Coolwall October 2011 - Entry Level Groupsets

[Neil]

Don't confuse cool with nostalgia.

Don't confuse cool with "objectively good" or even "subjectively good".

The cool wall concept (whether puerile, vacuous, shallow, or merely fun) for all it's faults, is nothing to do with whether something was purely any good - although that tends to be how the votes, threads, and comments go.

Funny thing is that while I don't conciser low end groupsets as cool, I also don't consider any shimano group as cool. They are functional and practical, they are robust, long living and efficient but then none of those things are indicative of coolness...

I'd largely agree with that.

All the same, though, there's a certain retrospective (yes, I'll concede, revisionist) coolness in things that got many people started that were what they probably wore out and had fun with, along the way to something better.

That said, I'll 'fess up - I never owned a bike with these groupsets on (either now, or BITD), so I can't claim any real personal experience of them.

 

[BerthaPog]

The bits themselves at the time - not cool, for much of the reasons Pete_MCC lists.

But now, they seem to have an almost inverse "coolness" - as if they are so un-cool, they creep round the back of the cool-wheel to move into definite coolness.

And to acheive the material density of 200GS crank, will require some extreme cooling.

 

[Drencrom]

Not cool.

Although 70GS is, perhaps quite rightly, a rarity.

shonky, poorly functioning heavy rubbish, which down my school, would have got you bullied.

Posh school then! Anything over 100GS was serious kit at mine.

 

[kaytronika]

Not cool.

Although 70GS is, perhaps quite rightly, a rarity.

shonky, poorly functioning heavy rubbish, which down my school, would have got you bullied.

Posh school then! Anything over 100GS was serious kit at mine.

Anything greater than a 6 speed rear mech with Shimano SIS written on it was boutique in Wigan.

 

[FMJ]

sort of, because we all started somewhere

Some of us. My first MTB was full DX (Raleigh Chill in '91). Then again, I had been road racing for a while by then so knew what was wheat and what was chafe in road bicycle parts, and read MXA and Dirt Bike, so knew to go straight to their sister mag MBA for the down low on what to buy to withstand the abuse a moto rider would dish out.

 

[petitpal]

Not cool.

Although 70GS is, perhaps quite rightly, a rarity.

shonky, poorly functioning heavy rubbish, which down my school, would have got you bullied.

Posh school then! Anything over 100GS was serious kit at mine.

Anything greater than a 6 speed rear mech with Shimano SIS written on it was boutique in Wigan.

Sturmey Archer three speed on a Raleigh was about as cool as our school got. And you we're still bullied then.

Low level group sets though - tricky. For example, I used to run Alivio rear cantis on my Zaskar, purely because I didn't have enough cash to buy two sets of Onza HOs and the rear brakes didn't strike me as being quite so important, and also ran an Alivo front mech for a while on my Saracen. The canti's looked terrible (weird pearlescent silver paint job) but the front mech didn't look to bad. Both were cheap as chips and both worked consistently and with no problems.

So, if you'll let me include Alivio then I'd say that if something right at the bottom of the groupset and price range can work well and with no fuss then yes, that's fairly cool.

The very, very cheapo stuff though is nasty.

So, bit torn really. There's a shock :roll:

 

[lewis1641]

i cant consider this stuff cool.

it has its place somewhere but it isnt on any of my bikes!

 

[MikeD]

Desperately and unremittingly uncool. Not because they're bad (although they are) but because they're the epitome of meh.

Novas can be cool, though

 

[Raging_Bulls]

IMO low-level sets are so uncool that they're cool. Plenty of retrobikes have full M900 XTR and the like, but it's rare to see one that actually has the original low-end group.

 

[cce]

STX and Deore LX are decent, reliable basic kit.

this bottom of the range stuff is trash.