Originally Posted by
Bah Humbug
It's not just that being much lower priced would be "a steal"; it's priced way too close to a normal brifter for me. Can get an Apex or 5700 brifter and have the same degree of caring if it breaks. That said, I'm glad you have a market that appreciates your products, but it's not really a budget option in comparison to others, so a lot of riders will avoid it.
Bah Humbug - Good point. We are still seeing it bought however not just on performance but for price. If one of our CX units is crashed and wrecked we will replace or repair it to 100% functionality for $34, which is much cheaper than a new Ultegra or even 105. Next to mail order or used it is very hard to beat the price. We also provide bike shops with a product that they can sell for a good margin (it has become hard to make a profit on STI etc with online discounters -We are unabashedly PRO BIKE SHOP). The main focus however is performance. We are talking CX here which is just a very nasty place to put STI.
Another option, if you happen to have a bike with some Shimano bar-end shifters on it then we also sell a system which will accept your existing levers. This is just $129/pair.
We will note full heartily however that most all the riders we see race cyclocross with our shifters will use STI/SRAM/Campy etc for their summer road racing. These systems perform better for road racing with ability to shift from the drops (a must for road racing). They are not mutually exclusive, but a compliment to each other. In the past we have raced STI for a season and then dumped it on ebay to get a fresh set for the road season and following cross season. CX shifters now make this whole game much cheaper.
Cheers,
Goats