Originally Posted by
UmneyDurak
Oh look strawman argument.
Shifting doesn't have to be 100% reliable, it has to be good enough that for majority of the time it works. No different then mechanical shifter failing once in a blue moon, or you go out and forget to charge your battery with newer ones. Actually that's where SRAM has an advantage. You can swap the batterries and still finish the ride.
Agree. Worth it to note that in the thousands of miles of riding I have done on eTap (or Di2 for that matter), I have never had a missed or incomplete shift. The same is not true of the same many thousands of miles I’ve ridden on mechanical. The most unreliable component in shifting is the rider, and electronic shifting largely removes that variable from the actual act of accomplishing the shift.
At first I did not think having multiple batteries was an advantage and I worried about the connection. Then when I actually had a system and saw the robustness of the battery/derailleur connection and the small size and quality build of the battery, I understood the advantage. Then when I compare the size of my Di2 battery to the two eTap batteries, I also like the smaller size. In a Di2 system, the battery is a single point of failure unlike in eTap. That said, in both cases, they are quite reliable.
Just looking at the this
post on the bikes that are being ridden by 2019 World Tour teams, I believe pretty much all of them are riding bikes with electronic shifting. That wouldn’t happen if they weren’t reliable. All three suppliers are represented - Shimano (most prevalent), Campy and SRAM.
J