In entrusting ol’ 10 Speed with more than $14,000 worth of bicycles on Saturday, the reps from Specialized also enabled me to try out two brands of components for the first time.

SRAM Force and Shimano Ultegra SL.

10 Speed’s beloved steel bike is full Ultegra, circa 2003, and it’s showing its age. I just bought a new, 12-27, 9-speed cassette (yeah, 12-27, I’m old, big and slow), and I’ve also replaced the middle chain ring on the triple crankset. (Triple? Again, old, big and slow, but … my goal is to never use the granny and I have yet to do so this year! Yay!)

Be that as it may, the new Shimano Ultegra SL (6600-G) 10-speed is light years ahead of my five-year-old components. The Roubaix with which Specialized reps Andy Jones and Justin Neely entrusted me was equipped with full Ultegra SL, and the components were incredibly fine-tuned and responsive. The shifts were crisp on the rear cassette and on the crank … whether I was shifting into a harder gear or an easier gear.  There seemed to be no waiting, and no clunking, before the gear-changes engaged.

Apparently the engineering of Shimano’s top-of-the-line Dura-Ace components has trickled down to the Ultegra SL, which is priced at around $1,150 for the full treatement — just a tick higher than the regular Ultegra. The Ultegra SL crankset features the Dura-Ace Hollowtech II crankset technology. As Jones explained it, the Ultegra SL is essentially the Dura-Ace of a year or two ago. And, I might add, about $400 less costly than the current Dura Ace.

I was a little nervous about the Ultegra wheelset, 16 spokes on front and 20 on the back, because I wore out a similarly spoked rear Shimano 550 wheelset in short order a couple of years ago. Such minimalist wheels aren’t intended for cyclists my size (6-4, 2%& pounds), but thankfully the wheelset on the Roubaix survived my test ride.

The SRAM Force was on the high-end Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL2 that I raved about Saturday. The Tarmac now comes with SRAM Red, SRAM’s top of the line componentry, or SRAM’s answer to Dura-Ace, to put it another way.

Having never used SRAM components before, ol’ 10 Speed was initially at a loss on how to shift the dang things into the bigger rings. Unike Shimano, which ties such shifting into the brake levers (you push in), SRAM encorporates it into the triggers. 10 Speed wasn’t aware of this difference, so I spun a few pedal strokes perplexed at how to downshift on the rear casette after discovering the brake levers only operated the brakes.

After fumbling around the hoods for a switch of some sort, I quickly discovered that a little extra push on the right trigger engaged the downshift. Twas a bit awkward at first, but not at all difficult to master in short order. Still, it seemed as if the extra push (SRAM calls this the double-click) required a longer push inward than the Shimano brake-lever system does, and it seemed to take a smidge longer for the gear change to engage, tho this impression may have been caused solely by my unfamiliarity with the system.

I did like the concept of the double-click method; it seemed more intuitive the more I used it, but, like I stated, the inward travel of the lever seemed to be a bit much. One cool feature that Jones showed me after my ride is that the trigger can be adjusted and essentially held against the handlebar with the right hand. He explained that this enables someone like Tom Boonen to click into a harder gear for more power while in a full sprint without being anywhere near the brake lever. Super cool. (Not that someone like me would ever need that feature.)

The SRAM Force runs a couple of hundred dollars more than the Ultegra SL. Would I pick one over the other? Probably not, though I would have no qualms riding either grouppo.

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