Upgrades without losing the soul?
I've got a 2020 Diverge E5 Comp that I've mostly kept stock. As a mountain biker in denial after moving to the beach, I've loved it for everything from quick commutes to sandy trails to solo road centuries. That said, living where I do with almost no hills, I find myself basically only ever playing in the top two gears and spinning at a very high cadence to keep up with roadie friends.
Has anyone had any luck with upgrades that give the bike a bit more top end speed/efficiency without just turning it into a poor facsimile of a slack road bike? I don't want to lose the ability to hit trails/add panniers for bikepacking/hop curbs/handle cobbles, but I feel like I should be able to juice a little more out without spinning for my life.
Apart from just trying to get stronger and up my cadence, I was looking at a few upgrades:
Run a tubeless setup on either the Pathfinder TLRs or the maybe Rene Herse Snoqualmie Passes (leaning TLRs after hearing reliability concerns about the RHs)
Upgrade chainring to a Wolftooth 110BCD 44t ring to bump up gear ratios about 10%
Swap out the wheels for HUNT 4-season all-road or Shimano GRX WH-RX570. Again, I'm tempted by the performance of the HUNT wheels, but heard mixed things on quality/longevity.
Any other recommendations/words of warning for how to make a better road machine without compromising what we all love about the Diverge? Or should I just suck it up and go "n+1" on a used road bike?