Yes, "worthy of upgrades" definitely should be a huge plus here. The first "real" mountain bike I got (after quickly demolishing a "department store bike"), and the first I paid for myself, was a Bridgestone MB-6, literally the least expensive in that line-up. However, one of the big factors that let me go for that ASAP instead of saving for a higher end model, was that every single fancier part available would just fit.
That got lost somewhere as department store type cost-cutting creeped into low-end "real" bikes: no tapered headtubes, no thru axles, POS forks, useless full-sus designs. So many sub-$1000 bikes in the last 15ish years just could not be upgraded in any significant way, and many had just ancient geometry.
It's so refreshing to see new "cheap but real" bikes that have modern geo and can accepts upgrades of pretty much every part. Only special thing it seems an SQ1 needs is a wheelset that has adapters for QR141, which is a reasonably common thing. So good!
Oct. 3, 2022, 8:14 a.m. - Justin White
Yes, "worthy of upgrades" definitely should be a huge plus here. The first "real" mountain bike I got (after quickly demolishing a "department store bike"), and the first I paid for myself, was a Bridgestone MB-6, literally the least expensive in that line-up. However, one of the big factors that let me go for that ASAP instead of saving for a higher end model, was that every single fancier part available would just fit. That got lost somewhere as department store type cost-cutting creeped into low-end "real" bikes: no tapered headtubes, no thru axles, POS forks, useless full-sus designs. So many sub-$1000 bikes in the last 15ish years just could not be upgraded in any significant way, and many had just ancient geometry. It's so refreshing to see new "cheap but real" bikes that have modern geo and can accepts upgrades of pretty much every part. Only special thing it seems an SQ1 needs is a wheelset that has adapters for QR141, which is a reasonably common thing. So good!