Is there much difference between Tiagra & 105 10 speed?

Sprool
Sprool Posts: 1,022
edited April 2013 in Road buying advice
Have a look on Ribble's site:
http://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/gsg/road- ... O&tmp=_CAR
Tiagra 4600 10speed is £290.
105 5700 10 sp is £409.
£150 to upgrade is a lot of extra money imo. Is it worth it when you say yourself you've been perfectly happy with the Tiagra setup? I don't think theres that much difference between them whatever the marketing people say.

Comments

  • jgsi
    jgsi Posts: 5,062
    The main difference though are the shifters.
    Then there is only £20 difference between Tiagra and 105...
    Depends if you want cables routed along handlebars or not, that and the colour.. you can get 105 in black, not Tiagra, are the major choice issues.

    Apart from a few grams weight difference with the other bits , thats about it.
  • keef66
    keef66 Posts: 13,123
    Well look at it the other way. Trickle down of technology means that today's 10 speed Tiagra is essentially the same as the 10 speed 105 I got 5 years ago. And that's still going strong.

    If I was buying today though I'd definitely go for something with all the cables under the bar tape; they get in the way of the front light. Sounds trivial, but it really annoys me in the winter :evil:
  • nferrar
    nferrar Posts: 2,511
    I doubt you'd notice much if any difference, my current bikes are Ultegra and DA but I'd happily ride Tiagra 10sp
  • anthdci
    anthdci Posts: 543
    the shifter cables coming out the side of the shifters in the tiagra and lower groupsets do my head in. I will only use 105 or above now, much cleaner look and worth the £150 in my opinion.
  • anthdci
    anthdci Posts: 543
    Stanley222 wrote:
    But I've only ever had Tiagra so don't particularly find this an issue. I suppose during darkness they get in the way of my light beam a little but not enough to annoy me.
    Is it really worth £150 just to hide some cables?
    So far the feeling I'm getting from most is to stick with the Tiagra and save myself £150!

    Its completely personal preference and my preference is that it bugs the hell out of me. It clearly doesn't annoy you, so the other advantages of the 105 over the Tiagra, mostly weight advantages are probably not going to be worth the £150.
  • ianbar
    ianbar Posts: 1,354
    i have moved up to 105 from tiagra and generally it feel a better shift etc but not massively. i think these things come down to cost if you have £150 to spend then do it if not you could always save the money for something else like tyres and tubes which should give you added rolling speed and less weight etc
    enigma esprit
    cannondale caad8 tiagra 2012
  • Crozza
    Crozza Posts: 991
    I used to get blisters on the inside of my thumbs from the cables when climbing on the hoods - much happier since I upgraded to 105

    it looks a lot cleaner too! front shifting an awful lot better than my old 2300 set up, can't comment on 10sp tiagra
  • Remarkable
    Remarkable Posts: 187
    Only in price I would imagine. When your suffering on someones wheel etc. in your sportive, I doubt you will care very much about how nice it looks or how smooth the gear change feels. But it really depends on whether or not you have better things to spend that extra £150 on...
  • ianbar
    ianbar Posts: 1,354
    it definately shifted better but if that is worth spending £150 is debatable but yes it does look better too. same as anything though, spending £150 is not going to add 5mph or anything its the engine that does that and you can get a good engine on anything really! i bought 105 for my new bike as i was spending a fair bit anyway and wanted to set it even more apart from what would become my winter bike.
    enigma esprit
    cannondale caad8 tiagra 2012

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