The 20 speed compact double setup currently looks to be the bread and butter machine for this generation of road bicycle design. It provides improved performance with less "difficulty" in setup. It has all the racer boy bling of carbon fiber cranksets and external bearing cranksets "mega/giga/whatever" that are so stiff that they take 500 watts of imput withou flinching. Nice bikes..........but.........where did the $350 starter road bike go. What's that.........don't leave it out in the rain.......the chain does what? Mr. mechanic.....Mr. mechanic.......I've only had my bike for 500 miles and it doesn't shift so good.

10 speed gearing may take a while to catch on here in the 50+ forum. There is a little more of the comfortable gray shoe here and a little less of the (insert drooling tasmanian devel here) "I want that, I want it NOW". The technology is going to trickle down though, its inevetable. I've already noticed that starter bikes come with 105 9 speed equipment and that new SORA 8 speed stuff is becoming rare on Ebay.

Excuse me. I have to go off now to buy my new 1/8" thick cell phone with 24 hour news and a 104 key pad for texting.........