Latest groupset obsession

[Cycleops]

If you're a potential Racer, then you need the best equipment you can afford.

I'm an old bloke, pootling around Cheshire, so it's not needed.

Aren’t we all

 

[Ian H]

It's usually cheaper to get the groupset though. And you know it plays nicely together.

Wrong chainrings, wrong ratios, prefer different brakes. The only really critical thing is the levers and rear mech.

 

[Sharky]

I guess I'm in the category "you can't teach an old leopard to change its spots"

Have more then one bike in the garage, so keeping compatibility and swapability with my other bikes is a key point.

Still rely on QR wheels, tubes, square taper and two of my bikes don't have variable gears, so the latest technology is a bit of a turn off for me.

 

[vickster]

????

You said…

Both my man bikes were Ultegra. As the parts wear out I've been downgrading to 105 and lower. I'm done spending silly money on parts.
(Presumably you meant main)

 

[Sharky]

If you're a potential Racer, then you need the best equipment you can afford.

Not always true. There is a former chatter who used to ride an old road frame with a 97" or so fixed gear. He achieved a 23minute 10 on this steed.

He told me he came into a bit of money and bought himself a decent TT bike, but couldn't get near the time of his old steel fixed bike.

 

[FishFright]

I recently upgraded my Dura ace groupset to Tiagra. My friend said "hey that's not an upgrade, that's a downgrade". I told him "Tiagra lasts longer, isn't that an upgrade?"

He said "no, the Dura ace costs more money so that is an upgrade". I told him "how about one day the marketing people swap the prices around and tell everyone that Tiagra lasts longer so it's more expensive. Would you then consider it an upgrade?"

He said I better go to one of those cycling forums and confuse everyone with my thoughts.

Where does this thing about tiagra lasting longer come from ? When I was working at the bike workshop it was always the higher end stuff that was lot older when it wore out .

 

[winjim]

Not always true. There is a former chatter who used to ride an old road frame with a 97" or so fixed gear. He achieved a 23minute 10 on this steed.

He told me he came into a bit of money and bought himself a decent TT bike, but couldn't get near the time of his old steel fixed bike.

I'm not a racer, but if you are I would think the last thing you need is to get suckered into thinking that you need the latest and best equipment or that you can somehow buy speed. At least until the point where your performance has plateaued and you're in search of marginal gains.

I've got Athena on one bike and Chorus on the other. They're both fine and functionally the only difference is the multiple downshifting you get with Ultrashift on the Chorus. While it's great to be able to dump it on the smallest sprocket and put the hammer down just as you crest a hill, I expect the gain is slight and in any case thanks to compatibility you could always use Chorus shifters with Athena mechs and get the same results.

 

[I like Skol]

Groupset age/model is almost totally secondary to the more important factors of correct set-up, maintenance and usage.

A sweet running 15yro Tiagra bike will be far nicer to ride, and probably quicker, than a badly adjusted and poorly maintained current model top spec bike. Let's face it, there are many people that buy the flagship bikes that don't have a clue how to maintain/adjust their bikes and often don't even have the feel to know when it isn't running optimally.

Naming no names, but a good cycling buddy of mine has had an Ultegra bike for a fair few years and it was only recently after I had replaced a failed L/H shifter for him that he learned about the trim function on that front mech shifter. He had always just accepted that it could rub in certain gears. At that level of mechanical interest and understanding is there much point in him having an Ultegra equipped bike over the same bike with Tiagra or even lower?

 

[ianrauk]

learned about the trim function on that front mech shifter

I'm constantly amazed at how many people don't know how to use this function or that it even exists.

 

[kingrollo]

Depends really if I was paying top whack for bike - I d want the latest groupset - I would expect a discount if it was an older one.

If you talking about what we need - well who needs more than a carbon frame and 105 gears (or sram etc equivalent)

Cycling keeps your mind and body health YMMV but I can justify throwing quite a lot of (in relative terms) money at things for those reasons. Mrs Kingrollo doesn't mind as everything I buy gets used - if I find Ia m not using something it gets sold on

 

[Dogtrousers]

So I think that settles it.

The OP was wrong and no one on here seems to be obsessed with having the latest groupset.

Interested in them, knowledgeable about them, yes. Plenty are. Obsessed? Don't think anyone is.

 

[I like Skol]

When my fancy 2016 carbon bike was smashed up and scrapped in an RTA back in 2018 I actively sought out the last stockist of the 2017 model in my size because the features of that model appealed to me more than the 'upgraded' 2018 version which had 'progressed' to a 1x drivetrain and various other spec changes that made no sense other than change for changes sake!

Sometimes the latest bikes are not necessarily an improvement on the old.

 

[Cycleops]

I'm not a racer, but if you are I would think the last thing you need is to get suckered into thinking that you need the latest and best equipment or that you can somehow buy speed.

Wanna bet

 

[Smokin Joe]

This is one of the so many threads that have appeared over the years along the lines of "Why do people buy a more expensive bike than the one I've got?"

So bleedin' what? Their money, their choice.

 

[winjim]

This is one of the so many threads that have appeared over the years along the lines of "Why do people buy a more expensive bike than the one I've got?"

So bleedin' what? Their money, their choice.

True enough but I am interested in what people think the difference is between groupsets and what the actual difference is. I use Campagnolo and know a bit about it; when Graeme F-K was more active on the board he would fill in the blanks. However, despite most people using Shimano, nobody has ever been able to explain the differences beyond cable routing and some nonsense about trickle down.

At the end of the day, all we're doing is shoving a chain off a sprocket, it's not complicated.