How nice are those cranks? In fact, the whole thing is just lovely. Mmmmmm.

Havn’t seen it in the flesh, but from the pics the rear mech and brakes look cheap compared with the polished finish of old Dura-Ace, more SLX than XTR. Cranks are nice though!

Mucho grande (rubs thumb and 2nd finger together vigorously)

In the flesh, the mechs look really nicely solid and well made. TBH I thought the old polished finish made it look cheap. The cranks tho are just fab. And yes apparently last year a complete group was £700something, now it’s £1300something… 😯 They purposely made it more expensive to make it more exclusive and hence desirable.

Still. Lovely 🙂

Yeah we’ve had a bike on the shop floor for about 3 months with it on, looks very tasty indeed, and feels really nice too, although I don’t like the fact you can only shift 2 gears at a time on the RH shifter now.

It was expensive anyway, and then Shimano prices soared, it’s a bit mental, but then it’s just made it closer to SRAM Red and Super Record frankly, but still nicer.

It’s lush, but I saw at advertised recently for £1400 – **** me you could buy a car for that 😉

Think it looks nasty.

New

Old (Much better)

those cranks are the shizzle. so nice i took a photograph of them for my portfolio.
the are not cheap though!

NOT worth 600 extra IMO. I am crapping myself because all my road bike/commuter’s ultrega kit has done about 6-7000 miles now, and is about due to die. Ultrega to Sora methinks!Mind you I bust a wheel 2 weeks ago and am commuting the 20 mile round trip on a 5 spot just now, so anything with skinny wheels would be nice.

Far nicer than either:

£1300 for Dura Ace why? when you could get Record.I’ve always thought 105 is star in the shimano range being a great compromise between cost and quality.

The cranks are a lot better than the hideousness of a year or two ago (see Soup’s second pic). But still fugly.

aracer – nothing in that pic looks any different to the traditional old stuff, apart from being ugly carbon.

the problem is you can’t mix and match with the old stuff. even the brake pull is different.
nothing to stop you using 7800 shifters and 7900 cranks though.

nothing in that pic looks any different to the traditional old stuff

How is it supposed to look different, and what looks different to the traditional old stuff about DA which is so good? What exactly is your point caller?

Are we really gonna have a Campag/Shimano debate?!

Who cares, yes DA is now expensive, but still cheaper then Campag, it’s also lighter now! I’ve always liked the way Record uses carbon bits, but always actually preferred the aesthetics of DA, now it’s the ideal groupset!

Buy what you want and get on with it, you’re not exactly gonna go wrong! Just don’t buy a SRAM Red cassette, they’re incredibly noisy!

The way the chainrings are chunky and machined for stiffness and flow superbly into the spider which, incidentally, is not a forged lump like they used to be but machined hollowness behind.

Duckman’s comments are interesting – how long do people reckon you get out of a road groupset ignoring the consumables?

My first 9 speed Ultegra I used for close on 20k kilometres – I did need to replace the front mech that seized somewhere along the way but other than that all seemed OK. Sold it and still in light service AFAIK. Can’t say I really took great care of it either

6~7000k miles does not seem a lot to me? Even riding in tough conditions. I am not a high milage guy but that would mean a new groupset every 2 years or less!

I do wonder exactly what is bust on Duckman’s bike. It can’t all have worn out at the same time?

Cassette, chain, sure. Mechs? Brakes? Surely not.

classic clicky

How good are those pedals!

As for milage my
sora mech is a t 6k, tiht as the day it was made
FSA/cannondale cranks and chainrings look new
cassette and chain are at 2k, not any plans to change it fo another 1-2k
sora shifters ae fine, cables rusted up and needed to be replaced

1 thing about dura ace I can’t get my head around is they have reach adjustment.. but when you adjust the reach it leaves a huge gap at the top of the lever which is not covered by the rubber hood. The internals are all exposed through this gap, and also at the bottom shifter where there’s no rubber hood. Not the attention to detail you’d expect from Shimano.. wonder what happens when road grit gets in there. Yum.

yes DA is now expensive, but still cheaper then Campag, it’s also lighter now!

If £1300 is the going price then that’s certainly more than Record, and possibly more than SR (not quite sure of the going rate on that). All the specs I’ve seen would suggest Campag is also still lighter.

Fair enough about the chainset tech, molgrips, but aesthetically it certainly doesn’t do it for me. Plenty of the rest also looke pretty low rent and overly chunky compared to the Campag stuff – particularly unimpressed still with that crank arm pinch bolt – and I thought the point was the looks rather than the technology (though if you’re playing that game, can I just check how many gears DA has?)