Steel and aluminum are used more in the hardware and components. But Shimano has done just enough to satisfy those trying to balance high performance and cost. Dura-Ace is one of the most influential groups in the world. What happens with Dura-Ace can change the market. Riders who obsess over bike tech love Dura-Ace because of what it represents. It is the pinnacle of performance.
It's lust-worthy. The organic bananas might cost 20 cents more than the regular bananas. Organic bananas are probably a bit healthier. They taste more or less the same.
Some people just prefer the organic option. Unfortunately, you can want these things but they can still be out of reach. It gives you the same feel and technology, but at a greatly reduced price.
You may pay for it with weight, aesthetics, or refinement, but it still allows you to have the same riding experience. Joy is hard to quantify. But some riders are just happier with having the best equipment, whether or not they actually need it.
Much of the joy I experience with bikes come from trying to make my own bikes as nice as possible. It helps me appreciate my bikes. It motivates me to take good care of them, clean them, and tune them regularly.
A bike I love pushes me to go out and ride, train, and improve. It adds to my enjoyment of cycling, and that alone is worth it to me. Is it worth it to you? Well, again, it depends a bit on your personality. It came with But it wasn't long before I swapped it all to Dura-Ace R It worked flawlessly, and I rode and abused this bike for years.
It was the bike that ignited my love of cycling and sent me down the path of tech obsession. Like Lawrence said, it was my gateway. I rode more, set bigger goals, and began competing. Then, eventually, I moved to a massively expensive super-bike equipped with Dura-Ace.
My upgrade path followed my progression as a rider. As I got faster, fitter, and more skilled, I upgraded accordingly. I felt that any improvement as a rider warranted better bikes and components. Am I faster on a Dura-Ace bike? No, of course not. As always, the rider matters more than the bike. When I was at my fittest, I happened to be riding I ride just as well on a bike as I do on Dura-Ace.
The finish is gorgeous. Its quality and prestige bring me joy. That may not be you. In general, Ultegra is the best happy medium option that provides many of the benefits of the top-of-the-line Dura-Ace group without a massive increase in price over the group.
Do you ride , Ultegra, or Dura-Ace? Which is the best group for you? Let us know in the comments! Shimano glues multiple pieces together to make their Dura Ace and Ultegra cranksets. The bonding process used in the higher end cranksets have been known to fail in a wide variety of riders. Reliability is important for average riders. More than enough conversations on the Internet along with pictures of failed Shimano cranksets. I wish Shimano would rethink their manufacturing process.
Nice article. You are better off obsessing on the perfect FIT rather than what components come on your bike. Far better to ride on a bike that fits than DA on one that almost fits.
You can always upgrade over time. Nicely researched and written article. I ride a Specialized Tarmac Comp that came with the groupset. I enjoy doing my own tech work and have found the to be very reliable and easy to service.
My first road bike was a GT Series 3 with Tiagra, 10 speed. And it was light and fast. And I love it; the smooth shifting brings a smile each time.
Yet I roll along on my BMC with more. And I recently acquired another bike which will be updated to Ultegra; not sure yet whether it be Di2 or mechanical Ultegra. I have ridden the same for, dare I say, 16 years and it has performed flawlessly all that time.
I ride about every other month and the servicing is next to nothing. A great group set. It linked to the cycle computer and I will miss that when I get my new bile, with ultegra. Great article. No one has mentioned that brifters have the shifter cable coming out of the side, while Dura-Ace and Ultegra have it routed under the hood. Yellow Saddle said:. As you go up in the quality, the sets use less steel and more aluminium. The coatings also become fancier and therefore more expensive.
Operation and durability is approximately the same. Maintenance cost isn't more for the most expensive for a long time after acquisition because the parts that wear are common across the groups. Jockey wheels, chains, cassettes, BBs - all of those are pretty standard. Yes, you can buy an Ultegra cassette but a one will work just as well. It is in fact the same cassette with a different coating.
All the coatings are excellent. After a while, an Ultegra crank may require a new chainring and that's a bit more expensive on an Ultegra since that one is hollow and machined to blend in and integrate with the rest of the crank.
You cannot substitute on the chainring. As for the rest, replacement cost is similar. You will not find the one operating better, smoother whatever that means or more efficient whatever that means , than any other one in the top group. With the highest group you usually get the nicest styling and of course, some street cred.
The decision cannot be rational. It is emotional and financial. Kajjal Veteran. Location Wheely World. Like most sites we make a small amount of money if you buy something after clicking on one of those links. We want you to be happy with what you buy, so we only include a product in a if we think it's one of the best of its kind.
As far as possible that means recommending equipment that we have actually reviewed, but we also include products that are popular, highly-regarded benchmarks in their categories. Here's some more information on how road. You can also find further guides on our sister sites off. Email John with comments, corrections or queries. Mat has been road. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too.
He has won his category in Ironman UK Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now pushing 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
It always amazes me that some drivers' response to cyclists not using cycles lanes is "cyclists deliberately getting in my way" rather than I fitted my surly dirt wizards last weekend, mud specific and a pig on tarmac, doable. When I put a new front on over the summer I needed to Old cycling businesses like DT Swiss need to get real, real fast on what they're charging for carbon wheels The issue with Absolute Black is not really the price, but the claims that are being made and whether they are true or not.
The high price simply You could refuse to Log In Register. Support road. Help us to make it better. Back to Buyer's Guide. Shimano Tiagra v Shimano R — see which popular groupset is best for you.
Find out how Shimano's speed Tiagra and speed groupsets compare. Sat, May 15, Updated April 27, Welcome to the latest edition of road. More about road. Continue Reading. About road. Shimano The very newest speed Dura-Ace and Ultegra groupsets aren't actually available at all yet. Japanese company Shimano is the most popular groupset manufacturer with a range of groupsets at different prices. The more expensive groupsets are lighter and usually offer smoother gear shifting and superior braking performance, and you get more gears and with the more expensive groupsets, speed on Dura-Ace, Ultegra and , down to 8-speed on entry-level Claris.
The range includes mechanical groupsets for road bikes, using cables to operate the front and rear derailleurs, and electronic groupsets at the top of the range. First introduced in , electronic groupsets have proved to be extremely popular, with precise gear changes, long battery life and good durability. Whether you choose mechanical or electronic comes down to budget and personal preference. And then there's GRX, Shimano's gravel-bike component series that sits off to one side of the main road bike component range.
We'll cover GRX here as well, as these are components for drop-bar bikes, but the way Shimano has organised GRX doesn't quite conform to their usual way of doing things. Dura-Ace Di2 is Shimano's flagship groupset, boasting features and materials that make it capable of withstanding the rigours of professional racing and durable enough to last well under riders who clock over 10, miles per year of training and racing.
Its main features include electronic shifting, hydraulic disc brakes and extensive use of high-strength materials to keep weight down and high-tech bearing and surface coatings to increase service life. And it's just been dramatically revamped as a speed system. The speed version of Dura-Ace was at the same time the most anticipated and most predictable product launch of , and the most surprising.
Anticipated because it was preceded by a year of leaks, patent and FCC filings and race appearances; predictable because both SRAM and Campagnolo had already introduced speed systems and Shimano has been making speed mountain bike components since ; surprising because there's no mechanical version of speed Dura-Ace, and also because Shimano introduced a speed version of Ultegra Di2 at the same time.
More of that later. Many of the new features of Dura-Ace arise from its main target use case: this is a road racing groupset. Shimano says pro riders were asking for higher top gears because peloton speeds have increased, so you can now choose a chainset with a tooth big ring.
Faster shifting is a marginal gain, but we can see how pro riders would want to be able to get into a bigger gear for a sprint as quickly as possible, or a lower one for a big climb.
Having a rear derailleur that will accommodate a tooth sprocket means pro team mechanics no longer have to faff around to provide support riders and sprinters with very low gears for mountain stages. Previously, mechanics would fit long-cage Ultegra rear mechs so that riders whose job was simply to get over the mountains rather than race up them could save their legs on the climbs.
Losing the wiring between shifters and derailleurs similarly makes life easier for pro team mechanics. But Dura-Ace is also popular with affluent recreational riders and there are features clearly aimed at those users too. Increased brake pad clearance will help keep bikes quiet that don't get a pro mechanic once-over after every ride, and the larger shift button offset makes it easier to use the controls while wearing winter gloves. Shimano's engineers say they've learned their lesson from the transition from to speed cassettes, which left many riders with collections of wheels that didn't work with the new gearing.
They've also admitted that the previous Dura-Ace power meter had accuracy issues, as reported by specialist bike electronics journalists like Shane Miller and Ray Maker. Ray has an excellent piece on the new Dura-Ace and Ultegra power meters , in which Shimano explain that the previous problem was that the power meter gubbins technical term were just grafted on to the existing cranks.
This time, the power meter and crank design teams have worked together to ensure the power meter works properly. Dura-Ace Di2 uses a similar shifting design to Shimano's mechanical gear systems, but instead of pushing two levers, you push two buttons positioned next to each other. If you want to move two or more sprockets at a time, rather than swinging the lever further like you do with a mechanical system, you just keep the button pressed down.
Carrying over from the previous Dura-Ace Di2, R boasts extensive customisability of the shift functions through an app — see below for more on that. Buy Shimano Dura-Ace R Di2 if you want the state of the Shimano art and arguably the overall state of the art when it coes to shifting speed and customisability. Read more: Shimano expert talks new Dura-Ace and Ultegra groupsets. Shimano Ultegra is the company's second-tier groupset, with all the features of Dura-Ace for a bit less money because Shimano uses less expensive materials and surface coatings.
It's long been considered the working-man's performance groupset, though you might argue that this new version, with its substantial price hike over its predecessor, yields that title to In the past Ultegra offered a wider range of options than Dura-Ace. Now, both groupsets offer the same options and all the same headline technology. And like Dura-Ace there's no mechanical version — yet. Shimano hasn't said definitively that mechanical Ultegra will never happen and there's now a Moria-scale abyss between Ultegra R Di2 and , so we might see a mechanical speed version next year.
Shimano isn't saying. In mirroring Dura-Ace Di2's technologies, Ultegra R Di2 gets two new features not previously seen on a Shimano groupset at this level. Once the world's supply chain returns to normal, it's a good bet you'll be able to pay quite a bit less than that. That'll make these cranks an attractive option if Shiman has ironed out the bugs that affected the previous Dura-Ace power meter cranks.
The other new aspect to Ultegra is a suite of tubeless-ready wheels with full-carbon rims. Like the Dura-Ace equivalents they have 36mm, 50mm and 60mm rims. This is the previous, speed version of Dura-Ace, which we're keeping here because there are still a few bikes in shops with it. The mechanical and Di2 electronic groups share the same chainset, brakes and other non-shifting components, but with Di2 you get switches on the brake levers, derailleurs with built-in motors and the battery, wiring and control box that ties it all together.
The major new feature of Di2 is Synchronized Shift, a technology borrowed from Shimano's mountain bike Di2 components. Rather than buttons controlling front and rear derailleurs independently, one pair of buttons moves up and down the gear ratios, making shifts at the front or rear derailleur, or both, as necessary. There are two modes. Press one button and the gear will get harder to turn, press the other button and the gear will get easier.
A new junction box is not only very tidy — it can be hidden inside the end of the handlebar — it provides wireless ANT Private connectivity to third-party devices. The system also offers a Bluetooth connection to phones and tablets running Shimano's E-Tube software so you can program the shifting behaviour. You can personalise the speed of the shifting, the number of sprockets that will be shifted, and even control the rear derailleur with the left hand.
An advantage of Di2 is the option of adding additional shifter pods, satellite shifters that can be fitted to the tops or the drops. There's an internal battery, which you can hide inside the seat post. Worried about it going flat? If your budget won't stretch to the electronic version of Dura-Ace, the mechanical version is by no means second best — it's still a superb ensemble.
The group offered one of the widest range of options Shimano has ever offered in road bike components, including a power meter, hydraulic disc brakes, a wider gear range and an increased selection of wheels. The group features new derailleurs too, using design features that originally appeared on Shimano's mountain bike parts to reduce the chance that the rear mech will get damaged in a crash.
Just one rear derailleur will handle any gear system you choose, including the new cassette. With the group Shimano adds a very tidy power meter to its collection.
How tidy? You can see in the pic to the right that the electronics are barely visible. The inclusion of hydraulic disc brakes in the Dura-Ace line shows how completely Shimano has embraced road bike discs. Previously Dura-Ace equipped bikes with discs had to use Shimano's non-series brakes and levers; now they match. If you're using rim brakes, the Dura-Ace calipers have been subtly redesigned so they'll accommodate 28mm tyres.
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