Originally Posted by
WhyFi
Did you even read the part of your statement that I quoted? Gearing CAN NOT be considered to be "cheating" human power. Gearing does not create additional power (which is impossible), nor does it store it for later use. Gearing is a trade-off between speed and power, nothing more. To assert otherwise is silly, almost as silly as your assertion that coasting downhill with nice bearings and aero gear is somehow storing power for later use - no, that would be minimizing losses due to friction, not storing power.
But electric gearing does contribute to the movement *functionality* of the bike, which in an OCD way kind of bothers me since it is an external energy source. Don't get me wrong, I'd take Di2 in a heartbeat, but I'd be much less mentally anguished if the energy was siphoned from a human movement. It sort of takes the "I alone control this machine" to "... along with a microchip and a battery".