One product, many names

[thelawnet]

Ultegra:



105:



GRX 810



Deore XT



SLX



Those are the just the identical versions; that's before you get onto almost identical (XTR & Dura-Ace)

Or 'has different pistons in the same body' (GRX400 and Tiagra 4770)

[speedsixdave]

I guess there has always been a lot of overlap between individual parts on any groupset. Once the justification for higher prices for similar-looking parts was that the metallurgy was better (cold-forged vs hot-forged) or the bearing quality was better, or even just that the finish was better. Perhaps XTR-level disc calipers have better seals - let's hope not!

A long time ago - 1990-ish - all Campagnolo's groupsets had completely different designs for rear derailleurs and for brake calipers too. This gave some justification for going for a 'better' group but it followed that some of these designs worked better than others and, being Campagnolo, it also followed that the better designs were not necessarily in the better groups... Having four or five different designs for essentially the same thing must have been very expensive, so Shimano's simplification - all brake calipers essentially the same, all rear derailleurs essentially the same - must have saved them a fortune as well as improving the lot of the consumer. Probably.

[Brucey]

much more scope for 'bait and switch' with just paint, stickers and pistons...Shimano have helped make cyclists so 'groupset conscious' that they know they can get away with charging more for essentially the same thing with different stickers on it...

At least with 10s vs 11s GRX chainsets you get a 0.13mm difference in the chain clearance....possibly...

cheers

[peetee]

That sort of thing goes way back. Compare the 7 speed Shimano front mechs from 400lx to xt.

[Mike Sales]

I once read a book on retailing.
It said that every greengrocer knows that if he divides a box of lettuces in two, and puts one on his counter at fifty percent more than the other, the expensive ones will sell first.

[Jamesh]

I quite like the gunmetal grey paint on tiagra.

Looks good on modern frames much more than a polished 105 finish.

Cheers James

[thelawnet]

much more scope for 'bait and switch' with just paint, stickers and pistons...Shimano have helped make cyclists so 'groupset conscious' that they know they can get away with charging more for essentially the same thing with different stickers on it...

I think they used to make more effort to give a different appearance, or perhaps to improve the design.

This is XT, SLX, Deore of successive years:





They are functionally similar with same pads & pistons but each one looked different from the last.

Now they just stick the same thing out with different stickers on. Presumably it cuts costs, and the customers don't notice, so why not?

Of course it doesn't even need to have a different grade of sticker.

Putting a '12-speed' label on the box allows you to mark it up by 33%

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/derailleurs ... long-cage/
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/derailleurs ... long-cage/

[tim-b]

Hi

At least with 10s vs 11s GRX chainsets you get a 0.13mm difference in the chain clearance....possibly...

Are you comparing GRX to GRX Brucey? I don't know what Shimano compared it with, but they're saying 2.5mm from the usual chainline, which might help the inveterate tinkerers out there
Regards
tim-b

[thelawnet]

Hi

At least with 10s vs 11s GRX chainsets you get a 0.13mm difference in the chain clearance....possibly...

Are you comparing GRX to GRX Brucey? I don't know what Shimano compared it with, but they're saying 2.5mm from the usual chainline, which might help the inveterate tinkerers out there
Regards
tim-b

See here


viewtopic.php?f=5&t=111191#p1531954

Basically the 10 and 11 speed GRX 600 chainsets are identical apart from the outer chainring which is supposedly subtly different

[hamster]

Basically the 10 and 11 speed GRX 600 chainsets are identical apart from the outer chainring which is supposedly subtly different

The subtle difference being 'added marketing'?

[Sid Aluminium]

The American winemaker Ernest Gallo ran an experiment from the 1930s through the 1970s, where he offered two samples of red wine, one marked at twice the price of the other. Consistently over the decades some 9 of 10 tasters announced they could tell the difference and preferred the sample marked with a higher price.

They were, of course, exactly the same wine.

[speedsixdave]

I'm a bit ambivalent about this. With any technical product there's a lot to be said for having 'perfected' a design and then producing only that design, rather than deliberately engineering a worse product to sell at a lower price point.

Shimano have hobbled themselves a bit by having loads and loads of different groups and then needing to differentiate between them, when it would seem one design of brake caliper works happily across all groups. So we end up with different surface finishes and perhaps some other small differences like titanium bolts or something. I'd be interested to see what the price spread is between the cheapest and most expensive iterations of the same design.

I'm out of the loop on disc brakes at the moment but I remember looking at the specialist manufacturer Magura about a decade ago. They had three or four different brakes, all for different purposes - a super-lightweight one for racing, a general purpose one for most things, a haevyweight super-poweful one for downhilling and so on. Shimano's 'problem' here is that most of these calipers are doing mostly the same thing. Obviously 105 and Ultegra bikes do exactly the same riding, and realistically GRX bikes do much the same too - lightweight solo riding on 160/140mm discs.

A thing that does exercise me is 'annual improvement' - new models every year just because it's a new year. I think this is pretty much guaranteed to produce worse and buggy products of all sorts. Tight deadlines and the need to release something new and regularly because that's what the marketing department demand are not the conditions for quality engineering and product development.

[julianm]

If they put Campagnolo stickers on them could they charge even more?

[thelawnet]

the calipers all do the same thing - stop. There's not really necessarily a difference between road & MTB calipers, this tends to just be aesthetics.

In terms of pricing:

https://www.bike24.com/p2340616.html - 4 resin pistons €34.28
https://www.bike24.com/p2287637.html - 4 ceramic pistons €43.36
https://www.bike24.com/p2372359.html - same thing with a Deore sticker - €53.43
https://www.bike24.com/p2325397.html - slightly better design (with banjo fitting), and slightly more expensive pads (around €4 more) €55.45
https://www.bike24.com/p2324266.html - with a 'Deore XT' sticker €75.62
https://www.bike24.com/p2283341.html - with an XTR sticker €131.08

The XTR one does come with a couple of titanium bolts and what-not.

Probably you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

I do notice on new bikes that things are often specced as upgrades that don't seem to be.

E.g., with the brakes above you could buy a complete set of SLX brakes & levers AND a set of XTR levers for less than the price of the XTR set on its own. The levers are at least different (the latest version of i-Spec swivels 60 degrees in its XTR version, and the levers are 10 or 15g lighter. Not worth the extra money of course (though plenty of people think so), but at least there's something that's actually different.