With a goodly few hundred break-in miles on my new this past April BMC GF02, this week it was time to tweak and tune. Changed/upgraded the stock wheelset and tires, swapped out the 11/32 cassette for a more to me suitable 11/28, and reset the too slack rear der cable tension. In the process, I accidentally discovered the quick shift/double gear downshift function of the Ultegra 6800 rear der shift lever. Wow, great...and who knew?. Everyone other than me I'm sure.....

not only does it do a double, but if you push it all the way until it stops, it'll shift 3 COGS!!! I found this out on my new 5800 after a couple months riding, and it is surprisingly useful in hilly terrain or when coming to a stop from high speed and shifting down for a red light.

You are not alone, I've just hit 340 miles on my new bike (2 months old) and it took me about 250 miles before I discovered the same (2 cogs). As for hitting the third I will try this evening, I thought I'd been pushing the lever to its' full range but maybe not.

This double/triple shift option is very handy to a Mtb rider and probably useful to the roadies too.

I can shift across any desired number of cogs with either friction or old-fashioned linear-action indexed shift (downtube levers or barcons on the road bikes, thumbies on the mountain bike). I am glad the brifter crowd is gradually catching up.

+1

Yeah, and that's a thing I missed after finally moving to brifters early last year. I've gratefully found the function quite useful. Guess mebbe I can still scrap the notion of "needing" Di2 fer a couple/few years yet.

Old guy installing higher gears. Ha ha hah .... oh, wait.

PS: DI2 is great. Especially with my 11-32.

Hah...I view it more as fewer low gears.

The 11-32 mid-range spacing was getting a bit annoying. Also have a 12-25 coming in I intend to use fer my u&c daily ride with this bike. Old really showing on me now guy don't really need an 11 for every day. The closer to usable enbloc spacing I can get the happier I am.

Campy did it with Ergo from the beginning, took the competition a long time.

I tripped over the double shift by accident a couple of years ago on my old claris group. After I read this thread, I tried the 3 ring trick on my 5800's. I like it.

These are pretty handy features for the 6800, when doing the upgrade from the stock components I read about these procedures in the installation instructions. After reading about them, I went to the Shimano website's Ultegra 6800 section, to get the downloads for specific groupsets, and got the detailed instructions.

Related to the rear shifting hacks, I am amazed at the number of folks that have the 6800, or Dura Ace 9000 and don't know about the trims for the front mech, must be annoying to ride around listening to the chain rub against the cage of the front mech when they are close to a cross chain situation.

The entire 6800/9000 mechanical groupsets line are pretty amazing in their smooth action, and the quality of their engineering and construction. But, like JohnE said, my Campag NR stuff can shift across the entire rear block with one move of the lever. All 5 of them.....

Bill

+1 The competition still doesn't have the reach Campy has in that regard.

Well, damn. Tried that this morning and....there it was!

I've been posting on another thread about this, but here's the jist of it: the 11-28 and 12-25 have the 17 in the same spot, dead center of the cluster in the 6th position. you can handily put together a 12-28 that gives you great range, great spacing, uses every cog, and shifts beautifully. just use the small cogs up to the 17 from the 12-25, and the large cogs from the 19-28 from the 11-28. AND it lets you have that legendary 16t everyone is so worked up about haha. try it, it's great!

5800 has front DR trim also! it's super handy.

Thank you for this! I'm going to work with the 12-25 for a bit when I get it in the next day or so and if I miss the 28 too much, I'll definitely try it. As I said, I don't daily come even close to needing the 11 and if it had been an option, a 12-28 such as this would have been my choice in the first place.

I don't use the 50/28 or the 50/25 if it can be avoided, but the nice part about the 28 is that it gives you a MUCH better chain line on the 21, which I use almost all the time as a cruising/starting gear. and when you need to get in the small ring, it gives you a 34/28, which will let me climb anything I'd care to climb lol.

Sounds like all you guys are ready for an automatic transmission:
Evolve The Bike - Automatic Shifting Bicycles - Autobike

A follow-up again thanks for this. After some miles on the 12-25 i decided to try this....and 50 miles in now it's been working well/great for me! Also, with credit, posted your tip in a gearing discussion in the 41 and it was well received.

Awesome! Glad you like it! I never use the 11 (even pros skip it) and when I got the 12-25 I didn't know much about running a nice chain line, so I just went with it. I liked the spacing but I was shifting A LOT. I found out over the course of the season and a chain change that I wanted both a better chainline on my regularly used gears, AND a smaller bailout gear (as I got stronger I started climbing more). I am also a SUPER cheapskate, and I simply wouldn't pay for the DA 12-28. I went to the parts box to look at my 11-28 that had been sitting, and realized the cogs were all loose (I guess it never occurred to me when I took it off last year because I wasn't looking for it).

It was a no brainer and all of 5 minutes to mash the two together and get a killer cassette that gives me literally everything I'm looking for. You could buy BOTH the 11-28 and the 12-25 in 5800 11spd, and give you all 3 setups for less money than a DA. I wish they would just spec this stock. Thanks for the props!

That was the gist of the discussion in the other thread. I used Ultegra cassettes just 'cause this bike was full Ultegra to begin with and I kept it that way when I replaced the came with it stock 11-32. The pair was still notably than DA.