Shimano

105 FD-5700 Front Derailleur

Shimano's 105 group has long been known as the bargain racer group of Shimano's lineup. What this means, of course, is that it gets the trickle-down technologies from Shimano's much more expensive Ultegra and Dura-Ace groups. If you're on a real-world budget, and you can wait a year for the hottest new stuff, turn to 105. The 105 FD-5700 Front Derailleur follows this plan to the letter. Having adopted many of Dura-Ace's technologies like the wider link design, without adopting Dura-Ace's price level, we consider this the real bargain of the whole line.

Like Dura-Ace, the links have been widened to make the shifter torsionally stiffer. All in all, the shifting will feel smoother, lighter, and more precise. It is different from 7900 in that the cage is wider and designed to work with a front STI shifter that still has an intermediate "trim" shift -- Dura-Ace doesn't have this feature anymore. Shimano says this front derailleur will work with older 6600 shifters, but considers it 'B' compatible -- it works, but not perfectly.

The Shimano 105 FD-5700 Front Derailleur is designed for compact (110mm bolt circle diameter) and standard (130mm bcd) double cranksets. There are three different versions -- braze-on, 34.9mm clamp and 31.8/28.6mm clamp (which comes with a shim to reduce the diameter from the larger size to the smaller). It can handle a big/small ring differential of up to 16 teeth.