When you say important trends, the vast majority of drop bikes are still road bikes. Shimano is simply building for the market they wish to.
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Iām not at all concerned or surprised that these new ultegra and dura-ace groupsets are not particularly well suited for gravel/multi surface.
These are road race groupsets - Shimano have their separate gravel groupset.
I prefer the idea of having specific groupsets for specific tasks, if they were to produce a do-it-at jack of all trades master of none groupset I think it would be better to derive it from their GRX line.
I do think that GRX needs updating to 12 or 13 speed pretty soon though.
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The bikes I used as an example do not neatly fit into either category, they are quiver killers. The point is that you change wheels to suit your ride that day. Which Shimano groupset should you use then?
My argument would say that if you wanted Shimano then you should use grx on quiver-killer buildsā¦
Iāve gone for campy ekar though because I wanted 1x 
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Thank you very much for sharing. Always searching for that kind of infos. Just bookmarked your post. Highly appreciated.
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Agreed.
I have a SRAM 1x Force eTap AXS build. Ekar was also in the running, though. 
But itād be nice if the two had more competition.
Just ordered a mechanical one a few weeks ago for the gravel bike Iām building up (Carbonda 696 frame). Ultegra RX RD-RX800-GS.
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I also uploaded them to that post as a .PDF if you want to download it and save it to your personal files.
More info
Please discuss the new power meters in the dedicated thread i made and already linked above (which has the DCR article in the OP).
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Sure, Iām not saying it isnāt ābetterāā¦.8 was simply responding to the idea that not having a clutch makes it a ānon-starterā. It may be for some, but for many people, they donāt care.
Iāve yet to see a need for a gravel-specific group set. Every feature that you could name as desirable for gravel has benefit everywhere. Wider gear ranges? Great for road. Hood designs? Great for the road. Clutch RD? Works for the road (although perhaps slightly overkill). SRAM proved for years that people would ride their road groups for gravel if they had the right features.
But the consumer base loves the idea of āspecificityā so they buy into the concept. The XPLR stuff is a perfect exampleā¦.had those features just been rolled in as options for gravel from the beginning (as they should have been), people would have been fine with it.
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āQuiver Killerā reminds me of a Mitch Hedburg quote, ā2 in 1 shampooā¦ 2 in 1 is a bullshit term, because 1 is not big enough to hold 2. Thatās why 2 was created. If it was 2 in 1, it would be overflowingā¦ the bottle would be all sticky and shit.ā
Making small sacrifices is not the goal of building a racing groupset. If you arenāt racing them, then get Sora or some other combination. Otherwise you are trying to use the wrong tool for the job.
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Iām in two minds to flag this or notā¦ surely āget Soraā has to be one of the most offensive things you can tell somebody around here?
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Basically what Iām getting here is Shimano is for the racer because their gearing isnāt easy enough, and every other mortal is better suited for SRAM granny gears.
It depends on where people ride and fitness I suppose, for me a 36x28 is easy enough and thereās only a handful of climbs where Iād like an easier gear and I donāt even ride those every year, so youāre not going to see me sacrifice shift quality to get more gearing that Iāll never use.
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https://www.scott-sports.com/de/de/product/scott-plasma-rc-pro-bike?article=286397058
Another Tri/ TT bike and again, the old brakes. I guess old TT brake levers and new brakes are not compatible 
Thanks.
That sucks. Hopefully theyāll release a 9280 brake shifter some dayā¦
$10K+ for an Ultegra bikeā¦and not even a disc or power meter.
Fookinā insane.
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No disc because it is a Tri-Bike and you canāt ride that in Kona, and they all ride in Kona all the time, where iT iS tOo dAnGeRoUs fOr a dIsC wHeEL.
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Imagine what would a new version of the Diamondback Andean would cost todayā¦
$15k!?
Insane indeed