Great, thanks. Will definitely give the YBN chain a whirl. As you say, the rainbow slick colour should look good with the other rainbow slick parts.OtterSpace wrote: ↑Wed Dec 20, 2023 5:03 pmShifting is very very slightly worse on YBN compared to Dura-Ace on my bike and I don't think many people would notice the change. Out of the HG+ parts the chain certainly has the least contribution to shift quality with the cassette having the largest contribution followed by the Shimano chainrings which are a step above anything else out there for shifting performane but dont work with 5bolt spiders. I'd recommend picking up a YBN chain of your prefered color to add to a chain rotation scheme for your bike to help minimize wear and then decide which system you like more. It should save around 15g and the oil-slick or gold would look nice with this build.
I've seen tons of problems with Extralite rims so I avoid them. I personally really like berd spokes for their feel out of the road and I build them up with extra spokes, 28/28 for disc, to mittigate lateral stiffness issues so I can recommend them and they save a ton of weight. However many don't like the look of them for road bikes and front spoke aero will be impacted. You could try building just a rear wheel, where spoke aero is less important and comfort matters more, to see how you get on with them. Personally I love extralite 6bolt hubs.
Interesting on the Extralite rims. I had creaking issues with my rear wheel, so had it re-built with Sapim CX-Ray spokes and a carbon-ti hub. This eliminated the creak and stiffened it up noticeably. The front is still lacking in stiffness though, so thinking about doing the same for the front, but that would negate most of the weight saving over the CRW, which are a bit deeper and wider. I did read about the issues with rims cracking and spokes breaking, however I've not experienced that so far (and the rims are the 'CS' version, which apparently toughened up the areas most prone to failure). Having said that, I've treated them very gently, and wouldn't smash them around on UK roads.