I have completely (well almost) stopped thinking about weight. I bought a steel Basso Loto and put a 10 speed Dura Ace on it with a 105 long arm rear derailleur and an 11-36 cassette. While with water and flat kit it weighs in at 22.5 lbs I now am not shifting all day to get to a gear that is appropriate. At 79 and with a most definite appreciation of steel, this seems to be the idea bike for me. Despite a lot of rain this year I already have 450 miles and a lot of climbing despite all of the hill roads being washed out last year. With the hill roads in place I was turning in about 350,000 feet of climbing each year but with most of the hill roads gone or too dangerous to use, I am at half of that for the last 12 months. I am not happy about that but it is what it is. This is California and they don't believe in road repair. Presently I am putting together a Specialized aluminum Allez to use as a bad weather bike. Right now I am using a carbon fiber BMC for wet and muddy roads. I can tell the difference in weight but not much. Being winter I have two rides that I use. One of them I normally do on Tuesday is a 1500 foot climbing ride 27 miles long. And the Thursday ride is flat and about 30 miles. I am VERY slow but I intend to carry on as long as I may. Come Summer I will try and find routes of 40 or 50 miles length each and keep my average of 5000 miles per year alive.
I don't miss riding a steel Mongoose in the least.
I even had a GT Outpost Trail, steel frame, that I converted into a bullhorn bike. I might be able to blame the chainring being a 40T round, but pushing that thing was incredibly lossy.
I'm looking to go 56T oval for my current road build that I'm doing. I was originally thinking 54T, considering that's what I thought most pros use these day. But I figure that I mine as well go all out. I was riding 46T for awhile, before I jumped to 52T last year. And on 700c wheels, I was actually able to push that ring with surprising ease. That was one of the factors that made me feel like I should just max out. I'm going to run 11-23 or 11-25 9 speed Sora, because I have to compromise due to budget issues. But I originally wanted to do that with 10 speed Tiagra.
Anyways, I hope this information is still able to help a lot of people. I wish they gave raw weight like this without any chainrings by default, because they're a popular buy with just the crankarms. And people like me will only be throwing a single chainring on them also. I'd like to know how much weight I'm saving for the jump or investment from the lesser series.
I don't miss riding a steel Mongoose in the least.
I even had a GT Outpost Trail, steel frame, that I converted into a bullhorn bike. I might be able to blame the chainring being a 40T round, but pushing that thing was incredibly lossy.
I'm looking to go 56T oval for my current road build that I'm doing. I was originally thinking 54T, considering that's what I thought most pros use these day. But I figure that I mine as well go all out. I was riding 46T for awhile, before I jumped to 52T last year. And on 700c wheels, I was actually able to push that ring with surprising ease. That was one of the factors that made me feel like I should just max out. I'm going to run 11-23 or 11-25 9 speed Sora, because I have to compromise due to budget issues. But I originally wanted to do that with 10 speed Tiagra.
Anyways, I hope this information is still able to help a lot of people. I wish they gave raw weight like this without any chainrings by default, because they're a popular buy with just the crankarms. And people like me will only be throwing a single chainring on them also. I'd like to know how much weight I'm saving for the jump or investment from the lesser series.
Because the Dura Ace and Ultegra is now only available in Di2 the manual 105 is now the top of the line manual group. I built up a CX bike using 105 and I didn't have a single complaint. It shifted perfectly. The brakes were V-brakes. You have to buy CX rather than MTB V-brakes. I think that mine were Tektro. The leverage is way different.