BikingViking793 

I’m planning a new bike build and know I’m going to use an older Shimano group set. Not sure how old is too old. For sure STI and right now thinking no less than 8 speed. So how good is the old 8 speed stuff? 8 speed 600 tricolor looks great, but how does it perform? Is there a point where it gets hard to get new rubber hoods if I go too old? My experience only goes back to 5600/6600 stuff so really would like some opinions from those familiar with the older stuff. It really just needs to be silver and STI so I could go much newer, but some of the older does have a great look. Thanks.

big john

Do you already have some of the parts? If not, I wouldn't go that old unless you know where to get everything you need. I have ten speed Ultegra on one bike and ten speed Chorus on another and it's getting hard to find parts for them.

I'm sure the 8 speed stuff performs fine.

Leisesturm

I am pulling off the cockpit of a Flight Deck (105) 3x8 setup. Free to a good home. Free is the only way I would bother tbh. You're not saving that much money over newer stuff and more speeds always come in handy. This was a bike I bought used so I can't vouch for how it was treated but it was a travel tandem and tandem people in general take care of their toys and being a travel bike I don't think it saw hard use. FWIW.

canklecat

I have some older 8-speed Shimano stuff, but not entire groups.

Two pair of 600 Tricolor/Ultegra front (braze on mount) and rear derailleurs. They're good and work fine with 7-speed freewheels/cassettes too.

I've done some mix and match stuff with those 600 Tricolor/Ultegra derailleurs and they work well with everything I've tried: newer generation indexed 8-speed bar-end shifters; MicroShift R7 7-speed brifters; downtube and bar-end friction shifters, with 7 and 8 speed cassettes.

The MicroShift brifters are indexed for the front derailleur too and work fine with those 600 Tricolor front derailleurs. Helps to use a barrel adjuster inline for fine tuning to eliminate chain rub, but so far with my current setup (2014 carbon fiber frame, internal cabling, no braze-ons for my older adjustable cable stops) I haven't bothered with a barrel adjuster. I just tweaked the cable tension until it worked fine with the gear combos I use most. No rubbing unless I'm in the big/big chainring/cog combo, at which point the chain rub reminds me to not do that.

A couple of 8-speed Dura Ace rear derailleurs, STI shifters (brifters), and one front derailleur. Those are waiting to be installed on a 1993 Trek 5900 OCLV I'm overhauling. That bike originally came with Dura Ace 8-speed downtube shifters to save weight, but I'm switching to brifters for convenience. I still use downtube shifters on my Ironman steel bike though.

Lazyass

I have a ton of tri color components. They all work fine. The 6402 STI's get gummed up but a shot of wd40 gets them shifting good again. The one problem with those shifters is that you cannot find replacement brake hoods for them. No one makes them and on the rare occasion some NOS's pop up on ebay they cost a fortune.

I prefer the 7 speed with downtube shifters. About to build up another frameset with them. Shimano made tricolor for so many years that there will never be a shortage of good condition/NOS parts. Except for brake hoods.

BikingViking793 

Sounds like 8 speed would work for what I'm doing. I'm interested in the 105.

njkayaker

There's a subforum dedicated to that:

https://www.bikeforums.net/early-bri...s-7-8-9-speed/

Maelochs

What's the back-up plan when one irreplaceable part breaks?

mstateglfr 

probably the same plan as anyone has when an irreplaceable part breaks.
If it's genuinely irreplaceable, then different drivetrain components will need to be utilized.
If it's figuratively irreplaceable, then it can be purchased on eBay, co-op, marketplace, bf for sale forum, etc.

Iride01 

Why old stuff? Trying to keep it proper for the period? You can get new Sora 9 speed or Tiagra 10 speed stuff for just as inexpensive as you might find used old stuff.

Though you have to look everywhere with so many being out of stock on various individual components.

genejockey 

One of my bikes had late 7400 series Dura Ace (8 speed, STIs) for 22 years, and it always performed flawlessly. I upgraded to 7800 STIs and RD so I could run a 12-30 cassette, since I ain't as young as I used to be, not because the 7400 stuff was failing. I also have a bike I recently built up with 8 speed RX100, with DT shifters, and it also works flawlessly - though not as sweet as the 7400 STIs.

BikingViking793 

going for an older look. I don’t know of anyone still making a silver group. The new silver 105 isn’t all that silver.

seypat

If replacement hoods are a problem, use microshift shifters instead of Shimano. They work good with the older Shimano groups. FWIW, as long as you match the cassette/shifters/chain/RD speeds different stuff will work. The only Shimano components on this build are the hubs and RD.

BikingViking793 

Bike looks good. Is it hard to get used to how they shift?

seypat

I like the 2 paddle system a lot better. I have short fingers. The long throw of the Shimano brake lever STI doesn't work well for me. I have to move/exaggerate my hand or else the lever rolls over my fingers like a roller cam. Smaller taps with 2 paddles.

BikingViking793 

Alright well I found an older but new Microshift Centos 10 speed group that has the silver brake levers and derailleurs. Looks like it has the same shift levers as yours. It has the look I'm going for so hopefully it works well. If not I guess the bike will be a 2x10 if I want to switch parts to Shimano 5600/6600.

RiddleOfSteel

The 6400 600 and 7400 Dura-Ace work well. Not light or lighter like the newer generations, but you're not going for that. Different comfort factor as well, since those old STIs still adhered to the ethos of vintage brake lever body design, now just with a shifting mechanism inside. It took until 7900/6700/5700 to get a longer lever body that more fully supported one's hands (if a handlebar setup wasn't conducive to it). If you can stomach the way Microshift shifters look, then go ahead. Otherwise, there's R2000 generation Claris which is 8-speed, but with the Dura-Ace 9000 (and newer) STI lever body design. It's even painted nearly the same grey as 6400. I'm updating an old Trek with an R2000 groupset, and aside from the fact that it is heavy (appropriate for its rank), is well finished with proven components, and it works with the "old" Shimano RD pull ratio of 1.7:1 (like everything SIS from 6-speed to 10-speed road-wise).

For silver stuff, going to the first generation of 10-speed (7800/6600/5600) is obviously a safe bet as far as the polished look goes. Shimano gave us some truly silver 105 in subsequent generations, even to 5800 (11-speed). I had a pair, but didn't have anything to build it with, so I sold it. [huge sigh] Too bad the modern Shimano "silver groupsets" are painted a limp variant of silver instead of anodized, which looks a billion times better. Literally no painted silver Ultegra or 105 groupset of the latter 10-speed and 11-speed eras looks good on any bike, new or old, IMO. Polished/anodized silver would be considerably better, and I would have likely had a groupset.