Dura-Ace v. SRAM?
 

I have full Dura-Ace on one of my bikes and Ultegra on the other. I am buying a new bike and have heard good things about the SRAM set-up. Any advice? SRAM v. Dura-Ace? Thanks.

Well....I have Ultegra on one bike, and SRAM Rival w/ a Force crank on the other.....and I like SRAM better now that I like Shimano. It took a few rides to get accustomed to it, but once I did, I loved it. I would swap out the Ultegra on my other bike if I had some extra money.

Thanks
 

Thanks. Your input helps.

Just curious would it be sram red or force?

I've had 8 speed D-A and sram rival. I'd say the D-A brakes were better but you can't go wrong with either. I like the hidden cable routing though.

Campy ;) Sorry had to do it....

see, this is the only thing i miss a lot about shimano. usually when i get in that breakaway position riding shimano, i could grab those cable for slightly more bike control. with those gone, i am not as confident riding with my forearms on the handlebars. thinking seriously about applying a rubbery sticky surface to my forearms just so that i can steer better.

back to op. as far as sram in general, i like it so far. my new bike has sram shifters, brakes, rd, cassette, chain and d/a crank and fd (soon). will likely get a d/a cassette for potential race wheels in future. i really like the feel of the sram shifters. they are tall enough so that i can grab the top of them, but not excessively goofy tall like shimano. overall, i am pretty pleased with performance also. as far as durability, i can't speak to that just yet (less than 500 miles on the group so far)

we live in good times. three gruppos to choose from and a plethora of crankset options.

oh sure, leave Texas and get all commie on us.

well I'll say that I prefer DA to Force. The action on DA is still lighter and faster and I'm simply not a fan the shift motion. That said, I prefer the mechanical design of the Force shifters/deraillers and cranks. I'll be interested to see how Red changes the feel but still, me no like one lever shifting.

Can't speak to Dura Ace but I finally replaced my worn-out Ultegra shifters w/ a SRAM Rival/Force mix and am very happy.

I find the SRAM shifting motion to be more intuitive than Shimano (maybe it's the single lever thing...my tiny brain might have found two levers to simply be too much :D ) and so far it seems that I can cross-chain as much as I want with zero chain rub (!).

The thing that I like the most about SRAM's design is the shifter paddle that can be pulled in towards the drops for shifting. This was marketed mostly for improving upshifting in sprints, but in fact it "swings both ways" ;) and I am finding it great on rolling hills, especially when I'm at the front of a line.

i've got dura-ace on one bike and sram force on the other. all in all, i prefer sram. neither of the hoods feels better to me than the other, just different. i do like not having all those cables in front of me. but the big thing is that i like the one-lever shifting. i'm a big fan of this. it's easy, it's intuitive, it just works for me. force also shifts a bit better than my dura-ace. the FD is touchy, and getting it adjusted took a pretty good effort, but once it's set, it's okay. the only force parts on my bike are the brifters and the RD (required to work with the brifters). i went with a dura-ace FD because of stuff i'd read about sram's FD being kinda cheesy and not shifting very well. and i went with a dura-ace cogset because i don't like the idea of the 'missing tooth' design on the sram cassette, and i've read that it makes some shifts feel like the chain is skipping. all in all, if i had to choose between the two, i'd do the same mix again. my next bike (maybe next year) will be with sram red brifters and RD. i like the fact that the throw on the lever will be shorter. i like the design that lets you adjust the reach to the brake levers.

I trained and raced all of 2006 on Dura Ace and All of 2007 so far on SRAM Force.

Both shifted flawlessly, but after getting used to it, I prefer the SRAM single lever system.

The SRAM feels like it requires a little more force (:D) to be applied to the lever to shift, but that's never slowed me down or been a problem.

I will add too that I often times change shift cables but less often brake cables so I like not having to remove bar tape to change shift cables. Plus I like the fact that cables still show in a retro grouch type way...

Nothing really beats a plethora of cranks.

i switched from dura-ace to sram's cheaper groupset, rival, middle of this year. i know prefer sram, and will probably buy red or force next season.

I like SRAM's TT and Road (and MTB, for that matter) groups far better than their Shimano counterparts. Shifting seems better, and I like the lightness on the TT group, and DoubleTap, of course..