I’m in the market for a 105 level compact for a new project.

Looking around I’m quite surprised by the depth of discounting on the newish 5800 11 speed stuff – like £75 lets me choose a new 5750 or 5800 crank easily, and tbh, most people trying to shift SH ones are trying to get most of that for theirs.

I actually prefer the look of the 5800 to the 5750 – the old school spider web chain ring design didn’t really do much for me tbh. The 5750 is still five bolt though and thus has a huge range of replacement chain rings available. Not sure if anything apart from Shimano 105, Ultegra and DuraAce rings are available in that 4bolt fit.

Bike is definitely going to be ten speed for now (have the shifters already) but based on experiences with mountain bikes I’m quite happy to stick an ’11 speed’ crank in a 10sp drivetrain with a 10sp chain. I accept it might not be a very good set of 11sp rings for 11sp afterwards! 🙂

So, pros and cons? Right now I’m leaning towards the 5800’s for the claimed strength advantage and the ease of putting (Shimano) non-compact ratios on later if I change my mind – the newer cranksets have finally ditched different BCD’s I understand…

Older SRAM Rival (don’t know about the new ones) are lighter and stiffer than Shimano’s stuff, plus they look far better. Standard 5 bolt BCD so you can find replacement rings for not much money. Much easier to fit aswell; no faffing with pinch bolts.

Sram stiffer – that sounds unlikely?

The whole point of the preload dial/pinch bolt approach is that you can set the system up perfectly (and easily) without side loading the bearings, regardless of tolerance build ups between BB shell width and cups.

I’d have Shimano over SRAM every time. Isn’t Tiagra now the same bolt pattern? Means rings are cheap anyway if you want them.

Cheers guys.

Shimano Road stuff is my pref too… If the verdict is that four bolt isn’t going to be a huge problem down the road that’s decision made… 🙂

have a look at this, very interesting reading:

https://fairwheelbikes.com/c/reviews-and-testing/road-bike-crank-testing/

I’m quite a fan of the older 5 bolt design R500\tiagra gives ease of cleaning between rings and not tied in to using shimano branded rings which can get expensive on a daily rider