Haven’t seen nor tried Di2; I suspect I’m far removed from their target market. Discounting sponsored racers, the market for it is likely dominated by those with more comfortable incomes than myself. They probably fall into two camps for Di2. The first group rides and thinks, “Hot damn! Gotta have it!” The second group has the same reaction, but says, “Nah, I could get DA/Ultegra and a full-boat iPad instead (pcad ).” There’s an even larger group that I am a member of: we could swing it, but could never justify spending that much on a single bike, nor would we want to forgo other pleasures this expenditure would rule out.

But I also agree with pcad: Even if I just closed my eyes and wrote the check, I’d never be comfortable with it over the long run. I’m still scarred by the late ‘90s GM POS I still have that has stranded me multiple times because the ignition lock malfunctioned, because the digital dash malfunctioned, and I swelter at times because there’s no simple crank to override the non-working power windows. And none of it is worth fixing when I put less than 3K on it each year driving to work. Then, too, there’s the whole Li-Ion battery thing. Like the little girl in the story, when she’s good, she’s very, very go. When she’s bad, she’s awful

Having said all that, I vividly recall my test ride of my Roubaix 17 months ago. After 30 years of DT and grip-shift shifters, I thought, “Holy cow!”, and wrote the check as soon as I returned to the store. For that reason alone, it’ll be awhile before I try Di2.