I’ve taken some good-natured ribbing about how often I’m replacing perfectly functional parts on my bike, and at what point it would have been easier to have simply gone out and purchased a new bike. My friends are right that — in addition to required maintenance — a lot of the upgrades I’ve done are not strictly necessary. And given the original value of the bike, my upgrades might even be seen as an attempt to create the legendary silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

A case in point is the new seatpost I installed in conjunction with the saddle: while the Brooks saddle was broken and in need of replacement, the original seatpost functioned just fine. But I love the Thomson seatposts, and every time I’ve seen one I’ve had the urge to make the swap — which I finally did. Yes, it saved a bit of weight, perhaps equivalent to about one-fifth of the water in a single bidon. It’s a bit easier to fine-tune the seat angle. But a necessary upgrade? Hardly.

With the replacement of the seat (the fifth of its line) and seatpost, what remains of the original ship bike?

• Frame
• Handlebars
• Seatpost collar

Frankly, the seatpost collar hadn’t even occurred to me until I replaced the seatpost. I’ll have to keep an eye out for something similarly overpriced and unnecessary. I’m completely happy with the handlebars, which is not to say I don’t check out carbon fibre bars when I stumble across them, or even other steel offerings.

I do keep a look-out for other frames as well. There’s one I’ve had my eyes on for several years now which would be a wholesale move upscale. (I haven’t gone as far as to compare the frame geometries.) There’s another very attractive frame, also steel, which would be the perfect foundation for the components I’ve assembled for Kuroko in her current state.

Assuming I keep the frame — there’s nothing really wrong with it apart from the screws holding in the derailleur hanger, and the fact it’s not designed for a Di2 groupset — then there’s probably a paint job in the not-to-distant future. My Rolls-Royce solution for that would be to grind off the cable stops for the shift cables (no longer necessary), enlarge a couple of existing holes to allow more internal routing of Di2 cables and the move to an internal battery, and then finally perhaps an extra touch of brazing to sort out the derailleur hanger situation. All this would be dependent on my sourcing a replacement hanger as well, because there’s no point putting that much work into the frame only to have it all go sideways with a crash resulting in a bent or broken hanger. (I’ve already straightened it once after the bike toppled over during a stop for a photo.)

Cool. So why aren’t you out riding today?

No bloody good reason. Once again I tightened up the stem plug to keep the new headset nice and tight. And I undid the seat from the post to add some grease to all the little bits, which in my haste I neglected to do the first time around. But these are excuses. The weather is great and I should have hit the road.