shuru421

Ive been through stem shifters, downtube shifters (both friction and indexed), and at the moment putting most of my miles on ergo shifters (brifters etc.). Had 5,6,7,8 speeds (currently all 8's). However, my curiosity is steering me into the 11 speed territory and was curious on your opinions on this set-up? Worth it? Not much difference? Im mainly interested in the performance aspect. Is it smoother? Im kind of convinced all Ill ever need is a 2x8 setup as Ive had no problems on tough climbs and long rides, but thats without ever trying anything higher than 8 speed. Im getting ready for another build is why I ask. Thank you.

brockd15 

I have Ultegra 6800 on one bike and can take or leave having one extra gear. Rear shifting is smooth, but so is 6700 10 speed. I'm not much a fan of the long arm design of the Shimano first gen 11 speed groups, I think the previous gen 10 speed FDs were better. I'm about to replace a 6800 FD with an 8000 because of it. I do like the ergonomics of the shifters for the most part.

If you're using Shimano and brifters, I think it's worth it to upgrade from 9 speed to 10 speed for the hidden shift cables (5700/6700/7900).
If you're on 10 speed, I think it's worth it to upgrade to 11 if you like the ergonomics and design. Otherwise, I don't see a huge benefit...maybe gearing options without using MTB parts?

Oldguyonoldbike

If you're riding Campagnolo 8-speed brifters I think you'll find that the ergonomics of the newer shifters is much better. The action is much lighter too. I have 11 speed on one bike, 10 speed on the other two. I suppose the extra gear is nice, but to be honest I don't miss it on the other two. One thing you do lose on the lower end is the ability to shift several cogs at once going down the cassette, and almost no trim on the front. At least that's the case with Veloce and Athena, which have both been discontinued, but I think you still have to go with Chorus or higher to get multiple shifts. Campy has also finally introduced fairly wide ranging cassettes.

RobbieTunes

Yes. The price was quite right, $750 including the RXL wheelset) and I bit. I had to buy a chain.
Really nice stuff. He got rid of it to go eTap.

I would only do it if the price is right.


​​​​​​11-speed is technologically better, lighter, and has improvements across the board, added to smaller gaps between cogs, so it should be better. I don't think it's currently worth it, unless it's a bargain. Unless you're running Mavics, or maybe some models of Fulcrum, you will have to get new wheels, too.

If "upgrading," I still would not spend 2x-4x the $ for 11-sp over 8-sp DA/600, 9-sp DA/Ultegra/Campy good stuff, 10-sp DA/Ultegra/Campy good stuff. Especially 7700 and especially down-tube-driven 9-sp Shimano and 10-sp Shimano/Campy.

I'm running 11-28 on 2x11, 2x10 (3), 2x9 and 2x7. Once you are on the cogs, you're on the same same. Getting from cog to cog is part of the experience, and I'd not trade the Suntour GPX thunk for anyting. However, I do like the 2x10 DA and 2x9 DA downtube shifters. Really nice setups can be had. As far as STI's, I have 7700, 6700, and 9000. 7700 is the lightest, fastest, quietest, for the reasons RiddleofSteel puts forth below. 9000 is right there, with 2 more cogs. In that regard, sure.

I cannot speak for other 11-sp setups. I've worked on bikes with 6800, and they seem fine, but the shifting is exactly the same as my 6700. It's just not up to the lightness of 7700.

The Golden Boy 

I just got my first 10 speed setup 2 years ago. I'm letting it sink in yet.

iab

I think I pushed the 12-tooth once, just to say I did. Probably rarely use the 13-tooth, I don't recall using it lately.

So yeah, 11, not so much. 9, sure.

BradH

With all of the 8, 9, 10 speed wheel sets I have laced up I don't see myself making the jump to 11 speed anytime soon. The sudden disappearance of the hg50 13-23 8 speed cassette has me concerned though so I may stockpile my favorite 8, 9 and 10 speed cassettes soon.

Spaghetti Legs 

RiddleOfSteel

I have found 7800 Dura-Ace (first gen 10-speed, cables out the sides of the STI levers) to be some of the best feeling shifters. Everything is light and (softly) crisp. The FD trim is smooth, with several detents. 10-speed finally gave us the 11-28T cassette, my favorite for going up and down steep hills. 6600 Ultegra, also 10-speed and of the same generation, is also presumably good. Brake lever pull and braking power are excellent with my 7800 STIs. I have 7900 Dura-Ace STIs running to 7900 calipers. The 7800s are much lighter to pull, which I prefer. I suppose the 7900s went for even better modulation? The lever effort is higher and longer, with progressively-increasing braking power as the lever is squeezed. 7800 is more enthusiastic, but that means you just have to be mindful, and that's not too hard.

The 7900 levers need a 7900 FD as the pull is quite different. I'm through multiple attempts at it to either not have the cable flap around loose or to have the FD chuck the chain when going to the big ring. It's really irritating, but I need to just bite the bullet on that. Cable setup on 7900 is stupid easy--same cable orientation as Campagnolo Ergos. 7800s are also stupid easy. I need to get another 7800 shifter set. I run 7800 on many other things, including with 9 and 10 speed Dura-Ace indexing downtube shifters. That is the best.

11-speed is on a current modern bike build that I'm halfway through. All signs say this should be quite nice.

More gears generally gives one more ability to fine tune their cadence when on a ride. Sure, 7 and 8 speeds do just fine, but more ratios can be quite nice, especially if they open up more gear range.

shuru421

After reading all of your responses, I got that its not THAT much different. The fact that I would not be able to shift multiple gears down kind of deters me from going a different route (I really like that I can shift to higher/lower gears at once), however since this is a new build, maybe it wouldn't be THAT disappointing to have as an option and experience. Honestly I feel like the biggest difference to the more modern components is that they have wayyy different cranks than what Im accustomed to as far as the C-Records, Dura-Ace etc.

So what would you consider a bargain for a 11spd Campy or Dura-Ace group?

Andy_K 

I've got two bikes with 11-speed Campy Athena and one with 11-speed Shimano Ultegra. I also have a set of 11-speed Shimano 105 components sitting on the shelf.

I bought the 11-speed Ultegra components because I really wanted hydraulic disc brakes and at the time the R685/R785 system was the best option available. I got the 11-speed 105 components on a bike that I bought new, but they're on the shelf because I upgraded that bike to 10-speed Gevenalle with hydraulic brakes (and, yes, I consider that an upgrade in shifting too, not just braking). I bought the 11-speed Campy groups because I was new to Campy and didn't know any better (half joking about that).

The 11-speed Shimano stuff shifts really well, but I don't think it's any better than 10-speed Shimano systems. No worse either though. The 11-speed Campy stuff works very well, but I very much prefer older 10-speed Campy groups. The new Chorus/Record/Super Record groups may be better than the old 10-speed groups, but I don't think Athena is. FWIW, my "complaint" about the Athena group is that it shifts like a Shimano group. That's honestly not really a bad thing. It's just the reason I prefer the older Campy stuff. It's not a matter of shifting performance so much as feel -- user experience if you will.

-holiday76

11 speed? Did you find some way to add a phantom gear to your 5 speed cog only accessible from one chain ring position?

Oh, wait! I think you posted this in the wrong forum.

Narhay

Going from 8 to 11 will give you 3 additional intermediary gears. It depends on your local conditons but 8 to 11 is a pretty big jump. If you were using 10 speed and wanted 11 I would probably say it isnt worth it, but 8 to 11 is going to be pretty nice. The cable routing, ergonomics and gear selection are all going to be better than what you have now. If you jave the money and it would not be better spent elsewhere then go for it

bicyclridr4life

I've thought of upgrading to a 10 or 11 speed mountain bike cassette on my 2004 Giant Cypress DX, if/when I convert it to a downbar.
I have not decided if it will be economically feasible though.
In addition to the 10 or 11 speed wheel and cassette (bike currently has an 8 speed freewheel) derailleur, and brifters or road bike brake levers and barend shifters, I'll have to upgrade the brakes to (high profile) cantilevers, since brifters and/or road bike brake levers are not compatible with "V" brakes.
Admittedly, I prefer canti's over "V" brakes, but it is still an added cost.

microcord

For the first time, I'm using brifters. I heard that 11-speed was rather fragile, and that (10-speed) Tiagra was good. Thus my brifters and RD are current-model Tiagra (which isn't compatible with previous-model Tiagra, or indeed, as far as I know, with anything else). It works well, it's cheap, and perhaps it has a certain inverse snobbery value.

dunrobin

I use campy 10 speed stuff ranging from veloce to record. I like the interchangeablity of the components and they work really well. Campy 10 record cranks are just as light and stiff as 11, with the bonus that I could pick them up at a fraction of new.
Even veloce works really well, and I like the eps style lever.
i also use sram 10, from rival to red. Its lightweight, durable, quick shifting and again interchangeable....with the bonus that I can pick pieces for cheap.
No need for 11...I'm not really gaining anything new.
Performance, cost and interchangeable components are my main focus.

Ex Pres 

I've had Ergo 8, never had a 9, and multiple generations of Ergo 10 from Daytona on out. If you decide to go with 10 vs the newer 11, I would recommend Chorus or Record. [No experience with 11 so can't comment there] I have one of each C/R in the "older" body, and one "newer" bodied 10s in Centaur. The Record & Chorus are currently on bikes - I even removed the "new" Centaur on one bike to put on the "old" Chorus. The multi-cog shifting is just so nice in my varied terrain. I can even shift front and multi-rear at the same time and it doesn't complain.

John E

I already have 11 speeds in a 2x6 setup without using the large-large crosschain. My first road bike, a cheapo Bianchi Corsa, was set up with 9 speeds: 52-47/13-16-19-23-26, with the large-large combination (52/26) deliberately almost completely redundant with the next higher combination (47/23).

As chains get narrower, they get more fragile, and chain failures become more commonplace as rivet protrusions are completely eliminated. Shifting becomes increasingly finicky.

As others have mentioned above, my biggest single gripe against any brifter or "rapid fire" or similar setup is the loss of a linear action shifter's ability to move quickly across any number of cogs.

I am keeping my nonindexed downtube, thumb (mountain bike), and barcon (Peugeot) shifters, with 2x6 on my road bikes and 3x8 on my mountain bike. I feel no need whatsoever for a top gear above 100 gear-inches (I currently run 104 on the mountain bike and 93 to 98 on the road bikes), and if I ever want a lower gear on one of the road bikes, I'll convert to 2x7, 3x6, or 3x7, which should pretty well cover my need for range and a 6 or 7 percent ratio development.

easyupbug 

I now have 3 Campy 11s, others are 10 and (2) 8 Campy, Shimano 7, 8, (3)9 & (2)10. After the first conversion the other two followed for the ergonomics and light action as mentioned by Oldguy as I found it very nice for my hand arthritis, especially on bad days. Also as other have said the last two Athena 11 were great deals when Athena was being closed out. Any more I do little climbing so don't need more than 8 cogs and were it not for the arthritis I would not have gone to 11 and had to buy wheels.

kc0yef 

nope

Barrettscv 

I recently added Ultegra 6800 eleven speed to my Eddy Merck. I also have Shimano eleven speed on three of my carbon fiber bikes. Shimano 11 speed is a clear improvement over prior Shimano 10 speed groups.

I was never enthusiastic about Shimano ten speed. I probably rode Shimano ten speed more than 20,000 miles, but I always felt that the shifting action was inferior to Campagnolo Chorus nine and ten speed. I've now removed Shimano ten speed from all but one of my bikes.

Shimano Ultegra 6800 is a worthwhile upgrade over Shimano ten speed. Both the ergonomic shape of the hoods and the mechanical feel of the shifting action is improved. I also like the gear range of the Sram 11-28 eleven speed cassette, which gives me 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28 cogs. I've matched this to a 50 & 36 combination on the Ultegra crankset. I can always use an 11-32 cassette on longer rides with very steep climbs as needed.

noglider 

My 3x9 drivetrain has sufficiently small jumps between gears, which is important to me. It has a low that is low enough for me and a high that is high enough for me. The shift pattern is easy enough. What would an 11 speed cassette offer me that I don't already have? In fact, I'm sure I'd be happy with 8 in the back.

bikingshearer 

Except for my Eroica bike and my commute bike, everything I ride is old (1965-1982) lugged steel with Campy 10-speed triple drivetrains (Veloce, Centaur, Chorus and Record all represented) from the early to mid-2000s. Works great and looks appropriate on classic old frames. I plan to stay with what I have mainly because (1) it works and (2) the new-fangled four-arm cranks all look awful to my eye.

DIMcyclist

Not really.

Most of my bikes area set up with 3 x 8 (my commuters & my touring bike) or 2 x 9; my Pinarello & LeMond are both 2 x 10 (Daytona 10 & DA7800 respectively). I don't see any performance advantage to 11sp in the kind of cycling I do.

Edit: In a broader sense, it's the same reason I don't have a C/F frame. I have nothing against C/F (I think it's pretty amazing, actually), but I'd rather loose three pounds from me than from my bike. I guess it's kind of like owning a HUMVEE; I've known three or four people who've had Hummers, but only one- a college buddy who works for the Forest Service & spends 10 days at a time in very rugged country- actually needs such a vehicle.


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ppg677

I have 11-speed Athena on my early 80s Trek 950 frame. Looks beautiful. Works mostly well except for some occasional "chain suck" in the first 1000 miles. That actually scraper up my newly painted frame. I now have the chain stay wrapped in leather just in case.