New bike build - go old or new?
 

Time to build up a newly acquired Fierte, do I go with brand new 11spd 105, or older, good condition 7800 Dura ace 10 speed....I have both :help:

Campagnolo 10 speed is the answer.

I think it depends on the color of the frame. If I'm not mistaken, the 105 is black, while the 7800 is silver. What look do you want?

Performance-wise, 11 speed 105 is fantastic and gives up little or nothing to Dura Ace except some additional weight, and you can find it in "silver" as well, although it's really a light smoky anodized gray in color- IMO, it looks OK combined with polished cockpit parts. 7800 is obviously good stuff as well, but really the decision is driven by wheel choice as 10sp hubs won't work with 11 sp cassettes. If you're buying new wheels anyway I'd go for 11sp, no point in buying older components unless you're keeping your fleet cross-compatible. A few years ago I built up a new custom steel frame with silver 5800 partly for the crazy price (at the time the entire groupset was less than $350 from UK sellers), but I also wanted a more traditional silver look, although I used a polished Sugino sub-compact crank that looks like jewelry- Shimano cranks are butt ugly:butt: (but so are the last couple iterations of Campy for that matter). I'm quite happy with 5800, looks OK and in an honest blindfold test I could not tell the difference in performance with the 9100 groupset that I felt compelled to buy for my other road bike because vanity dictated it was "necessary" for a carbon frame.:rolleyes:

Yea the 105 is the silver group from when the UK sellers were giving them away. Not a super fan of the matt silver but agree it's got great performance.. I'm leaning towards the DA - it's shiny-er... and I've already gone through my Campy phase :p

Sell both, get Centaur silver 11spd: https://www.bike24.com/p2243638.html?q=centaur

On sale for $370 euro, so like $420 plus shipping.

The performance is excellent, fit, feel, etc. And you can use Shimano cassettes up to 11/34 if you want - or 11/36 with a WolfTooth.

If you've got both I'd just use the 105. Unless wheels are limiting there's no reason to use da just cuz it says da.

105.

The R7000 is the best value Shimano groupset ever, period. It is better than 7800 in many, many ways.

The Fierte i got from the forum has campy 10 speed. A nice mix of whatever i had laying around.

Chorus silver alloy 10spd is the finest groupset yet produced - it combines both classic looks and and technical refinement.

Modern 105. Best value ever and it's an even better groups than my older Campagnolo 10-speed, which had been my benchmark until I got Shimano 9000. My Shimano 5800 is 98% of the 9000 at a third of the price. I imagine the new 7000 is the same or better.

Trying to keep old stuff alive is a fool's errand IMHO.

Yup, does it for me too, though hard to find the older silver alloy Chorus shifters, but the old-style (2006-era) Veloce ones are almost as good, if you don't want carbon levers. I've also gone with a modern Veloce silver-alloy crankset, as wanted compact gearing (and even the carbon 10-speed compact cranksets are hard to find now), and 2009-era Centaur silver alloy FD (which can handle both standard and compact cranksets), but the (medium cage) rear derailleur, non-skeleton differential brakes, (titanium) seat post and hubs are all Chorus (chain and threaded headset is Record, 12-27 cassette is Centaur).

Another way to answer this might be assess your gearing needs first. R7k is available with compact, sub-compact, and standard cranks, plus cassettes ranging from 11-28 to 11-34, plus a 12-25.

I am guessing that you're limited to a 53-39 crankset with 7800. I'd guess you can get cassettes ranging from 11-23 to 12-30. This may suffice for your needs. It may be a fools errand to keep throwing money at keeping a well-used older group alive, but if that 7800 group is in good shape, you could give it a few more years.

That said, you might want the flexibility of lower gearing. I've certainly done so since switching to a modern 11s group. Don't underestimate it. How did we manage back in the day? By grinding a lot, and no, it wasn't fun.

Then I'd think about finish. R7k comes in matt silver or black. 7800 is nice, shinier silver.

The further you are from the mean of the bell curve, the more you will benefit from the adjustable lever reach on modern groups. I'm 5'5", so I love it. But chances are good that you're closer to that mean, so this may not be relevant.

105 only because the shift cables are under the bar tape, plus it works so darn well