Two VS. Questions

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Permalink Reply by Adam St. Germain on February 6, 2012 at 9:44am

Chris,

     There is zero question that you should opt for the SRAM group over the Ultegra group, IMO.  It's lighter, easier to service/clean, and I feel performs better in the slop.  In my experience.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.  Not to mention that the Rival group is a bunch lighter than the Ultegra group.

As for the brakes, I currently use the EuroX myself, but have set-up a few Ultimates and there is no doubt that they perform a bit better.  There is more power, and the adjustment of the brakes is a bunch easier.  Also, you can opt to set them up wide or narrow, which is pretty unique.

I'd go Rival with the Ultimates and call it a day.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Fly on February 6, 2012 at 9:57am

awesome, thanks buddy!

Chris

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Permalink Reply by Michael Wakeley on February 6, 2012 at 12:36pm

I agree with Chris. I have both brakes and I like the Ultimates a LOT better than the TRPs.

Sram is a great choice, 'to me' not as finicky about adjustments and easy to clean out the shifting mechanism. There is very little if any drop off in performance between the Rival and the Red.

I have had several women from our team have some shifting trouble after a long stretch of very sand races. I just cleaned out the shifters (5 minutes) and good as new. I would hate to think about sand getting in Shimano shifters.   

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Permalink Reply by Grayson Smith on February 6, 2012 at 1:10pm

I would seriously reconsider buying a new cx frameset that uses cantilevers (and if I were pressed I would go with Paul touring in the back, neo retro up front) especially at the Ibis price point.

Enve has a disc ready fork, as does Whiskey7 and SRAM keeps talking about a disc group coming up, Shimano is either just ahead or just behind as well, although SRAM might own the patent on the modern mechanical disc brake caliper (bb7 etc). Zipp has a wheelset in development, and we all saw Cannondale has something up its sleeve too.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Fly on February 6, 2012 at 1:17pm

just got rid of a Salsa Vaya with discs...  didn't really dig them and seemed a bit too high maintenance for me... and that's after I upgraded to BB7's... I understand in heavy, thick muck the discs might stop better (have a mountain bike now with hydro discs), but I'm just not convinced they are any better for me...  in fact if I needed the stopping power of discs I would just just the CX8.4s...  had those on my Van Dessel I had (CX9's anyway) and they had PLENTY of power...

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Permalink Reply by Adam St. Germain on February 6, 2012 at 1:31pm

Grayson,

      These are good points about the disc option.

I'm curious about what you're hinting at about Cannondale.  Other than their SuperX prototype that Johnson was riding, I didn't see anything from this this past fall/winter.

Link?

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Permalink Reply by Chris Fly on February 6, 2012 at 2:50pm

BTW- I have the Paul's touring on my Salsa Casseroll...  awesome brakes but I just don't think they would look right on a carbon Hakkalugi...

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