I love the feeling of a perfectly engineered rear derailleur. I love good brake calipers and levers. I can feel tiny differences in saddle configurations and chain quality. A proper seatpost is indispensable for ideal saddle angle combined with qualities of lightness and easy adjustability. Properly designed bars are crucial, as are pedals, and of course a responsive and well fitting frame are essential. But please don't waste my time with obsessive talk about magical bottom brackets or flex free cranks or headsets that make cornering a breeze. Yes, the the bottom bracket should be relatively smooth, the crank shouldn't break and it should be the proper length for you. The headset should not index and it should be smooth, but aside from appearance issues some of the cheapest cranks, bottom brackets and headsets are perfectly acceptable and more than that adds nothing to your ride experience. I have inexpensive Gipiemme headsets I purchased for pennies that are as good as the so called magical Suntour Superbe or Campy models. I've bought nos Shimano 105 bottom brackets for $10 that outperform anything ever made in terms of ease of adjustability and dependability. I would venture to say that no one I know blindfolded can tell the difference between a Campy bottom bracket and a Shimano 105. A Mavic Starfish Crank has nothing over a Stronglight. A generic Tange Levin is as good a headset as you can get and those in the know frequently remind me of this fact. These kinds of items should be chosen for value and quality except in those cases where originality needs to be preserved. There is no humanly detectable difference in crank flex between good and stratispherically good.
Garth Libre in Miami Fl USA