AngryScientist 

Sora stuff is just fine, i've got a few thousand miles on a group without significant problem.

a word to the wise though: many "sora equipped" bikes come with sora shifters and deraillers, thats it, they'll come with bottom of the barrel cranksets, and brakesets, and wheels. these are the things to watch out for, IMO, the single thing that will give you the most trouble on a bike over the longer haul is the wheels. cheap factory built wheels go out of true very easily in my experience.

Nachoman

Coming from ultegra I bet you'll be disappointed with sora.

alexvpaq

I rock the Tiagra+ 105 RD, works well for me though some people are laughing at my Tiagra stuff... they're like : so you ain't ridding hard enough so you need some Tiagra?

Silly name I admit >_> go with 105 so no one can make jokes about your gruppo

datlas 

Buying (or not buying) a bike or groupset based on potential ridicule from others is pretty silly.

Tsuru

First off... let's see some pics of that bike you got!

2nd, Sora's fine! With the thumbshifters, just pretend it's a Campy, hell call them Shimampys!

3rd... if Sora's still a "sore" spot (ha!) for ya, go used and bump up to Tiagras or 105s or whatever. Craigslist/Ebay, I'm sure, is chock full of them, probably for some good prices.

But in the end, if you get a sweet new bike with Sora's, just rock dem bad boys for a year or so, until upgraditis kicks in an you go get an even better bike with better components, then rinse & repeat until you die!

rjones28 

The next sound they should hear is "click whoosh" as you change gears and drop 'em.

KevinF

As others have said, Sora stuff will work perfectly fine if it's kept clean and well lubricated. I've seen high-end equipment shift like crap, and I've seen low-end stuff behave perfectly. It takes some patience and some decent mechanical skills to get anything working perfectly. Sayin that Sora (or Tiagra, or whatever...) doesn't shift right after a tune-up is the fault of the person doing the tune-up, not of the equipment itself.

KiddSisko

I really liked how my Sora worked. It was my first modern STI shifting experience, and it was a good one.

doctor j

9,093 miles on my Sora-equipped bike. I shift a lot during a ride, and Sora components have been reliable.

Epicus07 

I have a hard time believing someone that doesn't know how to spell the name of their own bike ;P

If you're claiming that Tiagra is the "sweet spot" based on your Randonee i will have to point out that the rear derailleur is 105 which i find to be the sweet spot. I helped my stepdad buy that bike. I love it.

+1 on 105 being awesome.

Sora IS a four letter word. I would never buy anything sora but if you can get a decent frame with mostly good components you can always upgrade when you end up wanting to shoot yourself.

I strongly suggest buying a new frame and moving the components over. I had an Ultegra equipped Lemond that i loved to bits that ended up being too big for me as well. I bought an 09 105 equipped roubaix on closeout and transferred over the Ultegra brakes and Aksium wheels. I LOVE IT!

stien

My vote's on old derailluer cable and rear housing. Replace those two and you should be golden after some good adjustment.

EKCooper

I had problems dialing in with a triple. So, maybe sora and a triple aren't a good combination. Maybe go with a compact crank.

PaulRivers

I have a Specialized Sequoia with Sora components and a Tiagra rear derailler. It's worked fine. Perhaps 10% worse than my 7800 Dura-Ace. Yeah - seriously. I was surprised, to. Actually, it's just like someone else said - the only thing I've had unusual trouble with is the wheels, one of the them went way out of true.

However - while they function fine from a mechanical point of view, those thumb shifters are super annoying to me as well. I spent $100 to buy a pair of Tiagra shifters off ebay to replace them. Problem is, it will probably take another $100 to get them installed...sigh.

As someone else said (again) - Tiagra seems to be the best bang-for-the-buck. Only thing to keep in mind is that because Tiagra is 9 speed, while 105 is 10 speed, you wouldn't be able to upgrade piece by piece in the future.

wunderkind

The only Sora component that is lacking is the Sora STI shifter. You can always upgrade to a R500. Apart from that, you will be hard pressed to determine differences. derailleur is a derailleur. When kept in check they just move the chain up and down the cogs/chainrings. Lots of problems stem from poor set-up. With entry level bikes, LBS tend to send it off to a noobie kid at the back to "set it up". Hence the subsequent problems. Whereas Ultegra equipped high end bikes get more attention than 5 minutes.
Case in point, my other mtb comes with a base level 7-speed Tourney RD. I retuned it and it shifts flawlessly day in day out. Underload whatever. I use it on my commutes.
But Sora doesn't get you much bragging points on forums. So that kinda suck. heh!
Alot of times, technology flows down stream. Today's 105 were yesterday's 600. Yesterday's Tiagra RD is probably today's Sora and today's Sora is tomorrow's 2300. So on and so forth.

Some day we may see Sora Di2 too. <--- how dare he say that! Blesphemy!!! Stone himmmmmmm!!!!!!!!

gus6464

My girlfriend likes the Sora shifters on her new bike but hates the triple chainring, says it just adds another layer of complication and annoyance in shifting. We are upgrading to Apex when it comes out. Why does everyone dislike the thumb shifting?

PaulRivers

Because with the thumb shifting of Sora, you can only shift one way while in the drops.

I haven't heard of "Apex", what is it?

I personally like the triple chainring exactly because it removes a layer of complication and annoyance. With my double ring, I regularly have to shift the front ring, then adjust the back to because the jump was so huge. With my triple, I'm in the middle front ring 95% of the time and don't have to fiddle around with the front shifter.

I can tell you (meaning anyone reading the thread) that the shifters may be the most expensive part on the bike. A brand new pair from Shimano cost $250 the last time I checked. Best to get what you want the first time, they're expensive to replace.

gus6464

Apex is SRAM's new group. It's going to fall under Rival but the main difference is that it uses an 11-32 in the rear and retains a double crankset. Just think of it as Rival but with an 11-32 in the rear and 250g more weight. It was designed to try and kill triples.

mustang1

I happen to like the thumb shifters. I also have another Tiagra shifter'd bike and the amount of movement in thumb shifter compared to tiagra's finger shift.. it seems easier with the thumb shifter. Maybe I'll check out Camp for m next bike.
Also have Sora FD. Not had any problems eith that either.

Tsuru

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....... you are going to wake up the Campy folks! You know how ornery they get when you disturb their nap!

JoelS

My son has Sora on his road bike. All but the shifters, those are Microshift. It works just fine.

gus6464

How come 105 is the only group that doesn't have a proper name? Everything else has fancy names like Ultegra, Tiagra, Dura-Ace, Sora. If someone that didn't know anything about bikes saw the names on a list they would think that 105 is at the bottom of the list with 2200 and all the fancy names are above it.

PaulRivers

Lol, it's funny, but that is why I specifically said "of Sora". ;-)

joe_5700

I wondered that very same thing a few days ago.

2200/Sora is good stuff for the money in my opinion. Like others have said though, the thumb shifters are not for everyone.

spry

Sora shifters work just fine.The Sora derailer is erratic shifting and clunks onto the gears.

kayakdiver

[QUOTE=Epicus07;10795847]I have a hard time believing someone that doesn't know how to spell the name of their own bike ;P

If you're claiming that Tiagra is the "sweet spot" based on your Randonee i will have to point out that the rear derailleur is 105 which i find to be the sweet spot. I helped my stepdad buy that bike. I love it.

My experience is/was based on 10K plus miles on my 2008 Tiagra shifters on my Jamis Aurora before taken out by a car. They haven't changed one bit since then and I was running cheap Deore RD.

Incorrect: Mine is XT RD

As for spelling.. Guilty.(corrected)