I’m thinking about switching back to Shimano pedals. I’m kinda stuck on what level to go for. I used Ultegra previously and was happy with them. But on a geek warning podcast a while back Dave, James, and Ronan were in agreement with Dura Ace being the best pedals. And I see a lot of other places people raving about dura ace pedals.
Dura Ace
Ultegra
Weight
228 grams
248 grams
Stack
14.6 mm
15.8 mm
Pedal Center (q-factor)
52 mm
53 mm
Road Clearance
35 degrees
33 degrees
Bearings
2 ball + needle
2 ball
I don’t particularly mind spending the extra $100 if it is “worth it”, but I’m curious as to what the benefits are really are. A lot of people talk about how Dura Ace have the best bearings out there. What does that equate to? Lasting longer? Less servicing needed? Spin smoother? In terms of lasting longer are we talking about 20k miles vs 15k miles? Or a bigger or smaller difference?
To those who went with DA over Ultegra, what was your reasoning?
When I got my Dura Ace equipped bike I briefly thought about getting Dura Ace to match but I decided as I couldn’t notice the bigger gap between resin cage 105 and Ultegra, I wouldn’t notice the tiny gap between Ultegra and Dura Ace either.
I have the prior gen D-A, Ult and 105 pedals. 105 to Ultegra is massive in look, feel and bearing smoothness.
Ult to D-A is somewhat noticed for bearing feel in hand. The D-A feels like perfection despite MANY unknown hours of use on my trainer bike. But for the price difference, this is the epitome of “marginal gains” IMO with very few people able to appreciate let alone detect the deltas when on the bike.
I got the D-A to match a bike with R9000 and only got both via shop discount. Even with that discount, the price jump to D-A is just short of insane for me. Much like the other top vs 1 tier down Shim stuff, the D-A / XTR level is hard to justify in real numbers, but makes perfect sense if that is what you want (aka the BEST).
I’ve had both, the Dura-Ace have lasted 5 years so far (last years mileage was 6700), never been serviced and still spin and run brilliantly. My previous Ultegra pedals lasted 3 years before they became sticky, slow to spin.
I have about ~35,000 miles on my DA pedals. I got them serviced for the first time last month, though they were creaking long before then. Only reason I brought them for service is because I tried to do it myself and messed up the bearings. I’ve been wondering if it’s about time to full-on replace them though.
