Roadies - advice needed

I think if you have your mind set on a 9, thats fine. I assume you mean 9 in the back with a double or triple front chainring.  With a nine speed cassette you won't be losing much if at all.  I have a 10 speed 105 and rarely use the lowest and the highest gears.

I still have a 9-speed Ultegra rear cassette on my road bike I use for racing. No problem with getting replacement parts (chains, cassettes,etc)

I would check with the road races you are planning on doing to see what the plan is in regards to spare wheels. The local road races I have been to had no neutral spare wheels. A couple had wheel trucks that followed the peleton, but you had to bring your own spare wheels and put them in the truck if you wanted to swap out a wheel (your own) during the race. I didn't bother. I figured if I got a flat I was done racing any way. I carried a spare tube and fixed the flat so I could ride to the where I parked my car so I wouldn't have to walk. So far I haven't flatted during a race, but I have been dropped and had to ride in by myself anyway. That is part of road racing for a beginner.

Edited by browncd 2009-07-27 12:27 PM

Currently I am running a ten speed (winter commuter), seven speed (fall/spring commuter) and two nine speeds (tribike and road bike).  I am not had difficulty getting parts for any of them although I am looking to rebuild the ten speed up as a single speed just to reduce the number of parts exposed to the salt.

I am building up a road bike in ten speed and will switch my tribike over when I do that just so I don't have to deal with 9 and 10 speed stuff as I like to be able to switch rear wheels between bikes as required.

As for neutral support; I have no idea but would expect that you will have trouble getting a 9 speed wheel, especially as Campy has an 11 speed group out and I expect that Shimano and SRAM will follow suit.

Shane