Electronic Shifting

[Annoying Twit]

Will electronic shifting ever filter down to mid/low priced consumer bikes? Or will it forever be something found only on the high end?

(Yes, I know that no-one will know for sure.)

[meic]

A second question could be, if it does filter down will the quality leave it any better than the cable types?
The cheap Shimano cable shifters are not far from their over priced stable mates except for a little weight, bling and of course price. Would that be the case with electronics?

[pwa]

I expect there will be cheaper versions eventually. So long as good quality cable operated stuff is allowed to continue alongside the electronic stuff I don't mind. The day I have to plug my bike into a USB is the day my bike goes to the tip and I start walking more.

[tatanab]

If it does filter to the very low end of the market, the average user will not bother to replace batteries and so be restricted to riding in small front/small rear. Pretty much as they do now.

[Annoying Twit]

A second question could be, if it does filter down will the quality leave it any better than the cable types?
The cheap Shimano cable shifters are not far from their over priced stable mates except for a little weight, bling and of course price. Would that be the case with electronics?

Interesting point. I've got a cheap (£8) Shimano Tourney derailleur on my geared bike, and it seems to work fine. Cheap electronic shifters? Could be problematic.

An interesting comparison would be full suspension on 'supermarket' bikes. Suspension will add a significant amount of price to a bike, but can still be found on cheap bikes. I've seen it questioned whether people buying those bikes would be, overall, much better off with a bike of a similar price without suspension at all. Or at least not front AND rear suspension. Having seen the bike preferences for an unknowledgeable teenager, suspension was 'wanted' for no justified reason. (Compromise was a suspension seatpost.)

I expect there will be cheaper versions eventually. So long as good quality cable operated stuff is allowed to continue alongside the electronic stuff I don't mind. The day I have to plug my bike into a USB is the day my bike goes to the tip and I start walking more.

I can't imagine it reaching the point where ONLY electronic shifting is available. I could be wrong. Wouldn't you go for a single speed rather than stopping cycling altogether if all shifting became electronic?

If it does filter to the very low end of the market, the average user will not bother to replace batteries and so be restricted to riding in small front/small rear. Pretty much as they do now.

I can imagine that They'd probably still be showing off concerning their electronic shifting, however.

[mercalia]

what next power steering, for the weak of hand ? and electronic brakes? maybe do away with the chain and put a motor in the back wheel and a generator at the BB? become completely disconected from the ride?


if there were cheap electronic gear change you can bet the batteries would be built in lithium so just as with mobiles when the battery is done you have to buy a new changer - just like Shimano etc would want, a never ending purchase from them. When that day starts to come I'll either be long dead or start to stock up on old parts probably at give away prices as they will just be junk in most peoples eyes

And then your bike would need to be serviced by some one with an appropriate computer/software ( like garages have these days ) to test all the electronics, no more home servicing, the bike shops will love this a constant supply of work

[meic]

It could be that electric changers are just a better solution for the act of gear changing than a complicated system of precise cables and levers.
The change may sweep through like quartz time keepers replacing mechanical watch mechanisms.

[mercalia]

It could be that electric changers are just a better solution for the act of gear changing than a complicated system of precise cables and levers.
The change may sweep through like quartz time keepers replacing mechanical watch mechanisms.

presumably they still need to be set up? or do you just bolt it on and click away? The reason why quartz replaced mechanical watches is cheapness? the really cheap ones dont have any moving parts are purely electronic, just need the chip and a display, knock them out by the billion using robots. my £2.50 cycle speedo has such a clock. How many watches actually exploit the fact they are more accurate, many have just marks for the hours on them ( )


One question. is this electronics only for the rear but also the front?

[mig]

yes i think that it will but to the detriment of a bicycle intended for regular use. especially so if the batteries used at the time are specific to the unit.

[Brucey]

Will electronic shifting ever filter down to mid/low priced consumer bikes? Or will it forever be something found only on the high end?

(Yes, I know that no-one will know for sure.)

well.... shimano have tried it before.....

Those with long memories may recall that fifteen or twenty years ago, shimano decided that what would really improve their Nexus 4 hub would be an electronic shift control for it, with an automatic option, known as 'Auto-D'. I assume it worked when new, but it (more or less) disappeared without trace after a fairly short period of time.

Here in the UK there were only ever a few models of bike with (mechanically operated) N4 hubs fitted to them, and Madison never imported the Nexus 4 hub in any form. Thus we were mostly spared this sort of nonsense.

I have only ever seen one of these systems in the flesh; needless to say it didn't work any more and you can't (easily, possibly at all) buy spares for it. Instant landfill.

The only saving grace for anyone lumbered with this crap was that the hub itself was the same as the manually shifted version, so a standard cable, cassette joint and shifter could be used to convert the bike to a more sensible specification. Sadly this lesson is one that shimano chose to ignore when implementing Alfine 11 Di2....

You can see the Auto-D 'electronic cassette joint' here
http://si.shimano.com/php/download.php?file=pdf/ev/EV-SG-4C35-AUTO-D-2191.pdf
and some photos of the complete system here;
http://www.commuterbicycles.com/hub.htm

If you look at the whole sorry business you might well conclude that the only people who ever stood to gain anything significant from this system would perhaps have been shimano, by selling a product for which they might have been able to charge more for (even though it didn't cost that much more to make) and that would quickly break/go obsolete, thus fuelling the ever-tightening spiral of pointless consumption of 'consumer durables' (ha!).

I don't think that electronic derailleur shifting is all that different. I think there is about zero chance of any LBS mechanic spending more than five minutes fiddling with a malfunctioning cheap version before consigning it to the bin and replacing it with something more sensible. Already shimano no longer support early Di2 versions (which is surely illegal under EU law...?), and it is only going to get worse.

cheers

[Annoying Twit]

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.

[mercalia]

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

[roubaixtuesday]

I had my first experience of both hub gears and electronic shifting on a hired MTB at Llandegla forest a few weeks ago.

I wan't impressed, but I'm not sure to what extent the issues were the hub vs the e-shifting (I've never ridden a hub geared bike before).

Shifting seemed haphazard at best and often wouldn't engage the lowest gears at all.

After mentioning this to the mechanic afterwards, he said that the electronics can be set up in any configuration (eg could choose a three gear setup with 1,5, 11 rather than running through the whole set, for instance) and sometimes the electronics randomly choose to do this and need resetting. He also said the hub gear won't change under load (it was 11 speed), which IMHO is pretty hopeless for any bike, but fatal for singletrack MTBing.

I came away with the view that derailleurs are far superior, at least for MTB, and cables are better than electronics; you can see what is meant to be happening.

Anyway, the upshot was that they very kindly gave me a voucher for 1/2 day hire (£25 worth) in recompense for my woes, which I'm happy to offer to anyone here who wants it, send me a PM.

[andrewk]

Electronic shifting seems to have been well recieved by the pro pelethon. So it works and works better than cable pull actuated shifting and requires less fiddling with...no real surprises here.
But I am sceptical of the technology's transfer to the inexpensive mass market for a number of reasons.
Pros focus on performance, durability and longevity being unimportant as they will quickly upgrade to the new model. Not so the public who buy a bike and expect to ride it for many years.
Taking the example of hifi and video equipment, newly introduced technology enters at the top of the market at a premium price but quickly filters down at a far lower price, whilst functionality is preserved my experience is that quality isn't...units being built to a price using cheap components which fail rendering the unit useless.
Great for manufacturers and retailers, not so for me when my video recorder fails and has to be junked together with its library of recordings.
I expect electronic shifting to follow a similar pattern.
A second issue being consumables, £3 for a gear cable, £50? for a proprietary battery. Again good for retailers not so good for consumers.
Thirdly the issue of maintence. A bit of DIY or LBS fiddling with a screwdriver and spanner and job done. Will anyone bother to disassemble and fault trace electronic shifting? I can't even get failed video recorders fixed economically!
So in conclusion, electronic shifting works and works well, it will most probably filter down to the mass market but its not for me.

[hondated]

Don't know whether it ever will be cheaper but Lawrence who owns the Tristore Eastbourne went out to an event in South Africa where he had the opportunity to ride both mechanical and electronic geared bikes and his view was that a good quality mechanical geared bike was preferable to an electronic one. Admittedly only one persons opinion but worth considering if anyone was considering going into debt to buy and electronic geared bike.
There as also been a few professionals who races have been affected by changing problems on electronic gears if you look on YouTube.