40 grams is about the same as a mouthful of water. Not going to matter one bit (unless you're 40 grams away from winning, and in that case, go for it).

As they say: strong, light, cheap. Pick two.

The lower cost of the ultegra cassettes is nice, but I have found that they are a good bit louder when you are pedalling. The finish is different between the two,

I recently had to choose between the two, and my local tri shop put them on the scale and there was more like a 30g difference. And the price difference is over $100 ($79 vs $189) on trisports.com.
That sealed the deal on the ultegras :)

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mcoker

Just use Ultegra unless you really have that extra money burning a hole in your pocket. They work just as well as D/A. I use Ultegra's for both training and racing.

My last bike was Ultegra and this one is Dura Ace; both work very well. It sounds like my next replacement cassette will be Ultegra. I did pay a lot for the recent Dura Ace cassette and chain replacement.

I always buy Ultegra (or even SRAM) for this kind of stuff. I have a full Dura Ace Bike, a full Ultegra bike and a couple that are mixes and if there is a performance difference, it's only because I need to adjust a cable or something. Unless you're building a bike for Hill climb races, I don't think the minor weight difference is worth the money.

Works out at $800 per pound of weight saved. Neglecting that DA may be slightly more reliable (I'm not sure if it is) it's fine if you have money to burn, but if you're of the opinion that weight is important (it's not really unless you're doing pure uphill races) then there are far cheaper ways to reduce weight on a typical $3K-$5K bike.

"about a $70.00 difference "

Realize that it's total rider/bike weight and you're talking $1.75 per gm at this price difference if you do the math.

I've used both Ultegra and DA and to be honest, my favorite is the SRAM chain/cassette combo. Really like the Hollow Pin chain.

http://www.sram.com/...ad/index_content.php