Leviers Shimano Ultegra 6700 STI Double 10 vitesses (route, paire)

groupsets that generates the most excitement here at road.cc towers. Ultegra has always been the smart choice in the Shimano range: affordable enough to be a serious consideration with first dibs on all that innovation trickling down from the top.

Dura Ace 7900 was a fairly big leap in a market that mostly makes incremental changes, and Ultegra 6700 has stepped up a notch too, taking on plenty of the new technology at a price point that's much more within the reach of the keen amateur cyclist.

Ultegra now has the hollowglide chainring of Dura Ace. It also shares the internal lever cable routing, the Carbon lever blade, redesigned hood shape and repositioned pivots on lever and brake. In fact there's not much that it doesn't have, really only the no-trim shifting of the front mech. So what's the performance difference between the two groupsets?

Hand on heart I'd have to say that blindfolded I'd be very hard pressed to tell the difference between the two. There's no real performance advantage to be had by buying Dura Ace kit over the new Ultegra, not one you'll notice out on the road at least. The new Ultegra kit is excellent: shifts are crisp, braking is noticeably better, power transmission is near faultless.

In the end it all comes down to weight: Dura Ace 7900 is about 300g lighter than Ultegra 6700. If you can honestly say you'd notice half a pound more kit hanging from your frame then you need to consider the top-of-the-line groupset. For everyone else, myself very much included, the smart money's with Ultegra. Forget the RRPs for a minute: In the real world 7900 is going to cost you a grand, and 6700 can be had for less than £600. For me it's a no-brainer: if you're a Shimano fan then Ultegra 6700 is definitely the groupset that gives you the most bangs per buck. Here's how we rate the components...

There's plenty of Dura Ace 7900 – the shape of the unit, the Carbon brake lever and the internal cable routing – evident here. Less obvious but just as important in terms of the feel of the lever is the repositioned pivot which changes the action of the lever slightly. From the hoods (and I spend a lot of time there) it's easier to use the brakes, you don't need to grab quite as much lever which will be good news for riders with smaller hands. And there's more good news in that regard: pop off the front cap and you get a reach adjustment screw to dial the levers in.

The internal routing is mostly a cosmetic improvement – it doesn't affect the function at all, really – but I much prefer the clean look, and my money's on the technology filtering right down the range. The only slight issue is when fitting tri bars, as there's more wires coming out where the clamps go. However, not wrapping the tape as close to the stem cures the problem, giving the cables more room to get out of the way.

The shifting action initially felt a little heavier than last year but a few hundred miles and some GT-85 later it's more or less the same in terms of weight. The throw is similar too, and the action is a little bit more positive. Shifting from the hoods is very good with both levers easy to locate and simple to use. In terms of action and performance it's pretty much indistinguishable from Dura Ace, the only noticable difference being the trim position on the front lever; Dura Ace is now trim free.

On the drops Shimano and Campag are both giving ground to SRAM, in my opinion. The main advantage of the DoubleTap system for me is that when you're on the drops you can pull the control lever back independent of the brake and use that one lever to shift up and down. Ultegra is perfectly usable from the drops but it can be a bit of a stretch to upshift; in fact I dialled the reach on the levers in a bit to make the action from the drops better, even though I've got hands like spades.

The hoods aren't as big as the look of the levers would have you believe, I found them very comfortable throughout testing though my thumb tends to fall into the hole where the shift mechanism is. It's not a big problem but it would be nice if the rubber extended a bit further down.

Ultegra is the new amateur rider's benchmark for performance and price. Almost indistinguishable from Dura Ace in terms of performance, it only loses out on weight – but more than makes up for that in value for money.