They Say You Can’t Upgrade a Walmart Bike—I Didn’t Listen

You wanted upgrades? Here they are. I put over $6,000 of high-end parts on my Walmart mountain bike. Will this help it perform better? It’s time to find out!

Here’s the original review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9kcN6dCj4c

Thanks to Cane Creek, Fox Factory, Industry Nine, SRAM, Maxxis, and Crankbrothers for humoring us with this ridiculous idea.

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This is the most upgraded Walmart bike on planet Earth. It has new suspension, wheels, tires, cranks, bearings, handlebars, pedals, and everything in between. It’s literally impossible to upgrade it anymore. And all told, even factoring in discounts you might find, this is over $6,000 in parts. But did we make it better? What does it weigh now? And what could we have bought for the same money we put into this thing? Does it perform like a high-end mountain bike? Well, it had better because if it doesn’t, then we know once and for all that it’s impossible. I’m Seth from Burn Peak. I’ve upgraded many bikes, but never like this. The bike we started with was that same $450 Ozark Trail FS2 I reviewed in the last video. And many of you thought my review was too critical, that I was expecting too much out of a $450 Walmart bike. But I didn’t deny this bike was impressive for the price and maybe even historically impressive. I was simply pointing out that there are other great deals to be had that ride better right out of the box. And so I do stand by my review. But I did get a couple of things wrong which I’d like to correct. First of all, I didn’t notice the link in front of the rear axle, which means this is technically horsed link. That means it may perform better than I thought and it’s definitely the first bike at this price point with such advanced linkage. I also said you need to invest a minimum of $750 to make this a good trail bike, but that’s based on what I want to do with it. Many commenters detailed more economical upgrades that work for them. Upgrades that put smiles on their faces. And that’s all the proof I need to hear to concede that I was wrong. You can’t argue with a smile. But we’re not doing economical upgrades today. In fact, we blew way past the diminishing return $5,000 ago. And while this might seem a bit tonedeaf right now, this was mandated by the people. You wanted me to upgrade the snot out of this thing. So, here’s exactly what I did. I started by weighing the stock FS2, which came in at 38 lb or 17 kg. Then, I stripped off all the parts right down to the frame, even removing the headset bearings. Then, I saved all the takeoff parts because why not? With the bare frame on the stand, we could observe that horse link in action. Next up, bearings. I threaded a Cane Creek Hellbender into the bottom bracket shell and pressed a Hellbender headset into the head tube. These are the best bearings you can get and naturally the first thing you might do when building up a bike from the frame. First on the list was getting the new rear shock installed, a Fox Factory Float SL. Now, it’s true that others have upgraded the shock on this bike, but there’s no telling what kind of fitment issues they were willing to live with. I visited my friend Gabe at Fox Factory, and he basically said I was on my own. Well, we’re going to have to get a little creative. Uh, the pins that they were using are not a standard size, so we’re basically going to have to cobble something together that works. Gabe gave me whatever hardware he could find, and I got to work grinding and 3D printing, eventually getting the shock to fit in a way that made me feel confident. Your mileage may vary depending on exactly what kind of shock you’re installing. With the shock installed, I moved on to the cranks. [Music] And since we pulled out all the stops on this build, of course, we chose Cane Creek E- Wings, an ultra light, super stiff titanium crank set. E-wings require titanium assembly compound and a torque wrench for installation. A far cry from the tools that came with this bike. It’s arguably not possible to upgrade E-wings because what would you upgrade them with? [Music] Then we installed the fork, a Fox Factory 34SL at 120 [Music] mm. This is exactly right for this bike. SL means it’s lighter. This bike’s going to be a lot lighter. Next, a Bontrager RSL handlebar and stem, which is a one-piece carbon fiber cockpit. This is going to hurt some people’s feelings. Naturally, this is where we put all the good stuff, like the Stram Motive Ultimate brake levers. These hydraulic brakes are all new, very powerful, and they use mineral oil instead of DOT fluid. A welcome change for someone who regularly spills brake oil [Music] everywhere. Before we install the brake rotors, we need to mount some tires to these wheels. Industry 9 wheels. These are handmade in Asheville. right down to the spokes, which are individually laser etched with the company logo wrapped in Maxis tires. You can’t really go wrong. We’re using a fast rolling forecaster in the rear and a knobier dissector up front. For the cassette, we saved some money and went with Stram GX, but it still costs half what this bike does. You can always identify an i9 hub by its signature free hub note. And although I considered installing wireless shifting on this beast, we went with plain old Eagle X01, so the future owner doesn’t need to keep track of batteries. With most of the bike together, I could run all the cables and hoses through the frame, including the rear brake hose, which needs to be cut, reinstalled into the lever, and bled in case any bubbles got [Music] in. Also through the frame, we needed a dropper post release and a damper control for the shock. But there’s only one port. Luckily, they included cable bosses on the down tube, so we didn’t need to drill into the frame, although I was tempted. That switch gives me lockout control on both the shock and the fork simultaneously, plus a release for the Fox Transfer SL, a featherweight dropper post if there ever was one. But I couldn’t use it because there’s a big bend in the seat tube, and this bike is a size small. Oh my god. [Music] But I had a race dropper post in the parts bin that fit great. So, we were back in business. This dropper post is not as lightweight, but it’s just as fun. To get the shifting up and running, we installed a gold XX1 chain, which complements those Kashima coatings quite nicely. Finally, we did the finishing touches in Urggon saddle to go with that dropper post and of course Crank Brothers Stamp 7 pedals. And with that, it was time to throw this bike on the scale. Oh man. At just under 31 lb, we shed over 7 lb off of this bike. much of its spinning weight more than any bike I have ever upgraded and more than any bike I ever will upgrade. Every time I grab this bike, I can’t believe how light it is. But right about now, it’s time we took a good long stare at this thing. [Music] [Music] [Music] And now it’s time to ride it. Actually, I already climbed up here with it, and unsurprisingly, it feels a lot better. It’s stiffer, much quieter, and the weight savings are noticeable. The weight savings in the wheels and drivetrain especially have slashed the spinning weight, and that’s the most important kind of weight. And overall, it just has a totally different vibe. It doesn’t feel like a $450 bike at all. And with all these high-end crosscountry parts on it, that is light, responsive parts designed for pedaling and rider input, we should expect it to feel better on climbs. But what actually makes it climb better are the tires and suspension. Not only are these new tires way more substantial, but we’re also running them at much lower pressure without inner tubes, so they have more traction. And yes, the suspension feels like it’s from a different galaxy. And although I have these lockouts to make it stiffer for climbing, it feels great with or without it engaged. But I’m not much of a climber. And so to get a real pulse on this bike, we’re going to need to get rowdy. All right, first descent on the Ozark Trail Bone Saw. Okay, probably should add some volume tokens, but pretty good so far. Wow, this suspension is from a different planet. It’s so much quieter. I mean, I’m kind of speechless. I don’t know what I was expecting. We’re making pretty good time here. No weird creeks or rattles. Just all these cables rattling a little bit. All right, here comes the rock garden. Hope nobody else is out here cuz I want to cream it. Oh yeah. Okay, I went a little too hard back there. Wow. Oh [Music] man. I’m having way too much fun on this thing. I love cross country bikes that feel like trail bikes. And that’s what this is is a short travel trail bike. It’s 120 in the front and I think it’s 100 in the rear. And I’m having fun on it and it feels good. Let’s go back to the workshop and get into more detail. The first thing I noticed when I started descending, this bike is way quieter than it was. And that’s really important because sound is feedback. When you’re giving it your all, that sound guides your decisions. So, when the bike is noisy and all the different parts are making different rattles from every direction, it’s hard to guide your decisions. Now, you feel the trail instead of all the rattling. It’s consistent. But, does it feel like a high-end bike? Yeah, kind of. If you compare it to a high-end alloy bike, it feels almost indistinguishable up front. This is as good a fork as exists. And so, as expected, it feels way smoother, but the rear feels interesting. I definitely felt some weird creeks and flexes here and there, which I’m hoping will self-heal over time. It’s noticeable, but not always. I was actually very surprised by how it felt. It felt a lot better than I was expecting. Let’s say this looked like a high-end bike in every way. And instead of Ozark Trail, it said Specialized on it, but it felt like this. Anyone who has ridden a high-end mountain bike would notice something was off. They would take it to the bike shop and say, “This doesn’t feel right. I can’t really explain it.” I mean, look at the linkage. Beneath those spacers is a long 8 mm pin connecting two separate aluminum plates. Almost all modern mountain bikes have a one-piece rocker, which is, of course, much stiffer. Compare this to my Rebel Ranger, or a much better comparison might be that alloy status we built up for Chase. It’s easy to see how simply upgrading the parts doesn’t address everything. But with that said, it’s really impressive. When I had this bike up on the stand, I noticed that the linkage just wasn’t as smooth as a high-end bike, unsurprisingly. So, if you were wondering if this feels like a $6,500 bike now that we put $6,000 worth of parts on it, the answer is sadly no. And in fact, it doesn’t even feel like a $2,000 bike, but in other ways, it feels better. It’s a really strange and spooky sensation. But remember, this frame probably costs something like $80. And so, based on that, I have no complaints whatsoever, it’s kind of amazing. Nothing has rattled loose. The linkage is well put together for what it is, and I don’t really have that many repairs to make to this thing, mainly adjustments and changes. But we’re going to test it a lot more. I’m uh taking it to Whistler. So, one ride was no problem. Nothing is broken, but a lap at Whistler could break some things loose. And so, I’m going to get to know this bike a lot better and find out if this linkage holds up because with all these parts on it, our FS2 might be able to write some checks that it can’t cash. Now, we’ve been joking or not actually joking about doing just this since the very first time I reviewed a department store bike 10 years ago. And the main thing holding us back was that we couldn’t actually install high-end parts because they wouldn’t fit. But now they do, more or less. The last thing holding us back was that through axle, and this frame takes one, so we were able to install those i9 wheels and everything else. The fact that you can now do this to a Walmart bike is incredible. But like I said, we’re not done. And so, seeing that upgrading this economically would provide a lot of useful lessons for people, uh, was this a big waste of time, did we learn anything? Well, yes. Actually, this is all good news because upgrading the tires alone will give you huge gains. And even an entry-level air fork will shed 2 lb off this thing. A $60 crank set will likely shed a full pound. And if upgrading a department store bike with all these high-end parts tells us anything, it’s that although the diminishing return on upgrades is in fact steep, you can go a long way in making one of these bikes a lot better. And honestly, were this a hard tail with a through axle, I think the difference between it and a high-end alloy bike would be even more nuanced. We couldn’t have done this project without going bankrupt if it wasn’t for Fox, Cane Creek, Industry 9, and Stram to name a few. We called people we knew at these companies and were like, “Hey, so hear us out. We’ve got this little project.” And they were willing to contribute some serious parts for a pretty dumb project, which surprised even me. But this is the single biggest change I’ve ever felt on any bike I have ever upgraded by far and hands down the largest weight savings. The suspension fork and the wheels probably made the biggest difference, but also the old crank set was insanely heavy. And it’s worth mentioning that we added a dropper post and bigger tires while still shedding all that weight. We’re not finished seeing what the bone saw can do, but assuming it proves to be safe and holds up, we’re donating it. And we’ll let the Nika coaches in Asheville decide who ends up with the bike. So, I hope you’ll saddle up and come along with me on this journey. I hope you learned something today. And if you didn’t, I hope you at least found this video entertaining. Thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next