Of course your stance on Sram gear does call this assumption into question.

This whole notion that if you would only adjust your FD properly you'd have no problem - that is the problem. Gear that requires constant adjustment tends ultimately be Utter Fail.

So it goes.

Don't confuse them with facts. Out here, facts mean nothing. It's the to the death justification of what you are riding that's important.

Funny, I've touched mine twice. Install and one cable adjustment, and periodic cleaning, same as my chain. Since then it merely works.

Cable stretch is normal, takes a couple of seconds to readjust and then you'll be good to go until you replace the cables. generally one adjustment fixes the problem.

Fourty seven thousand posts and I'm the one that's arrogant? LOL.

I shouldn't push your buttons....but it does add to your post count, and apparently that's important to you. :)

Metals are comparatively ductile. Ductile means bending, buckling and stretching before breaking. Generally speaking, of the common bicycle frame building materials steel is the most ductile, titanium less ductile, followed by aluminum.

Carbon is not ductile. It does not bend. Overload it and it simply breaks. There is no bending, buckling, or stretching.

Metals vary in density. Density is weight per unit of material. Steel weighs 7.8 grams from cubic centimeter, titanium 4.5 grams/cm3, and aluminum 2.75grams/cm3. Carbon fibre is 1.45g/cm3.

It's primarily the reason why many longer distance riders prefer steel frames over other materials.

LOL...interesting

Late to the game but I dropped my Red FD for a Force model and have had zero problems since.

Correct. It's forty by the way.

Uh, sort of. Ductility is the ability of a material to deform plastically prior to ultimate failure (just a note: buckling is a completely different failure mode). Ductile deformation means plastic, non-recoverable deformation; it's what happens when you've exceeded the material's yield strength.

Riding your bike, you sure as hell aren't plastically deforming it (if you are, you're doing bicycling wrong). You are however, elastically deforming it. This is where the modulus of elasticity comes in, as I mentioned originally. Under normal use, you're only on the material's elastic curve; ductility is irrelevant - until you crash or something. Carbon fiber's yield stress is also its ultimate tensile stress (UTS), hence why instead of going plastic, it just snaps.

Ductility has basically nothing to do with how stiff your bike frame feels.

How a frame actually feels while riding has a TON of important variables (elastic modulus, damping coefficients, etc), so generalizations dont carry a lot of weight, but I promise you ductility is about as important as colour when it comes to riding 'feel'.

Density is the MASS per unit volume of a material. A gram is a measurement of mass, not weight.

Maybe it is rocket science.

FWIW - modern stainless steel cables don't stretch. The housings seat into the ferrules, compress, and/or wear in. That effectively changes the length of the housing - leaving the cable slack.

When installing, mount cable to anchor bolt and then pull on the cable under the down tube....HARD. then undo the anchor take the slack out and re-attach.

For the poster talking about slowed reactions on one end of the cassette vs the other:

1. Worn out chain - chain flexes more and consequently doesn't move as quickly as newer, more laterally stiff chain.
2. Cable friction. If using Gore cables the housings are lined with teflon and WILL wear out and start to gum up the works. This WILL cause the issue. If you have Gore cables...take them off and burn them or else Unicorns will lose their wings.
3. Cable friction x2. Check for gummed up junctions or tight turns with the housing. The cable guide under the BB shell or internal routings (like the crappy Cervelo ones). Hard internal turns can cause the housing to wear out causing higher friction under higher tension as the housing compresses more.
4. Gummed up derail. Clean it.
5. Cassette...remove and clean. Make sure the spacers needed are in place (including the small one in back for a Shimano 10 on a 8/9/10 freehub driver) and the lockring is torqued down to the right spec. Simply tightening the lockring has helped this exact problem more than once. If this doesn't work try a different cassette if you have one laying around to see if the problem sticks around.
6. last result - shifters are shot.

After a few weeks of scratching my noggin I found out that the teflon coating on my cables had tore in a few spots, this caused the cable to hang up when going to my lower gears in the back. I replaced the cable tonight (along with both derailleurs and the cassette) and shifting is perfect. I did everything else before the cable though, the cable is what finally fixed it. :D

Pros have been using the Force steel cage (they call it the 'Pro' version) with the standard Red derailleur. Basically swap the titanium one for a steel cage.

I don't have any issues with mine. I hear if you call SRAM and complain about it, they will send you a steel cage. Anybody verify this?