Originally Posted by
Hiro11
I don't think this is true at all. In 1989, I bought my first serious road bike. It was a Miyata 912 and it came standard with a complete Shimano 600 group (including the hubs!), Nitto stem/bars/seatpost, Wolber rims, a Selle Italia Turbo saddle and Panaracer tires. The frame was brazed/lugged, triple butted and splined Ishiwata. Everything about that bike was extremely high quality and had bulletproof reliability. Even the paint was nice. For that bike I paid $799 (full retail), which is about $1,700 today. I challenge anyone to go into a bike shop and get similar quality today for $1,700.
You may argue about "performance" of a steel seven speed relative to "performance" of a modern carbon bike with 11 cogs, but that's both debatable and hardly fair. A better comparison is did you get a better deal on the spectrum of performance available at that time.
I don't think that's changed much at all, aside from the high-end getting higher.
600 is Ultegra, and Shimano hasn't compromised their build quality over time. $1700 today is where you start getting into Ultegra-level stuff on bike-shop bikes of the non-big-name brands. The frame on such a bike isn't triple-butted Ishiwata, but it's likely to have very nice aluminum construction with clean welding work and fancy specialized hydroforming for all major tubes, and paired with a decent carbon fork.
Regardless, I'd still take that Miyata over any $1,700 bike today.
I wouldn't.
1. Although the geometry of the brake levers on that Miyata is an improvement over the earlier "non-aero" generation, the brakes themselves are
much less effective than Shimano's current-gen high-end calipers.
2. It weighs several pounds more than a comparable-tier bike today.
3. The stock gearing is terribly narrow-range and has an absurdly high granny gear. Yes, it was
normal at the time for high-end road bikes to bottom out at around 50". But that doesn't mean it was a good idea; even the pros sometimes climb hills in much lower gears than that, when those lower gears are available. One of my older road bikes bottoms out at 40", and despite that bike having nice tight "feel" on climbs, I fatigue far faster on hilly group rides than on my other road bikes. And because the rear derailleur has such a short cage, significantly widening the gearing range could require multiple component changes.
4. Downtube shifters maintenance easily and make for nice one-handed double-shifts. But for multi-range gearing schemes, they're in most respects outclassed by brifters. With STI levers I can get near-zero-latency shifts from two different hand positions, and I can shift while hammering out of the saddle.