Quote:
A $5k bike with mechanical ultegra and hydraulic disc brakes and a set of nice, wide rims
...is something that one literally cannot purchase new.
Quote:
The latest 11 speed mechanical groups
...were designed close to a decade ago, and released in 2016/2017.
I do get it. I spend most of my riding time on a bike with 10 speed DA. No brakes at all on that one, because it lives on the trainer. I actually have an 11 speed Ultegra mechanical shift/hydro disc group on my road bike. It's great. But the bike frame was designed in the same time frame as the groupset, as one might expect. This means I can maybe fit a set of 28 section tires in there, if they aren't too tall. And that's with a frame that was pretty generously spaced for the late teens, when it was produced.
So, no; you can't actually suggest that the OP look for a bike with "the latest" 11 speed Ultegra. You need to append...
- She needs to look for a groupset that isn't offered on *any* new bikes, so forget getting any help from the IBD, or finding something off the shelf.
.
- Frames that *were* offered for sale with those 11 speed groupsets originally almost certainly won't accept the tire sizes she's hoping to run, so she needs to look for a frame that's probably a couple of years younger than the groupset.
- Those "nice, wide rims" are, realistically, a generation younger than the frame, so will definitely want to keep an eye out there as well.
All this being the case, my only issue with Slowman's suggesting electronic shifting is that it's essentially a fait accompli on contemporary road bikes. There ain't no more mechanical Ultegra, and likely won't be again. If someone wants a bike that does all the things a contemporary road bike does, they should probably just buy a contemporary road bike. Or a bike that was built closer to the start of the *previous* century, but that's another topic entirely.
Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
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