aliasfox

I''m not trying to convince anybody of anything - rather, I tried an earlier generation, didn't like it, and find no fault with my mechanical stuff. In fact, a friend of mine has a Fairlight with R8100 that somehow crunches when it shifts between the two largest cogs, and has relatively poor front shifting, as well, so it's not like Di2 is completely immune to some hack throwing the bike together without understanding how to tune it.

Personally, I understand there are advantages to Di2, but those are advantages that I've mitigated in my years' of experience. It's rare that my R8000 bike ever misses a shift, and I almost unconsciously blip the rear derailleur when I go from big ring to little ring (to minimize gaps between gears). Other than that, on either system I have to press a button to upshift and press a button to downshift, and I prefer the mechanical buttons to Shimano's electronic ones. FWIW, I'm also one of the people who absolutely hated Apple's butterfly keyboard, even before the reliability issues became apparent.

As for shifter cabling, I've changed the R8000 rear derailleur cable once (around 3500mi), and I've honestly never changed the shifter cables on the Ultegra 6500 bike (probably ~10k mi). I also never plan to ride in the rain, so that might be a big factor.

I think it makes sense for the OP (or anybody, for that matter) to try before buying - and that really goes for any big interface change, not just Di2. I'd love to give a Campagnolo equipped bike a try for the same reason - would rather spend a day and $100 on a rental than spend much more than that and come to regret it.

Oddly enough, I've owned a VW DSG, and would happily own a Porsche PDK. I've never gotten the romanticism of a clutch, least of all in-town or in traffic. Getting the option to pick the gear I want when I want to play, and the option to forget about it when I don't - works for me.