9 Speed Vs. 10

The only difference is that you are gaining a closer gear ratio in the middle of the rear cassette; your upper and lower gears will be the same  i.e. an 11-25  9 speed cassette still has the same top-end "speed" gear (the 11) and the same "climbing" gear (the 25); there's just an "extra" gear thrown in the middle making the jump between teeth smaller. 

There's really no need to avoid 9 speed, especially being DA; the upgrade would be very expensive for what you'd gain (which is very little). Wheel choice isn't affected since you can put a 9 speed cassette on any wheel made for a 10 speed. 

Upgrading from 9 speed to 10 speed setup would mean swapping the shifters (although DA bar ends can be switched to friction mode and will then work), derrailleurs, cassette and chain. The chainrings should still work (mine worked with both 9 and 10 speed chains).  

I'm not sure what other upgrades you had in mind, but there's nothing else I can think of on a 9 speed setup that would limit any other future upgrade.

If one more gear really made that big a difference, perhaps more people would be riding with Campagnalo's 11 speed setup.

 

 

Edited by sty 2008-10-19 7:54 AM

There are some wheels out there that are 10sp only, so if you go 9sp that might be an issue. But you'll find that all of the race wheels you ever may want, they all pretty much will work with 9sp.

Going to an 8sp set up would be a bigger issue.

The 9-speed in many ways is better then the 10 speed setup according to my LBS owner. There is a slight weight advantage for the 10 speed and that is about it. The 9-speed chain is more durable, the common replacement parts (chains/cassettes,etc) for the 9-speed are cheaper.

With the extra gear, the 10-speed supposedly helps in group bike racing , where suttle adjustments in gearing help. For time trialing and triathlons there is no advantage. Like many things in the bicycle business, the 10-speed is a solution for a problem that did not exist.

Most of the new high end bikes come with 10-speed now. He says is he has 5X more people come in with broken 10-speed chains then he ever had with 9-speed.