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Gruppo tyranny!
As a high schooler in the '80s my friends and I got into road cycling. I was so impressed with the style of my girlfriends Trek 560 with Ofmega cranks, Cyclone derailleurs and tiny AC 300G calipers. Most of my friends bought bikes with 105 or Exage, which was all wonderfully functional but had such clunky looking cranks with black plastic dust caps. I built an all Campy bike which I loved, but had to put up with less comfortable brake hoods. But bikes didn't come with mixes of parts anymore, and even Suntour got with the program by offering even lower end complete groups like Blaze instead of the usual DiaCompe/Suntour/SR blend.
And then Bridgestone in the early '90s told Shimano "No" and went with Sugino cranks, bar ends and DiaCompe - and I was in awe. And the bikes looked good - Shimano cranks and painted parts were so boring in comparison. And this was the beginning of the billet parts craze, so non-group hubs, BBs and seat posts were mixing things up.
Since that first Campy bike, I haven't owned a single road bike with a complete group. Since my mountain bike started as a frame, that got the same treatment - Sugino, Diacompe, Sachs, Shimano and Grip Shift. Since then I'm always most pleased with a Ritchey or Stronglight crank and Mavic derailleur instead Ultegra, or Record, or Force.
But the gruppo is not to be denied. Shimano has made it's parts less cross compatible of late and Campy won't give you a full warranty if you don't buy a complete groupset. Some bikes come with mixed parts, but usually as a cheap out with FSA cranks and painted calipers. Yucko.
I would love to see more of an a la carte approach to parts again where alternative cranks, brakes and (impossibly) levers lets us hone in on the components that fit us best without giving up functionality or warranty coverage.
Do you like mix and match, or should bikes only have complete groups with matching bar/stem/seat post sets? And do increasingly proprietary system parts piss you off?
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