Well, This Season Has Gone To Hell

My initial lack of riding out of shapeness has now devolved into me having no energy (feels like I have mono, which you can't get twice) and my knee problems have come back.  It has really discouraged me from riding.  So much so, that I haven't even finished building my road bike.  It's all a bit of a downer.  So, to cheer everyone up, I'm going to give my short review of Dura-Ace 9000 mechanical.

Buy it.  The vast majority of you ride Shimano and dream of Dura-Ace, if you're not riding it already.  9000 is absolutely silly in how perfect it is.  Everything that made Di2 amazing is now available with cables.  Hammer in the small ring up a hill and then just smack the front lever and you're in the big ring without any grinding or unpleasantness.  Aside from your legs hurting more, of course.  The levers are very light in their action, most notably in the front.  When there's a bike in the shop equipped with 9000, I will just squeeze the brake levers, because the bearings they use in the new brakes are so smooth, I can't believe it, and constantly need to re-check them.  They're typical Dura-Ace powerful too, but they feel like they have a hair more modulation than the 7900 brakes.  Which is to say they now have "next to no modulation" as opposed to "no modulation."  Rear shifts feel the same as 7800 did; light and smooth shifting, and the chain just glides from gear to gear.  I also prefer the looks of 9000 to 7900, four arm crank and all.

Downsides?  None, in the grand scheme of things.  It's expensive, but looks like a goddamn steal next to Di2 or Campy anything Chorus or above.  It could be lighter, it could have a viable BB30 option, it could lots of things that you wont ever think about after you ride it.

What Shimano have done to the mechanical version of Dura-Ace is nothing short of astounding, especially because it's pretty obvious that the company thinks electric shifting is what we will all be doing in the future.  But for all of us curmudgeons who refuse to adapt to the future, we now have a group that functions almost identically to Skynet the electric group, and that's pretty damn awesome.  So if you're in the market for for a new groupset (and wheels, hurray 11 speed!) and you're not a Campy or SRAM diehard, just say no to robots and get yourself some good ol' fashinoned Dura-Ace.