Upgrading your mountain bike tends to be an expensive endeavour, with near-endless products promising to enhance performance and aesthetics.
Worse still, however much you spend on your bike, you'll always find something to change – whether that be for increased comfort and ability or solely for the bling factor.
However, some of the best, high-impact upgrades you can make don’t all break the bank, so we’ve put together this list of what we believe are the best cheap mountain bike upgrades that you can buy.
1. Grips
The touch points of your bike have a serious influence on overall comfort and control.
With your hands taking the brunt of forces, it’s important to make sure your comfortable and have a good grip especially when your descending.
Grips are something that manufactures often save money on when buying a complete bike, so upgrading your grips can have a night and day impact to how your bike feels.
Everyone has there own preference when it comes to grips – some like them super thin and minimal, other preffer chonky squishers – but a decent set of lock-on grips doesn’t cost a fortune and can make your bike feel brand new, so it's cheap to experiment.
The only set to be awarded five stars in our buyer's guide to the best grips are the Gusset S2 – which are available for just £18.
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2. Mudguard
If you’re riding in wet conditions then you’ve likely experienced spray coming off the front wheel, spotting your face and blurring your vision.
One of the first upgrades that many riders is make is investing in a fork-mounted mudguard or fender.
Not only does this fill some negative space in between your fork and frame, but it keeps spraying off your face and your goggles clear.
While you can spend as little as £10 on a flimsy plastic version, it is worth spending a little more for a longer, hard plastic design as this will prove sturdier and offer more protection.
We reccomend the Mudhugger EVO Bolt-on in our buyer's guide to the best mountain bike mudguards.
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3. Pedals
A decent set of pedals can make all the difference in securing your feet when thrashing down the trails.
Most bikes will come with cheap plastic pedals with a cage design that features very little in the way of grip.
Upgrading your pedals can significantly improve your confidence on the bike as you can be assured your feet won’t be slipping around on rough trails.
The best mountain bike pedals will feature a metal body, though some plastic pedals with replaceable pins offer impressive performance for the money.
The HT PA03A is our five star reccomendation. These plastic fantastics offer impeccable grip, stability and reliability at a reasonable cost.
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4. On bike multi-tool
A multi-tool is an essential accessory for mountain biking, often saving rides when mechanicals happen out on the trails.
While you can carry on in a bag or pocket, they are often forgotten or hard to access.
Always having one to hand stored on your bike is a worthwhile upgrade, and takes some of the stress away from any faults that happen on your ride.
At £40 RRP, the OneUp Components’ EDC Lite tool isn't super cheap, but it'll work out cheaper than losing and replacing multitools in the long run...
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5. Brake pads and rotors
Many cheap mountain brakes will come with cheap brake pads, potentially limiting the ability and feel of the whole system.
You’d be surprised at the difference a decent set of pads can make to a brake's overall performance making them one of the most effective performance upgrades you can make on a budget.
The same can be said for rotor size, increasing rotor size will give you more power without having to upgrade your entire system.
Aftermarket pads from established names, including Galfer, would be our reccomendation.
6. Gear cables and outers
It seems like general maintenance, but many of us put off changing cables when they wear out leading to inaccurate shifts and heavy levers.
Replacing both the outer and inner cables will give you the best performance, and doing so can make what feels like a knackered derailleur feel brand new.
There are certain cables out there that feature Teflon coatings that claim to make shifting even crisper, though these are sometimes not worth the money or hassle as the plastic tends to bunch up squeeze points creating more friction.
