Campag4life

Have to say I was pretty astounded to hear and see all the Campy equipped electric shift bikes in the tour this year. Perhaps you guys caught the segment on this. I would think that at this high stakes level, the prospect of battery failures would prevent this experimental technology but not so...its obviously ready for prime time. Part of the rational is its pretty easy to make a 15 lb bike now...14 lbs + a 1 lb battery doesn't change things much. Without cables, indexing can be more precise with servo's...no cables, only wires offsetting part of DC motor and battery weight...ergolevers now are simple brake levers with microswitches with obvious ergonomic advantage...click, click...less effort, more precise and faster.
Quite sure its gonna come our way before long.
No stopping the march of technology...good, bad or indifferent.

ravenmore

If it works it works, and I'll be on board.

lvleph

The throw length will be a nice change, but I am not sure if I want to worry about a battery.

San Rensho 

I don't understand what the point is. With current STI, to upshift all you do is press a lever that barely moves, it clicks and a spring moves the chain and changes the gear. An infinitesmally small amount of energy necessary. To downshift, you push a lever over against a spring about 1/2 of one inch, the bike shifts.

STI is absolutely flawless. Hard on the power, high cadence, low cadence, I have never missed a shift using STI, maybe downshifted two gears instead of one on occasion.

On Versus yesterday, Andreu was going on and on about how revolutionalry these shifters are, how they are like paddle shifters in Formula 1 are to conventional shifters on cars. That is a complete overstatement. With electric or STI, its still one lever/botton to shift up, one lever/button to shift down, the only difference is one is powered with a spring, one is powered with an electric servo.

Will someone explain functionally how the electric system shifts better than STI.

paul_858

They were mentioning that the battery life is a few days. Shifting is key in racing since you're going from 150 down to <60mph for a turn coming out of a straight, so every millisecond counts, I can't imagine the same holds true in road bike racing.

merlinextraligh

The change over from STI, and Ergo to electric shifting will function very well in transferring money to Campagnolo and Shimano.

DocRay

Campy has been racing the electronico groupo since 2006, and all this season with lotto. They also ran and finished the Paris-Roubaix without any problems.

DocRay

this is why searching the forum works.

https://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=4772

from Big Bert Roesems:

Pez: What are the advantages over normal, cable-operated gears?

Bert: Perhaps the biggest one concerns the front mechanism; in the Northern Classics, when you crest a 'berg' it's vital to get back up the gears as quickly as possible because it's always fast over the top. With the electronic front mech, you can be down as low as 50 or 60 revs, hit the button and within half a rev you are on the big ring, there's no 'grating' or hesitation - it's instant. The rear change is very, very quick, it's not like manual gears, there is no delay whatsoever. If you have cold hands or you are nervous or under pressure, you don't have to worry about how hard to push the lever - just touch the button and you are in the gear you want. If you want to change even six gears then just tap the button six times and it's done - instant.

ravenmore

I think this the sort of thing a lot of people aren't going to "get" until they try it. When they do I think it will impress a lot of people.

Campag4life

I haven't ridden it of course but it pretty easy to speculate why it would be faster, more precise and ergonomically easier for the rider. Servo's index a precise amount based upon a digital current. Automobiles are replete with them. A noteable camparison is a car HVAC system...its all servos and microswitches now...no longer vacuum or cable...all what it used to be. Cables are less precise, more packaging dependent, add weight...offset by heavier battery and servos but shifts are right now with dead on the money chain to cog alignment with a mere push of lever that is much less effort and shorter throw. The only downside aside from system cost would be reliability and necessity to keep the battery charged which I would have to sync with my Ipod batt....lol.

Hammertoe

Definitely agree..

10 speed has reached the limit of 'thinness' so how to make current technology obsolete...

Electronic shifting...

I had to sell my standard car because my wife does not know and would not learn to drive it...

I miss the ability to manually shift...

Will it be the same with my bike...

Campag4life

Absolutely...the long lever push to put the FD up on the big ring is now just a click.

lvleph

My solution would have been to keep the car until she learned to drive it. I had one automatic and I will never get another.

ViperZ

Just a guess... In theory electric shifting should be faster and more precise, with less chance of over or under shifting.

In a mechanical system, you have to move a lever, which then pulls a cable, a predetermined amount, dependant on how far you move the lever. The ease and reliability of this is dependant on many things like cable friction, slack, stretch, speed and pressure on the lever....etc

In an electrical system, the button push will pull the solenoid, or actuator, at very high speed to the required location, rapidly and precisely, the only variance will be in the derailleur mechanism to drive, rather than the entire system as in a mechanical unit. Is this worth all that? Hard to say until we try it.


Professional photography seen the trend when batteries were first introduced to camera. Most everyone lamented that mechanical was the way to stay, and that batteries were evil. Today Mechanical cameras are seldom used in the industry, for electronics and batteries has brought forth a lot of innovations to Photography. Bicycles may not follow the same path, however I look forward to see where electronics takes us


I can understand a single gear shift electronically, however I would like to know how they manage 2 gears. 3 gears, or the entire range? 3 quick taps and you are there? That would be cool! Right now I find with my mechanical systems, 3 or 4 gears is a guess, I push the lever and some times I get 3, other times I get 4, depending on how far I push the lever, which I'm not always very precise with other than knowing I want to dump a bunch of gears.

chrisvu05

but the problem here lies in how fast can I tap the shifter 6 times!?! is it faster than the current one fell swoop of my hand with campy shifting?

Campag4life

Quite possible this is addressed in the architecture. The longer you hold the button down, the more cogs you traverse in either direction.

ViperZ

If I were designing the controls, I would make it shift the entire range if you hold it down for more than a quick tap.

shuffles

I would also think that, at least in future versions, you might not even have to worry about chain ring vs cassette position, cross chaining, etc. It should know what's the next combination up and down.

Campag4life

That's an excellent point. If you think about it...they could design a system with only one lever up and down. The mechanism would interpret the next increment of gear inches in either direction and shift either or both derailleurs accordingly. No need for individual derailleur levers.

San Rensho 

I don't buy this. Its stilll a chain derailluer system. Pushing over the chain with a servo or a spring or hand pressure (in the case of a downshift), you are still pushing the chain. The limiting factor is going to be the chain being able to move to the next cog on the FW.

As far as the example of cresting a hill, the explanation makes absolutely no sense. Who in their right mind is going to get on the big CR at a cadence of 50? So that now your cadence will be even lower, say 35? You crest a hill, you start building RPMs and when you are up near 100, you go to the big CR and it shifts perfectly. Anybody that knows what they are doing is not going to do what the moron in the article suggests.

The author says there is a delay with STI? He's wrong. Its absolutely instantaneous at a cadence of about 100+ Below that, the delay is caused by the delay in the chain wrapping around the next cog, which is a function of cadence and nothing else. Servo shifting cannot change the chain wrap lag and will not make low cadence shifting any faster than STI.

The author says you don't have to worry about how hard to push the lever like you do on STI shifters? What planet does he ride bicycles on? STI is indexed! You hit it, it clicks, you can't miss! You either have one gear up or nothing, you can't hit the upshift lever too hard and get more than one gear up.

Talewinds

It's interesting to see previous threads about Shimano's electronic shifting and the concensus was to ***** all over the idea. Not quite the same reaction to this thread.......

Ryanf

I don't want electric shift Campy crap.

San Rensho 

I for one, would never want a computer to decide, when I'm in the big/big combo out of the saddle and cranking hard at a cadence of 70 that all of a sudden, it is going to simultaneously shift from the big CR to the small, and at the same time move over 4 or 5 cogs in the back.

indygreg

I still wonder about the wireless aspect of this . . . bottom line is it is wireless and there has to be a way someone could mess with it. Clearly that does not matter for you and I, but in the TdF it could be. Hire someone to figure out the freq and security/pattern of the connection and send in shifts to other riders. It really would not be that hard I would think.

Blue Jays

Yup, agree 100% with ravenmore that folks are complaining before they've had a chance to give it a whirl. Perhaps because it's so conceptual for the vast majority of riders at this juncture. Technology is "on the march" so these changes will certainly be seen...and they'll be pushed from the Tour de France peloton right down to the person just out for a 35-miler on Thursday nights after work.