Originally Posted by alcjphil

Not much point in providing information about equipment that is no longer made since obsolete components cannot be compared to more recent stuff. Even providing information about equipment hierarchies isn't all that useful if you are looking at second hand bikes. 20 year old Shimano Dura Ace components(their top end) cannot be compared to current groupsets of a couple of levels down. You are asking to have people do research that you have to do yourself. Another thing to factor in is that bike manufacturers will use some off brand components to save money, or they will upgrade one drivetrain component to give the impression that a bike is better than it is. Over the last 20 years, all the major component manufacturers have made changes to all their equipment lines. They have added gears, they have changed the way many of their components work so that older stuff is incompatible with newer parts. Sometimes, newer components don't work as well as the ones they replaced