Introducing CUES for Recreational Road and Gravel Riding – By Joe Spanerolo (Technical Editor)
A few years ago when Shimano announced the CUES lineup of components, the news was not received with great excitement. After all, low to mid tier bike gear doesn’t hold interest like the latest electronic, titanium and exotic gear for that ultralite dream bike build. But fast forward to today, and we find the CUES concept of sensibly priced, durable components with broad compatibility, wide range of gearing options, and reduced number of SKU’s is proving a winner both for manufacturers speccing new bikes, and for workshops repairing and updating older bikes.
We won’t go into too much detail about the current range of CUES, because unless you’ve been living under a rock you will already be familiar with the CUES family, which has essentially replaced the ACERA, ALTUS and ALIVIO groups. Customers are enjoying the ultra-wide gear range options that CUES offers, and mechanics are enjoying the ease of retrofitting the components to a wide range of bikes and standards. But of course, until now CUES has been limited to flat bar bikes.
It has been no secret that CUES road was on the way, and has now been released worldwide (Shimano Australia expect local supply by July). You will be seeing CUES on road and gravel bikes in the low to mid price points, taking over from SORA and TIAGRA, and slotting in below Shimano’s venerable 105 range. The Dual Control levers come in mechanical and hydro brake options for double or single chainrings, and in 9/10/11 speeds. Drivetrain parts are shared with the existing CUES range, however there are new 50/34 chainring options. Again, the drivetrain options offer many possibilities for ultra wide and ultra low gearing.
You may as well get used to it, as you are probably aware that Shimano has already begun phasing out components from the groups being replaced by CUES. With the availability of well priced and attractive components from China, how is Shimano fairing? Judging by the CUES offerings, pretty good.
The big blue giant of cycling still has a few tricks left up their sleeve.
