Tiagra Triple (4703)- Your Thoughts/Experience?

[Nyooome-nore]

Hey gang.

Contemplating going a little upmarket from my microshift R8 setup that came with the bike either this summer, or for christmas.

It ticks all the boxes (shiny, better, shimano), but is not that common to find as a groupset(especially with 175mm cranks), is the phobia of triples over compact chanisets that big a thing?

And finally, would changing the brakes up to the 105 (5800) caliper brakes be a good investment, seeing as I'm a less-than-confident descender, reviews say the difference is noticeable, can anyone back them up?

 

[dan_bo]

Solid stuff. You won't regret it.

 

[dan_bo]

and 5800 calipers are scary good.

 

[Brandane]

I have Tiagra triple set up on 2 bikes, both 9 speed at the back. I cannot fault it's performance, but just a wee word of caution - the 9 speed version is now quite old and has been superseded by more modern stuff. It's easy enough to source new chains and cassettes, but recently I wanted to replace the crankset and had problems getting a new one. Eventually found one (it's actually branded as Sora but same as older Tiagra) being sold by Rose Bikes in Germany and bought it, so all good for now - but who knows when they will stop manufacturing spares for 9 speed systems.

 

[Drago]

I'm not so sold on the calipers myself, owning as I do both 105 and Tektro equipped bikes - the 105 is very good, but the Tektro with Felt branded pads are almost supernatural.

 

[cyberknight]

run a tiagra double and its very nice.
I actually liked microshift stuff on my commuter at the time ,

 

[Nyooome-nore]

The plan is over the next 2 years to upgrade everything on the bike and end up with this bike back together again as my commuter, and have a from-scratch pleasure riding bike too

Thanks for the feedback, and wrt spares, asides from the crank and cassettes, what else wears out quickly enough to warrant planning ahead?