Originally Posted by khuon
What exactly is "performance"? You push a lever, it moves a few gears/pivots/arms and ends up pulling a cable which in turn pulls on another set of arms which pushes a chain. Thus it performs. A 30 year old Falcon group can do that. Some things do it smoother and feel nicer, have a few cooler features, look better, etc. That's what you're paying for. Yes, that may be considered bling. But if you read back through this thread, most people will tell you that they didn't spend the money on Record solely for "performance" and that at the end of the day the increased "performance" realised or not had little to no bearing on their decision to use Record. So given that, I'm curious about what or who it is you're irked about. This sounds like a personal problem. Did someone recently come up to you and rub it in your face that you have a 105/Ultegra mix and they had Record?
By performance, I mean the couple of seconds you may shave off your time in a race by having a lighter and quicker shifting group.
You know, a lot of me being annoyed is probably at myself for buying into the whole "record must be a lot better because it's more expensive" bit, my high expectations being met with much less than what I was expecting. I sometimes have a tendency to make bold statements without thinking things through thoroughly, and this may be one of those times
And now to try and remove the foot from my mouth:
I'm assuming there are people that buy things for the bling factor rather than performance and then insist it is for performance. An example of this is the Ricer, who will buy a muffler tip and then insist to others it helps their car even though they just wanted something chrome on the tailpipe. I think this is probably true for some cyclists as well, that they buy certain things for their bike because they look good and then insist they are for performance mainly, and that the looks are just a plus. So, I suppose I'm annoyed not just with cyclists that do this, but with all who do this as well, because they're in denial.