Quote:
Originally Posted by mcteague
I have Chorus 11 on my back-up bike and Record 12 on the primary one. When I first installed it I didn't think it that much better, if at all, compared to Chorus. Funny thing is, once you ride it for a while and then go back to the older group, it is then you really notice the differences. I now am more aware how much more precise the rear shifts are on the Record 12 setup. Up front started off not as good as the 11s but after lots of miles it seems to have gotten smoother.
The 12s brakes are much better IMO, more power but every so often a bit grabby up front. That too seems to have mostly gone away over time
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I've read many similar comments on older vs. newer component groups, but I wonder how much of the difference in performance is due to different design/construction/materials, and how much of it is due to normal degradation in performance with age for the older component group? If the components were identical, you'd certainly wouldn't expect the components with more usage to perform as well as the components with less usage.
I actually had a similar experience, where a newer component group installed on one bike performed notably better than an older component group installed on another bike. Only in this case, the newer components were actually NOS parts of the same vintage as the older components. Less worn parts just perform better than more worn parts.