Shimano groupsets

[winjim]

considering such things even for a second is the path to madness.

SRAM's lowest level groupset is named Apex. Surely it ought to be Nadir?

 

[alecstilleyedye]

at least shimano doesn't overcomplicate the hierarchy; when they brought in the budget claris at 8 speed, everything else moved up one, unlike campagnolo who change the lower-mid range around willy-nily (out goes centaur and athena and in comes potenza)…

my shimano tiagra 9 speed groupset has been a great workhorse; in ten years it's only just starting to need replacing…

 

[Nigelnaturist]

I'd opt for tiagra, for a number of reasons. First it's excellent, as mentioned, it's basically 105 from 2 years ago, it's also much much cheaper to replace consumables than the "better" groupsets. At £15 for a cassette for example, you can't really go wrong, and for a bike to be used for commuting, you can't really argue, and it'll be a huge step up from claris.

Not quite, shifters completely different and apparently you can only use the new Tiagra RD, as for cassettes losey choice of ratios, mind you thats the same on most Shimano upper tier 10sp cassettes.