Wes

The generational part of your question is fair and the answer is yes, considerably.

Modern cassettes and chainrings are designed for shifting under load in a way that older ones were not. The ramps and pins that help the chain climb, the shaped tooth profiles, the stiffer chains — all of it exists so a shift completes quickly rather than grinding while it waits for you to ease off. Electronic shifting goes further, since it can move the derailleur faster and more precisely than a cable ever will.

The practical upshot is that the advice has softened from "never" to "ease off briefly for the front, and do not be brutal about the rear". A momentary reduction in pressure — half a pedal stroke, not a coast — is enough for almost every shift on modern equipment.

What has not changed is the front derailleur under a standing climb. That is still where things go wrong.

One thing not to do, since it will be suggested: avoid strong solvents and those clip-on cleaning baths as a routine.

They do get the chain visibly clean, and they also drive solvent into the rollers where you then have to fully re-lubricate from dry. Done occasionally that is fine. Done weekly it is a good way to wear a chain out faster than riding it does.

Wipe, lubricate, wipe again. That is the whole routine for the overwhelming majority of riding.

Worth checking the pads at the same time, because half of the "dirty rim" complaints I see are actually contaminated pads.

Pads pick up grit and small metal fragments that then embed in the rubber. Once that happens the pad becomes an abrasive tool and every stop drags those particles down the braking surface — you get a squeal, a groove worn into the rim, and a track that gets dirty again immediately.

So: pick the pads out with a sharp point, then dress the surface flat with sandpaper on a hard block. Doing that at the same time as the rim is the difference between a clean rim next week and a dirty one by Tuesday.

And check rim wear while you are there. Most rims have a wear indicator — a groove or a dimple — and a rim worn thin enough can fail suddenly under braking.

The honest short answer is: wheels first, and everything else is secondary.

A stated weight limit is mostly a warranty boundary rather than a cliff edge — a frame does not fail the moment you exceed it. But wheels are different, because they are the component where rider weight translates directly into a load that either the rim and spokes carry or they do not.

What you want is a hand-built wheelset from someone who builds for load: a deep, strong rim, a high spoke count — 36 spokes, and 40 exists for a reason — with straight-gauge spokes and even, high tension. Factory wheels with 24 low-count bladed spokes are built for a 75 kg rider and they will go out of true, then break spokes, then fail.

This is the single item most worth spending money on, and it is the one most shops will not raise unless you ask.

Talking to the wheel builder is the best advice in the thread. Everything else on the bike can be swapped later; a wheelset built wrong will have you back within a month.

The other half is that the things which pushed mountain bikes to a single ring do not apply on the road.

Chain retention. Off-road, front derailleurs drop chains over rough ground, and a dropped chain mid-descent is a real problem. Narrow-wide chainrings and clutch derailleurs fixed that, and removing the front mechanism entirely fixed it more.

Ground clearance and mud. A front derailleur is a mud trap sitting exactly where the frame is narrowest.

Suspension design. Removing the front derailleur freed frame designers from routing a mechanism around a moving pivot, which was genuinely constraining.

None of those matter on tarmac. A road front derailleur on a smooth surface is reliable, and there is no mud, no clearance issue and no suspension linkage to work around. So road riders were asked to give up gear spacing in exchange for solving problems they did not have.