Electric gear shifting?

[Brucey]

I don't think that shimano and campagnolo normally launch products that don't work at all, it is just that both of them have had a pretty good track record of launching products that were basically pointless, or where the 'benefits' are in the long term outweighed by the disadvantages in all but a tiny subset of applications.

With Di2 it is perhaps 'worth it' if it -in some combination or other- makes you faster, less fatigued, is more reliable/more easily fixed or is less expensive to buy and/or run.

It is definitely not several of those things....and the others have yet to be proven or are essentially irrelevant for the vast majority of cyclists. Once the novelty has worn off I would expect it just to be come tiresome for such limited gain, just another little electronic parasite in your life that you could very easily live without.

cheers

[Dave W]

We'll see

[robc02]

Quote from Chris Boardman referring to electric gear shifting:

“It’s worth noting though that no electronic system today passes the performance test. Does this piece of equipment actually make me any faster?"

The full article here:

http://pelotonmagazine.com/pages/from-inside-peloton-mavic-zap/

[Dave W]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/ ... ltegra-di2
quite honest I thought.

[Brucey]

re Boardman; he also said

Having said that, it wasn’t a hindrance, so I was happy to use it.

by which he presumably means

Having said that, it wasn’t a hindrance, so I was happy to be paid to use it.”

In saying it was not a hinderance, I think he was being a little generous; Mektronic was less reliable than ZAP and even with ZAP he almost failed to make the start of the Olympic TT event on his main bike; he ended up running with a shift wire clumsily lashed to the outside of his aero TT bike because the built-in one failed an hour before the event. He also says that 'when the system failed, it failed totally' which I would describe as being a very rare occurrence for a normal mechanical system.

cheers

[horizon]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/gears-drivetrain/ultegra-di2
quite honest I thought.

What did they mean by

When the important move goes, the wary shifter may get cramp and loose out, despite having the fitness or ability – all because they’re as hesitant as an older rider would have been with down-tube shifters.

Read more at http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/ ... uRzPuT6.99

What is "loose out"?

[Dave W]

I have no idea I suggest you ask them

[Samuel D]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/gears-drivetrain/ultegra-di2
quite honest I thought.

Surely you jest? It’s typical magazine fluff. Advertisement masquerading as content in order to sell more ads.

It asks none of the relevant questions and certainly doesn’t answer them. It reveals the writers to be technically inept. They even say, “we can’t see any reason why you would choose a mechanical option”, showing them to be bereft of imagination as well as clueless.

[Dave W]

Probably because they consider the shifting to be superior to your normal cable type shifting.

I found it to be excellent much the same as the article and everyone else who's tried Di2. Try it and then post how bad it is.
It's very expensive - which is why I probably won't be having it and why obviously your utility bikes won't be fitted with it. All I said is it's very good whilst everyone who's never tried it likes to pick it to pieces and rubbish it. About normal for this forum.

[Brucey]

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/reviews/gears-drivetrain/ultegra-di2
quite honest I thought.

sure in a kind of myopic way.... but the chickens take more than a few months to come home to roost with systems like this. For example it turned out that the water did get into Ultegra 10s Di2 front mechs and there is a link inside the mech that broke quite often. 'The fix' is a new front mech and that costs....

£200 RRP please.... (less if you shop around)

And that is if you can find one; Nothing else (not 11s Ultegra even I think) will work with the revised 10s firmware and there appear to be virtually no 10s front mechs left in the shops.

So that leaves you with the choice of binning it or upgrading to 11s (new mechs, chain , cogs, STIs should be OK, so 'only' about £500 RRP then... )... and so it goes....

So I can't help but think that this kind of technology reduces the bicycle and its parts to the same level as any other essentially 'disposable' consumer electronics product. All fated to be landfill well before its time, rendered obsolete by opaque functionality and lack of spare parts, quite deliberately in both cases.

If this came with some fantastic advantages maybe it would be worth it. But for most of us it simply doesn't, and the only people who derive appreciable benefit are likely to be the manufacturers, laughing all the way to the bank, burdened down with all the cash they have extracted from gullible punters who didn't know any better....

cheers

[Brucey]

It asks none of the relevant questions and certainly doesn’t answer them. It reveals the writers to be technically inept. They even say, “we can’t see any reason why you would choose a mechanical option”, showing them to be bereft of imagination as well as clueless.

I'm surprised they knew what a 'break lever' was for, given that they couldn't spell it....

cheers

[Dave W]

Nobody has to buy it. It could disappear overnight but I doubt it, it's an option that's available for anyone who wants it. We could after all be scuttling around with rod brakes and leather pads fitted to our bikes but very few do.

[Brucey]

Nobody has to buy it. It could disappear overnight but I doubt it, it's an option that's available for anyone who wants it. We could after all be scuttling around with rod brakes and leather pads fitted to our bikes but very few do.

That is because there are alternatives that are significantly better for the majority of users. I do not think that this has been demonstrated in the case of Di2.

'Change' and 'Progress' are not the same thing at all. And even if change does constitute progress in some instances, it does not automatically confer such status on all.

I would love to know what real benefit it might (say) confer upon you on a weekend bimble in the lanes, for example?

cheers

[horizon]

Nobody has to buy it. It could disappear overnight but I doubt, it it's an option that's available for anyone who wants it. We could after all be scuttling around with rod brakes and leather pads fitted to our bikes but very few do.

No we couldn't. In fact, not buying electric shifting means we would be using stone wheels with wooden cranks. All human beings at every period of history have always embraced the latest technology no matter how spurious or useless. And that's because every invention and every technological advance is of use to us and is better than what went before. Because that is in the nature of things. And those who enthusiastically embrace every change have never been wrong, starting with:

The safety bicycle
Derailleur gears
Aheadsets
LED lights
Bowden cables
Pneumatic tyres
Disc brakes
Carbon frames

And those who are sceptical about change and question its utility are wrong.

[De Sisti]

Brucey/Horizon, just agree to disagree.