I have a Trek Madone 4.5 that has the factory Shimano 105 group set. Not sure why but I have never been a fan of the shifting on it and also don’t like shifting from the small to big ring on the front crank. Any suggestions as far as upgrading or changing? I don’t have much to compare to but I also have a Focus Black Forest MT bike with a higher end Shimano set that I absolutely love and it shifts so smooth compared to my 105 on my road bike.
Forgive me if I am saying the obvious…is it set up right? Whats the tooth jump on the front. Really, you should not have any complaints with 105
i agree with Kenny that your 105 should shift pretty clean. How old is it? Have you ever replaced the cable housings? If you ride in inclimate weather the inside of the housing can corrode and cause poor response from the cables. Also, if the original installer put a kink in the cable it will give a similar drop in performance. Get a good shop to change out the cables AND housings, your problem may go away.
Ive had it a year and a half and its been like that the whole time. I have had two different shops look at it and adjust it but said nothing is wrong. I have thrown the chain in the front several times and it just doesn’t seem to go from one to the other as smooth as it should. Maybe its just me
If the cable routing at the derailleur is not exactly right it will cause it to be hard to shift. Also, throwing a chain is a function of your limit screws on the derailleur, not the shifter.
I just upgraded from a 105 set to the new 11 speed Ultegra and love it. I have not been able to ride on the road due to the snow, but on the trainer it shifts like a mink.
If the cable routing at the derailleur is not exactly right it will cause it to be hard to shift. Also, throwing a chain is a function of your limit screws on the derailleur, not the shifter.
Unless the derailleur cage is bent…
I just upgraded from a 105 set to the new 11 speed Ultegra and love it. I have not been able to ride on the road due to the snow, but on the trainer it shifts like a mink.
what all parts did you upgrade? What was a ball park price? Why did you switch?
Is the crankset on the Madone also 105, or is it a Trek/Bontrager one?
You can pretty easily and cheaply upgrade 10 speed 105 to 10 speed Ultegra using eBay, Slowtwitch, and discount parts sites. You can also just upgrade the derailleurs and maybe the cranks and keep the shifters.
As others have said though, it sounds like something is wrong with the setup. Shimano and 105 should be pretty reliable. I just swapped my whole cross bike from a SRAM 10 speed mix to 105 10 speed, and had a very good mechanic do it. Smooth as silk.
Sometimes the shop doesn’t get the assembly right. I had the chain-dropping problem as well when I first purchased my road bike (mostly 105) and the fix was easy. The cable needed to be adjusted and it’s been fine ever since.
Its a 105 crank.
Thanks for all the advice guys. Ill take it back to the shop with the info you gave me and have them check it out
My first suggestion:
Upgrade to a Dura Ace chain and adjust that front deraileur, then try new, better, cables if necessary.
I took it in and they took out some of the slack in the cabling and also adjusted the derailleur and it seems really good now.
Yeah, shops aren’t always all that awesome. Unless you have one of these old mechanics who has seen everything (you know which type of guy I’m talking about) You can sometime do stuff better than them if you have the experience. I still blame my LBS on not tuning my 105 properly, I had them recable and tune my 105 - 5700 last year and cables weren’t all that awesome and it shifted like crap IMHO. Eventually changed the cables myself and tuned the bike myself and ended up having better results for what it’s worth.
When my RD broke last year they had to change the chain too, charged me 50$ for a brandless mtb chain and since then my bike is loud and shifting is meh. I just wait for summer to change back to a new KMC chain.
Hey man, just temporarily hijacking this thread to get your opinion on changing from sram to shimano 105…
I just bought a training bike with a sram compact groupset on it and have ordered it as shimano 105 groupset to switch it across too… For the purpose of not having a compact crank, different gear ratios that I am used to and also to keep shimano parts on both my racer and training bike… My question is are you happy with the shimano 105 as opposed to the sram… ?
Cheers