"New" 105 or keep Tiagra on winter bike?
I'm building a rim-braked Contend SL frame to be my winter bike/son's bike, and need to decide on the groupset. My original idea was passing the Tiagra parts from my old Defy. As that bike's been serviced regularly, pretty much everything but the shifters, cranks and front derailleur is newer than the bike. Then thought that maybe I could splurge a bit more and instead upgrade to 11-speed 105.
Any thoughts? Ideally, of course, as this will be a winter bike, I would have liked to go to a more sturdy 11-speed road CUES whenever that came out.
Comments
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Personally, I'd stick 105 on there. Around £400 for a full groupset at the moment. Will work really well and last you ages. Keep the Tiagra as spare back up parts just in case.
I often find when I swap old parts on to a new build, I end up replacing them soon enough anyway, so now if funds allow I tend to change the lot in one go, it is more cost effective IME in the long run.
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Just to be contrary I'd say put the Tiagra on it. If it's a winter bike in Scotland I'm guessing the roads get pretty nasty, my drivertrain really suffers in a London winter so I'm guessing it's worse. Once the Tiagra is knackered, by all means change to 105 or something.
Hope i remember rightly you talking about Edinburgh in the past.
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Lots of commuting around Edinburgh, yes, and it's all filthy from October to March. So much so that a set of rim brake pads barely lasts two months, even if I spray the bike with a hose after a wet ride. Honestly, on a winter bike and after the 25k km my Defy has done, I'd definitely trade off durability for a few hundred grams.
Adn thanks all for your comments!
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If you have Tiagra on another bike that you are going to no longer use than transfer the Tiagra stuff to the new bike.
HOWEVER...if you have another project bike in the wings and will eventually need components then save the Tiagra for it, or sell the Defy with the Tiagra components on it if you are no longer going to be using the bike. Use the money from the sale to upgrade the Contend.
Personally, since this bike is a winter bike and you encounter a lot of rain and dirt from what you and others have said, I would not be using a road group, none of the Shimano road groups use any jockey wheel seals in the derailleurs up until you get to Dura Ace, but those DA seals are light duty seals intended for light rain, not dirt and heavy rain as would be encountered on a mountain bike, or with winter use, thus I would use Deore XT or GRX. Some road bikes are not compatible with Deore stuff, I have a road bike with Deore XT with no problem, but GRX is compatible with all road bikes from my understanding, and like the Deore XT, the GRX uses extremely good jockey wheel bearing seals to keep the bad crap out. You will need to consult a bike shop mechanic to make sure one or the other is compatible, or maybe someone here can provide further information about the compatibility.
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I think you might find there are thousands of people in the UK using Shimano road groupsets on their winter bikes and managing ok.
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Also most use bushings on at least the upper pulley, so seized bearings can't happen. For those with bearings even a basic level of maintenance would prevent it being an issue. And if you were that bothered / maintenance averse there is nothing to stop you changing the jockey wheels for GRX anyway...
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Logic = Tiagra
Love of shiny new things = 105
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