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Shimano can be commended for offering the new ten speed cassette for around half the cost of the Campag Centaur, and its lighter...on test we found gear performance precise and accurate wherther shifting to a larger or smaller cog.
Excellent price and range of cog options
The largest three cogs on the new Dura-Ace cassette are supported by a separate cold-forged aluminium alloy carrier, as are the next two sprockets.This increases stiffness and reduces weight - as does the fact that the largest four cogs are made from titanium. All this means that the cassette weighs in at a paltry 185g.Shifting performance up and down is almost always smooth and positive, although sometimes the transitions are so smooth you catch yourself wondering whether it has changed gear at all.The cassette is available in eight different sizes: 11-21t, 11-23t, 11-25t, 11-27t, 11-28t, 12-23t, 12-25t and 12-27t.
Reasonably hard wearing and fairly light too
The Chorus cassette has exactly the same teeth profiles and spacing found in Campag's higher-end Record and Super Record groupsets.All of the sprockets are coated steel (nickel-chrome), and they should prove to be extremely durable, so unless an all-out low weight is crucial, this is a very sensible option.Shifting is as confidence-inspiring as you'd expect from Campag, and with deeper teeth than Shimano, it's reassuringly solid - though not as silky smooth as Ultegra.
Accurate shifting and should prove to be long lasting
As with SRAM Red, the three largest sprockets on the Force cassette are supported on a spider, but SRAM's second-tier groupset doesn't have Red's titanium sprockets.Instead, it sticks with heat-treated steel. These aren't as light as titanium but they should prove more durable in the long-term.The Powerglide cassette and chain combo is claimed by SRAM to be quieter than before, but comparing the noise from 2009 and 2010 setups we really weren't able to detect any difference. The profile of the Powerglide teeth did contribute to consistently smooth shifting though.
Hard-wearing and smooth-shifting steel rings
Although it's great to look at new and shiny Dura Ace (and Di2) kit, it's always the announcement of the new Ultegra groupsets that generates the most excitement here at road.cc towers. Ultegra has always been the smart choice in the Shimano range: affordable enough to be a serious consideration with first dibs on all that innovation trickling down from the top.Dura Ace 7900 was a fairly big leap in a market that mostly makes incremental changes, and Ultegra 6700 has stepped up a notch too, taking on plenty of the new technology at a price point that's much more within the reach of the keen amateur cyclist.Ultegra now has the hollowglide chainring of Dura Ace. It also shares the internal lever cable routing, the Carbon lever blade, redesigned hood shape and repositioned pivots on lever and brake. In fact there's not much that it doesn't have, really only the no-trim shifting of the front mech. So what's the performance difference between the two groupsets?Hand on heart I'd have to say that blindfolded I'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. There's no real performance advantage to be had by buying Dura Ace kit over the new Ultegra, not one you'll notice out on the road at least. The new Ultegra kit is excellent: shifts are crisp, braking is noticeably better, power transmission is near faultless.In the end it all comes down to weight: Dura Ace 7900 is about 300g lighter than Ultegra 6700. If you can honestly say you'd notice half a pound more kit hanging from your frame then you need to consider the top-of-the-line groupset. For everyone else, myself very much included, the smart money's with Ultegra. Forget the RRPs for a minute: In the real world 7900 is going to cost you a grand, and 6700 can be had for less than £600. For me it's a no-brainer: if you're a Shimano fan then Ultegra 6700 is definitely the groupset that gives you the most bangs per buck. Here's how we rate the components...There's not a great deal to say about the cassette, except that Shimano have fiddled a bit with the tooth profiles. It's not noticeably different to last year's profile though. There's a good range of cassettes on offer (11-23, 12-23, 12-25, 11-25, 11-28) and there's an alloy sprocket carrier to save weight. The bigger sprockets are drilled too, so shave a few extra grams off tot total.
Ultegra is the new amateur rider's benchmark for performance and price. Almost indistinguishable from Dura Ace in terms of performance, it only loses out on weight – but more than makes up for that in value for money.