Pearson Carbon Audax Pro: A comfy, modern & fast (ish) long-distance bike

Of brifters?

I have the R960s. They work just fine. And they're black. From what I hear, the PX ones only tick one of those boxes. I only bought them because my groupset acquisition happened pre Red Black, but I now feel that it would have been too black so happy with the path I took, grey chainrings and all.

Your keenness to swap out the front derailleur on your prospective Red acquisition to me seems pointless - reports may say it's 'better', be that stiffer or with an improved shifting action, but I have had precisely zero issues with my set-up so feel any improvement to be unimportant.

Extending that - having bikes with both Red and Force, I struggle to feel the difference between the two of them. Force does just fine, wins at bang for buck and uses less exotic components where it counts, no doubt ticking a 'longevity' box in a spreadsheet somewhere.

Have you seen my Giant since I put SRAM on it? Potentially similar to your (initial, deep-wheeled) vision for this build. Since I swapped out the pedals for Keo blades though, is stealthier than I want.

Thanks for that. I don't think I have seen it, but I didn't know you were swapping it for Force anyway. There definitely seem to be a lot more people who have had no Red front mech trouble than people who have. Was talking to digger about it tonight and he said there's never been a problem with a bike he's set up. I am starting to suspect people doing it wrong may be the explanation...

So one question still in my mind is are the R960s £50 better than Red Black calipers? They only weigh about 20g less or something.