Originally Posted by DX-MAN

Now that the voice from under the bridge has been heard.........

10- & 11- speed cassettes are, IMO, overkill and mostly driven by the empty desire for 'shiny new tech'. I saw an advantage going from 8-speed to 9, in the better progression of gears for my purposes (at the time). What I also saw with 9-speed was fragility of chains; I'm on my 4th 9-speed chain in 7 years. EVERY ONE has broken -- now, once I fix them, they serve really well, only 1 has broken twice -- which didn't happen with 8-speed. I broke ONE 8-speed chain in my LIFE! (yep, 5-6-7-8 setups all take the same chain)

When 8-speed becomes unavailable, I will reconsider 9 (retro-swapping over the winter back to 8) again; when 9 becomes unavailable, I will go singlespeed. NO 10- or 11-speed under this horse!! I've broken enough chains.