So about half way through our Xmas Lights ride tonight, I found i couldn't shift up front. I thought I had snapped a cable somehow, but upon my return to the shop, figured out my Ultegra fornt derailleur had snapped across the top in two place. Ouch.

It is less than a year old, so i am gonna try and warranty the part, but I am not hopeful. It is a standard Ultegra 10 sp front, on a compact crank. If I do have to replace it, I was considering an FSA compact front derailleur. Anyone have any experience with these? I can't find anything in the discussions about it, and there are no reviews. Is there a noticable difference? Any drawbacks? Thanks for any help.

I just built up a new CX rig a month ago with an FSA Compact Ft Der and it works great so far...no problems as of yet anyway. I'm running a WCS Compact crankset and DA 9-speed shifters.

Anyone have any experience with these? I can't find anything in the discussions about it, and there are no reviews. Is there a noticable difference? Any drawbacks? Thanks for any help.

I also ran one on my cross bike, with the FSA Carbon Pro crankset. Worked just fine for me, but that was the first time I'd ever run a double, so no real comparison. I did run it for a time with 50-34 in the front, no problems there either.

I put an FSA C-16 on my new bike last year. It works great. I don't think there's any reason to spend big dollars on a front DER, they have a simple job to perform and only need to be set up for the position of the big ring, or small ring. Not too critical from the design aspect. It's mostly in how you set it up.
Rear ders are another issue.

And the price is reasonable. Agree with the other posters on no need to spend big bucks on a FD.