It's supposed to be more accurate and hopefully smoother right? But isn't our mechanical technology a match for it? I'm just confused as usual why we're going to battery powered systems without backups/generators etc... over tried and always advancing mechanical technology? Is there a weight benefit that I'm not seeing, what the heck is the deal?

1. multiple shifting positions are possible. Prime example: a time-trial bike can have shifters at both the aero-bar tips, and the bullhorns. And a road-racing bike can have sprint shifters accessible from the drops in addition to the ones in the brake levers. Try upshifting a TT bike in a stiff uphill prologue (e.g. Tour de California) with a mechanical system, and this feature immediately becomes priceless.

2. no cable stretch or degredation to slowly decrease shifting performance. Once it's set up, it knows where it's supposed to put your chain and that's where it puts it.

3. adaptable to people with limited hand strength/dexterity or other physical handicaps. Example:


Automatic shifting is also a possibility for the comfort-oriented market. It's been done a couple times already as an add-on to IGH bikes.

the front shifting is unbeatable

Some people has no idea how to trim shifters and not even know if the bike is shifting right, electronic shifting is the cure for them. Handicap people will have a priceless ally in electronic shifting. The rest of us that are old enough to have used down tube shifters before the indexing mon - go- li - cal era, probably electronic is nice but like too much. For the record never skipped a single shift using friction, but knew people that never got the feel of how much to move the shifter using friction, then for those guys indexing was a miracle, always looked at them as "wtf?? how hard is to move the lever and figure it out?".

The other thing is that with electronic sure u will be able to integrate other stuff, computers, gps etc.

Would love to have electronic just because of bling bling, but I dont even need 10 speed, form the 10 cluster i dont use more than 5 cogs, if i use them.

I like your thinking, I definitely love being in harmony with my drivetrain enough to shift smoothly on the barcons...

Your team sponsors want you to win riding their bikes, and wearing their colors.

very efficient in separating un pro amateurs from their money, also.

I read about an Australian made rotary mech,
[relatively easiest thing with a servo motor,
on a hub with equal spaces between shifts. which are also rotary]
to use Rohloff hubs on recumbents
to not have several meter long cables..

So it has some practical uses then, in the case of the big tandems, people with disabilities, and the .00005% advantage for racers.. but for me and most people responding here, just over costly bling bling?

Yeah, it's horribly expensive, but wow is it nice. I rode a Madone at our local Trek demo with the Ultegra electric group and boy was it amazing.

And people who ride in nasty weather that fills their cable housings with crud ad infinitum. Realistically, I doubt the technology will make it down below the Tiagra level in the next 5 years, but then again no one will ever need more than 640k of RAM in their computer either

I've got single speeds for nasty weather, but that makes sense.

From what I hear, electronic shifting is to cycling what Tivo is to television watching. One of those things that once people try it, they can't go back and can't imagine ever having lived without.

The main thing I hear is that once you get set up with electronic shifting, you realize how often you used to put up with a non-ideal gear. Mechanical shifting may have been fairly easy, but once you go electronic you start shifting alot more because of how much more effortless it is.

That's just what I heard. DA-7800+ is still fine with me.

So if your battery dies, does the derailer lock in place in the last gear you set it to or what?

Campagnolo i believe does that, shimano no idea.

Because we can ?

On Shimano, when the battery's getting low, it shuts down the front derailleur and you can still use the rear for several hundred more shifts. It's easy to check battery status at any time, just hold either shift botton down >1sec. on the right-hand shifter and look at the LED indicator on the junction:

Solid green indicates >75% charge remaining. For those who may be wondering, typically a charge will get you ~800-1000 miles of riding, not a hangup for most of us

I was bike mechanic at the 25 mile point rest stop of a century over two years ago. Somebody came in asking for a particular type of battery. He got the brand new Shimano electric shifter and the battery went dead. I certainly did not have any batteries. I don't know, if he ever finished the ride. He had just finished one major climb and was headed into another 30 miles of hills. He was stuck in the last gear he used.

I believe the main purpose for introducing this was to see whether gullible non-professional riders would bite. Unfortunately, they have.

Campagnolo allows manual RD placement in the event of a dead battery or damaged wire.


With the battery life of both systems I wouldn't worry about discharge.

For most of us, it's a solution looking for a problem and just an additional complication.

Selling point for Shimano Index System in the mid-eighties was that with SIS you could make the shift to help you win the race, even if you were wiped out/exhausted/not at the top of your form. I see some similarities here.
The prices are pretty astounding at this point, of course.

Sounds like a great excuse for losing a race. "I was too exhausted to make the shift but not so exhausted that I would have lost the race had I made that shift."

I was a randonneur during my hard riding days. I heard similarly lame equipment related excuses for why riders decided to quit.

The basic function of electronic shifting is to enrich the manufacturers. It was developed by the manufacturers with the belief that they will be able to make more profit than if they hadn't developed it. The expectation is that there will be enough real or perceived benefit and cachet for it to sell in sufficient quantity for this to happen. So far, so good.

As an avid commuter with somewhat sensitive knees, I'm quite looking forward to more shifting positions. What'd make me even happier would be a bit of a brain added to the system, and to have front and rear shifters replaced with one "up" and one "down" button. Sequential shifting, w/o concentrating, sweet!
An easy command (maybe a long push) to get the bike to return to a specific starting gear would also be handy in the cross-town traffic.
(and yeah, I've seen some small company that's made such an add-on)

But at the moment, it's still too pricey.

What I'm wondering about is why they haven't looked harder at some way of replenishing the energy while riding.
Sure, if you've remembered to charge properly it's not a problem. But I bet there will be a fair amount of frustration anyhow. A surprise invite to join a ride, someone unplugging your charger, or outright you, forgetting to plug it in. Piezo crystals in the seat post, magnetized sections of chain running through a coil doubling as FD, reelight-style pickups...

What I don't think has been mentioned on this thread yet is that the electronic shifters auto-trim the front to align with the rear FOR EVERY GEAR. That's not possible on an indexed mechanical system: my DA double has three or four indexes, my Tiagra triple I think has five indexes, and our Campy Chorus/Mirage quad has maybe twelve. The electronic ones have 20.

I've told our tandem dealer to order us an electronic group as soon as it's available in a triple. (I'll go from quad to triple to get electronic shifting, but I'm not willing to go from quad to double.)

Another example of technology advancing because it can with no regard for whether it should. too many engineers with not enough to do otherwise.
If that sounds like retro grouchiness, I guess it's because it is. One of the real attractions for me to bicycle mechanics is that it seems to be the last bastion of low tech.

Any new technology is expensive and the early adopters pay a big premium for their exclusivity. Any one else remember the first CD players selling for over $1000 and the first flat screen TV's at $10,000? This is the same thing. The prices will come down as the volume increases and the technology makes its way down the food chain.

As to the battery dying in the middle of a ride, it's possible but it's going to be as rare as a broken shift cable which has the same effect. In the future the "special batteries" will be commonly available so SBinNY's experience experience a couple of years ago when DI2 was very rare won't be an issue much more than a broken cable is now.

Is electronic shifting necessary? Of course not. Is an automatic transmission in your car necessary? Equally no but most drivers willingly pay a significant premium in initial cost, gas mileage and potential repair costs to have one. BTW, my car has a manual transmission.