On a 10-mile time trial, i will be NO slower on my 1977 Carlton than on my 1998 TREK 2300 carbon bike (god rest its soul).
granted, I am not a clipless pedal weenie. Maybe if I were, I'd be faster, but I see NOTHING different in a flat time trial between the 20 lbs Carlton and the 18 lbs TREK.
And my experience with the 27-speed indexed TREK 2300 monstrousity is that it's a pain in the you-know-where to shift all the time so i end up shifting 2-3 gears at a time, and that wastes time and adds downtime to my shifts and oftentimes puts me in the wrong gear. Moreover, the gearing is weird, sort of like 4 corncob gears smooshed against 5 alpine gearse a single cassette ...
An index system makes me sometimes overconfident and try to shift front and rear at the same time ... bingo ... no chain. THAT doesn't happen on my friction system ~ it actually CAN shift front and rear together. Why? Because the cogs have something called TEETH.
The indexed bike would only be marginally faster to shift under load while I'm climbing a hill, assuming i picked the wrong gear to begin with (which I dont .... ever ... *grin* ...)
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA