Originally Posted by
2 wheeler
Everything past 5 speed freewheels ruined everything!
But, seriously, adding cluster cogs every few years has created a mess for anyone wanting to use their bike for many years to come. I guess that it's the scourge of planned obsolescence. My 9 speed 105 components do a great job and I feel no need or desire to "upgrade" to 10 speed or God forbid, 11 speed. What's the point?? Maybe society's unquenchable lust for "newest, latest, greatest" gadget is the motivating factor, lead by the manufacturers greed for $$$ by creating a need for the latest tech. Or users fear that they won't be able to get parts for their aging bikes. It's just not the modern way to offer adequate performance and value, with a technologically static offering.
With my views, it's no wonder I don't run Shimano or SRAM!!
The whole idea with adding more cogs is to make it easier to stay within the 80-95 RPM power band. Up until 8 speed it was often practical to have 2 or 3 freewheels with different ranges, and you selected the appropriate one. Racers in a race like the TdF would have one for the flat stages, another for mountain stages and probably a third for intermediate stages.
The question though, is 11 speed practical, the chains are thinner and narrower, meaning they wear out faster, some people say a lot faster, and they cost more to replace. The cogs also wear faster, and are more expensive to replace. I doubt many people would notice a very large performance change between 10 and 11 speed, unless they race and a hundredth of a second is a big deal.