CAT6 racers

Obviously, the new racer cares or he wouldn't be asking.

I say ride the Wilier. The idea is to win; don't handicap yourself right off the bat. Go for it.

Don't wreck the nice bike or you'll kill yourself. I say take the old DT bike. Odds are you're gonna have a heck of a time your first race anyways so may as well learn on something that won't make much a difference. That's my plan for spring at least.

There is no winning in CAT5. You just have to manage 10 mass starts.

If you think you are good enough, you should be able to win cat-5 races in a steel bike with 7 gears in the back and downtube shifters. Don't want disrespect to the actual cat-5 guys but that's the cruel reality.

Even good juniors should be able to smash cat-5 guys w/o any problem.

This is exactly why I just bought a NOS 2009 CAAD9 frameset. There's no way in hell I'm taking my 595 anywhere near a cat5 or 4 crit.

your trolling skills are even more impressive.

You could spend a few hundred bucks and do a budget conversion to modern 10 speed, if the bike is worthy of the upgrade. I did mine for about $350.

Or ride it with DT shifters. If it's a crit, there's hardly any shifting anyway.

why not?
calm down.
not a troll, just young.

I suppose if the OP is extremely proficient with the DT shifters he might be able to make it work. But taking your hand off the bars in order to shift is unquestionably a disadvantage, especially when you have to move the shifter a precise amount with no indexing (clicks).

If you have to ask, you shouldn't be racing crits. Stick to racing on the MUP. It's safer and more rewarding.

I've broken two frames in races - a Six-13 and a Specialized S-Works aluminum.

Six-13 cracked at the water bottle cage bolts after the guy in front of me took out my front wheel - Cannondale was kind enough to warranty that because of where the cracks occurred.

The S-Works died much more slowly. Handlebar slammed into the top tube, leaving a nice dent. Aluminum does not like to be dented. After a few more races, the aluminum cracked. This wasn't such a big deal as I picked up the frame on Craigslist for $100 to use as a race bike.

I also saw a guy's Giant TCR snap in half this season in a 4/5 race.

I would also. 205lbs + the 24lb bike. In a crash I would inflict some serious pain on some people!

It's not that big of deal. As you note people did it for years.

I finished second in a training crit a few years ago on my steel Paramount with down tube shifters, and the shifters were not the reason I lost.

With DT shifters you're at a slight disadvantage in that you'll be less likely to shift as much and be in the perfect gear, and not shifting up in a sprint ( unless you're really good.) But unless you're losing races by a few feet, it's not going to matter.

And btw, just because the shifters are on the DT, doesn't mean they aren't indexed.

Whoa, learn something new every day.

Was this late 80s, early 90s maybe? My dad's 1986 Raleigh Grand Prix has campy DT shifters that are definitely not indexed. Then sometime in the 90s everything was.

OP, you may decide you don't like racing, so using your steel bike for the first couple of races could make sense.

Especially those 140 lb + 16 lb bike people.

ok not to get his off track...but where would you put a CAT5 racer ability wise if you took a decent 20mi rolling hill and flats type terrain. What kind of speeds would you expect? Or maybe sprinting, what would you say a starting CAT5 would top out at? I feel like many of the board members...probably myself wouldn't do so hot, then again I may be at a level where I could maybe place top 5

Sigh.

By the 90's Campy has already moved to Ergo shifters. Index shifters were unnecessary fad complication that thankfully didn’t last long. The whole beauty of the friction DT shifters was in the on-the-go fine tuning of your derailleur position without the need of constant fiddling with barrel adjusters and screw limits.

Everybody is a CAT5.

theoretically only if you enter a race. So are weekend riders who have never hit 25mph or 20mph on a flat solo entering these things?

I am not. I am a cat 3.

I raced my expensive bike when I was a 5 too.