Pathlete wrote:
They are. If you're going to all the effort and expense on a gruppo, wheels, frame, why wouldn't you want to have the most control to stop/slow?
It only hurts once!
The entertaining (to me) side story is that I originally built this road bike on the very cheap. I found a very good and light used frame, and built most of the rest of it from leftover parts from Tri bike upgrades. Then, I bought other decent but used parts to finished it out. I think I only got a couple things new. The bike reminded me of how much I absolutely love road riding. So, I upgraded to a new SRAM eTap shift kit.
I love SRAM cranks, so I put a new all-black SRAM Red crank on it. My only non-Red exception (other than the calipers) is the cassette. SRAM's current Red cassette is a glorious triumph of manufacturing. But, it is stupid money for little incremental value. So, the bike got a Force cassette, which is very good at 1/3 the cost. So, my quest is to decide whether a part is truly awesome or just stupid money.