances were concerned. So it was time to reassess my life and make some sweeping changes to realise my dreams…… not. It was just time to delve deep in to some long forgotten crevices of the house and sell to sh*t I really didn’t need. Yes, it was time to have a eBay fire sale! There’s something quite cathartic about looking at all your possessions and deciding which you really don’t need. In some cases there’s the almost painful recollection of the justifications you put up for buying said object in the first place, and now that its on the metaphorical chopping block the crushing realisation that you never really needed it. The first item was a case point, the Apple Pencil that I’d splashed out on when I bought my iPad. Suckered in by the adverts and sales spiel showing trendy 20 somethings dashing out incredible works of art with one or smart business types annotating spreadsheets on the fly I’d really believed it would transform the way I interacted with the digital world. I think I’d used it about 5 times in 2 years. On eBay it went.

Other items were easier to part with. A proper root through the back of the wardrobe unearthed some National Geographic branded expedition clothing and a shoulder bag that had come my way when I did some work for them several years ago. I was obviously never going to wear them again as there’s little use for the ‘just about to go on safari’ look in my corner of Cheshire and they all proved quite popular on eBay, the bag in particular selling for what I considered a ludicrous price – the PayPal coffers were increasing nicely. Next came a nice Evoc riding back with a built in back protector. I’d used this once I think, realised I found it pretty uncomfortable to ride with and it had languished in a cupboard ever since. A little online research revealed them to be very popular with snowboarders as well as mountain bikers so I listed it in both categories on eBay and sure enough it went for a good price to a snowboarder with a bad back. Finally I took a good long look at the digital SLR camera and lenses that I used so infrequently that each time it came out of its case I’d forgotten what all the myriad of buttons did. Accepting that my phone now took pictures almost as good and was a hell of a lot smaller, simpler and more importantly always with me that got listed as well. Ten days later there was more than enough in the bike fund for the shiny new drivetrain.

So now we could move into phase 2 of the process of acquisition – the agonising over both price, spec and which retailer was going to get my hard earned cash. Locking down a spec was surprisingly hard, ok crank length with my little hobbit legs was easy, 170mm all the way, but choice of crankset had me dithering. Compact or standard? or maybe even the semi-compact options which were now available? Middle aged machismo was whispering in my ear that I really should opt or the old school 53/39 standard option. After all in my youth we all rode 52/42 almost all the time with a biggest sprocket on the back of around 22. Hilly course? we’d break out the 39 tooth inner ring and maybe pop a 23 tooth 6 speed block on the back if we really thought we needed it. Options were simpler in 1988 but my knee’s were also a lot stronger (and younger!) I did know I wanted to avoid a long cage rear mech for no really good reason apart from not wanting the bike to look like a tourer, so that was going to limit my cassette choice on the rear to a max of 28 teeth. Surely that would be enough to drag me up the mountains of the Cheshire plains? but then what if I eventually made that long overdue trip to France to finally test my ageing mettle on some classic cols………?

After much internal debate I locked down my choice to the semi-compact 52-36 crankset paired with a 11-27 on the back. Hopefully the best of both worlds and a compromise that my knees could live with. Right time to break out the internet search engine and find a banging deal. Easy right? well actually no, not really. As usual Murphy’s Law of internet acquisition now reared its ugly head. Mr Murphy’s law says:- ‘When you don’t have the money, everywhere and everybody will have just what you want and it will be discounted. When you do have the money, absolutely nobody will have a deal on, and the precise options you want will be out of stock everywhere.’

After coming to the bitter acceptance that thanks to the current exchange rates and geopolitical situation the price had actually risen slightly since I’d first started looking I eventually found a UK retailer who had the options I wanted in stock. The order was placed, money electronically disappeared from my account and I sat back and waited the promised 3-5 working days for delivery. On the 6th working day I had an email regretting to inform me that due to a ‘warehouse error’ the aforementioned major online and high street retailer of bikes and accessories actually didn’t have what I had ordered, and wasn’t sure when they would have. They were moderately sorry, and would I like to chose something else or have a refund? ‘I’d like a refund please asap’ I replied. Fine they said, that will take 8-10 working days to process back into your account. ’10 days to refund what you took in 10 seconds and have already had for over a week?’ I said, ‘surely that can’t be correct, or indeed very fair?’ Anyway, after complaining to customer services and mild threats to expose them as incompetent thieving idiots all over of much as the internet as I could reach the money was back in my account within the week. Still left them a bad online review though…..

The second internet cycling store giant I tried were slightly more expensive, but 3 days later my wife told me a box was awaiting my return from work. So obviously I spent the next day in the garage …… off with the old……..

I won’t more you with a blow by blow fitting of the shiny new bits saga. All I will say is the internet was right, and that thankfully my venerable Mavic rear hub did have the removable spacer that allowed the new 11spd cassette to slide on, and that the cable routing for the new 105 front derailleur took some head scratching but I got there in the end.

So was it worth it? Well most annoyingly a combination of illness, work and family commitments depositing children back at differing Universities has sucked up far to much of my free time since fitting the new stuff. I have managed a couple of rides and several indoor sessions on the turbo. The gear change is certainly faster and the action much better, has it made me faster? hard to say, I’m actually slower around the Zwift courses indoors, but thats in part due to another mildly exciting cycling related upgrade to my equipment that I’ll reveal in the next instalment of my tales of winter upgrades.