Cycling UK Forum

This has happened to me a few times, all the way back to Super Record. Proprietary parts and accessories are how big players like Campagnolo keep their market share, but at least their spares are still legendary, unlike Shimano who seem to stop supporting product lines at around a five year cycle. If the worst comes to the worst there's always the option to mount it in a vice and carefully drill out the offending part. I've had to do this previously and although tricky it was 100% success.

Brilliant. And so it begins, the steady isolation of the UK in Europe. Having to apply (and pay) to visit 72 hours before travel is going to annoy a LOT of people. Also moves afoot to reduce and then remove free health care for British ex pats living in Spain, as if life with the lead weight pound /euro situation wasn't bad enough.

I have family in Spain and they are suffering badly. Before long they'll have no choice but to return to the UK permanently.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 35121.html

ukdodger wrote:

SpannerGeek wrote:

ukdodger wrote:Apart from possible advatages for serious racing they're just a novelty. How much effort does it take to change gear?

How much effort does it take to change and then set up a full set of STI cables? And then be regularly adjust6 them? About £150 worth a year if an lbs does it. And two buttons on a Di2 set up to do the same job effortlessly. When people actually USE di2 and see the functionality, ease of set up and zero maintenance it requires they'll be converted very quickly.

Doubly so if the cost of entry level electronic wireless shifting is not far away from that of a cabled mechanical set up. Which is definitely where 105 and tiagra are going in the next 12 months. Wireless Ultegra and Dura Ace are already on the cards.

You're assuming zero maintenance. An electronic box with the servo mechanism it requires to convert electricity to motion is far more of a fault liabilty than a cable with a screw adjuster.

There are no 'electronics' in the derailleurs. The brain of di2 is in the small box beneath the handlebars, well away from any dust or water ingress. You'll see di2 as the weapon of choice on most Cyclo Cross race bikes this winter, in competition. This is because of their tried and tested reliability in the worst conditions possible. SRAM eTap has even fewer 'electronics' and without hard wires to break should prove even more reliable.

It's just progress. When it trickles down to 105 and Tiagra it will be as ubiquitous and eventually universal as STI levers are now. I suspect most of the knocking is from a position of envy. If I could afford eTap I'd have it on every bike I own. It's a bit silly to knock a new technology unless you've actually tried it.

When it becomes cost comparable to mechanical groups, I doubt many people will choose not to have it. It's been at the 'superbike' end of the retail chain for about 5 years now, which is a nice long period of profit and development before the technology is rolled out across the board.

Like non index gearing, STI mechanical will simply fade away as more and more aspects of the bicycle are slowly improved via electrical power. Power assist braking and miniature pedal assist are already with us and I look forward to their rapid deployment. The future is batteries and wireless connectivity. Best get used to it!

Vivax 200 watt power assist:

http://cyclingtips.com/2015/04/hidden-m ... they-work/

Brucey wrote:

SpannerGeek wrote:My commute bike takes a lot of abuse. I generally have to do a complete cable change (inners and outers) at least once a year and a gear cable change at least twice a year. It's such a pita I generally have my LBS do it for me. So, including labour it probably costs me about £150 a year all told. That's a considerable amount,

yes it is. You might be better off running different equipment on your commute bike; I spend about 50p a year on cables for mine.... My fair weather bike has the same cables on it for five years at a time, no worries.

when you consider that once di2 or wireless shifting is properly set up the running costs are zero. I think wireless will win out from mechanical from ease of fitting, zero maintenance and reliability. The writing is on the wall for cables...

I think you are dreaming. Stick it on your commuter and see how you get on.

blackbike wrote: The professionals have adopted electronic shifting because it works better than the alternative and is better for road bikes.

Did you mean...?

blackbike wrote: The professionals have adopted electronic shifting because they are paid to ride it, it works most of the time provided your mechanic is on his game, and is better for some racing bikes.

FTFY...?

cheers

Probably less than 5% of users on this forum will do their own full servicing so cables , mechanical, will be a considerable yearly expense to factor in. At my LBS at least a third of his daily work load is fitting/adjusting new cables to bikes. He makes a pretty penny out of it two charging £35+ per job.

Much less than 5% of your Sportive riders would even contemplate doing anything more than oiling the trransmission (in fact I don't know a single rider of this type who would attempt ANY maintenance outside of lubricating or changing a tube), it's easy to see how they might quickly adopt electronic shifting.

Like I said, I've seen di2 go through a harsh German winter with snow and ice without even a flutter. A mechanical set up would need constant adjustments and attention top cables under the same environmental conditions. I've got 20 years experience of the same.

ukdodger wrote:Apart from possible advatages for serious racing they're just a novelty. How much effort does it take to change gear?

How much effort does it take to change and then set up a full set of STI cables? And then be regularly adjust6 them? About £150 worth a year if an lbs does it. And two buttons on a Di2 set up to do the same job effortlessly. When people actually USE di2 and see the functionality, ease of set up and zero maintenance it requires they'll be converted very quickly.

Doubly so if the cost of entry level electronic wireless shifting is not far away from that of a cabled mechanical set up. Which is definitely where 105 and tiagra are going in the next 12 months. Wireless Ultegra and Dura Ace are already on the cards.

I was just wondering the other day, the legal liability of a dog owner, when it is not on a leash or under control of its owner and causes harm or damage to a cyclist either by A. Attacking the cyclist, or B. Causing the cyclist to crash and injure themselves and/or a third party.

Is the dog owner completely liable in this case? Relevant law would be useful here, rather than anecdotal evidence. I've a friend who was chased and subsequently bitten by a dog on a cycle route recently and he would like to take a legal challenge to the owner, if at all possible.

The familiar painting of cyclists as 'nuisance ' on British roads is the main problem here. The cars are the nuisance, and the sooner they are segregated and separated from cyclists the better imo. Then they can only do damage cans cause injury to one another.

blackbike wrote:

SpannerGeek wrote:
I suppose it's like disk brakes. When they were introduced they were roundly poo pooed on road bikes, now they're ubiquitous.

No they aren't.

Hardly any road bikes I see have them, and no professional riders do. I saw hundreds of spectators' road bikes on Tuesday at the Tatton Park stage of the Tour of Britain and I could have counted the number with disc brakes on the fingers of one hand.

The professionals have adopted electronic shifting because it works better than the alternative and is better for road bikes.

Presumably they haven't adopted disc brakes because they are not better for road bikes.

The group ride I go out with on a Sunday half of the bikes are disc or CX set ups. It's a fashion trend, in case you hadn't noticed.

They pros didn't adopt disc brakes because up until very recently they were banned for competition on the road by the infernal international body of the UCI.

reohn2 wrote:Didn't they all get flu?

Yeah they got (s)wine bar fever. Killed them all over one lengthy binge

I regularly ride with a group who do NOT practice two abreast riding. They ride single with often large gaps between the riders when 20+ riders are out this often means a snake over 1km long, which I can assure you is an absolute nightmare for drivers to pass safely. The aggression that's met is quite unbelievable, till you experience it.

The same twenty riders, riding in twos in a bunch would take up no more space than a small bus. Infinitely easier to get past and does not hold the traffic up for 15 mins at a time. Sadly, this is a formation, a group skill that's been lost and is to the detriment of safety for a great many cyclists.

My commute bike takes a lot of abuse. I generally have to do a complete cable change (inners and outers) at least once a year and a gear cable change at least twice a year. It's such a pita I generally have my LBS do it for me. So, including labour it probably costs me about £150 a year all told. That's a considerable amount, when you consider that once di2 or wireless shifting is properly set up the running costs are zero. I think wireless will win out from mechanical from ease of fitting, zero maintenance and reliability. The writing is on the wall for cables...

Fitting a complete STI cable set to a bike is just about the most tedious, fiddly job there is to do and I absolutely hate it. Fitting cables on the new Ultegra and Dura Ace set ups requires the removal and refitting of various tiny screws and must be a chore to professional mechanics. God forbid you lose one of the tiny screws! They probably cost £20 for three from Shimano

Jogger, stopped in the middle of the path, headphones blaring, head bent, fixed, intent on answering text message on phone. I had to go up and poke him in the shoulder to get by.

I wonder if there's an offence of careless jogging...

It may be a bit of oxididation holding it stuck fast. I generally grease the nipple end before putting it in now. I had a hell of a job getting a cable out of an old set of oergos as the nipple had almost disintegrated into the lever. Some Plusgas and poking with a very sharp thing eventually loosened it but I remember it taking a good few days to free it completely.

I remember being at a bike jumble last summer and there was a stack of Barts half inch maps about 5 feet high. Must have been a few hundred all told. No one wanted them. At the end of the jumble the guy was giving them away so he didn't have to hump them back home. I love the cloth feel of the old maps and remember using one in the 80's which my dad had used before me and annotated a route from York via Robin Hood bay. I've still got it, and it's pretty much good as new!

mercalia wrote:

Annoying Twit wrote:Thanks for the info Brucey, I didn't know it had been done before.

Just checked and a replacement Di2 battery costs £70! That's a lot for a battery.

'nuff said clearly Apple wannabees

It's actually £37 for the popular external di2 battery. The batteries on the new SRAM eWire are cheaper still. So when you compare it to something like a Dura Ace cable set (mechanical) at £29.98 there's really nothing in it.

I think electronic gearing is inevitable. Shimano have been very shrewd to introduce and stick to a wired set up, as it leaves a huge upgrade path to wireless which I predict they'll introduce in the next version of Ultegra and Dura Ace.

Having tried a wireless SRAM set up last weekend I'm very much impressed. The shifts are perfect every time Even more impressive is that the batteries on the front and rear mech are interchangeable so if the rear goes down you just swap out the front to ride home.

Lithium ion batteries are good for about 500 recharge cycles so even if you charged them everyday they would last about two years before they might degrade. Given that these batteries have a charge life of some 1500 miles (probably 2-3 months for the average rider) then a battery set should last a lifetime. Not bad for a modern bit of kit.

Having upgraded an old bike with second hand Di2 (for about 300 quid all told) I can honestly say the shifting is faultless and very precise. No fumbling about searching for gears or endless adjustments and replacing cables / worn inners, rusted and stuck outers. It just works.

A colleague took a di2 bike through a very harsh German winter last year with a fair bit of snow and salt, it did not miss a beat.

I suppose it's like disk brakes. When they were introduced they were roundly poo pooed on road bikes, now they're ubiquitous. Once di2 hits 105/Tiagra territory then the writing is on the wall for cables. I'd buy wireless DRAM in a heartbeat if it were only a bit cheaper, which will doubtless happen when Shimano cynically roll out their own wireless kit next year.