Hydro braking and shifting
 

No more cable drag Details of Rotor's new Uno hydraulic road groupset | Cyclingnews.com

Gentlemen , start your wallets .. :rolleyes:

http://roadbikeaction.com/uncategori...ting-uno-group

Now where did I put the "trashcan of history"? This will be one of the biggest failures to ever be introduced to the road cycling market. Absolutely ridiculous. I hope Rotor has an understanding banker.

Just wondering whether heat/cold will affect the gear tuning more than with cables. Calculation is beyond my meager engineering skills.

Come on Robert! I would've figured you'd be an early adopter! Take one for the team! ;)

I tend to agree. Hydraulic brakes I can understand, but I see no advantage of hydraulic shifters. Just unnecessary added complexity and weight.

Wireless electronic is the only way to go...as soon as it is available.

I think you're likely correct. However, if road bikes go to hydraulic disc brakes in a big way, and it actually shifts well, there may be enough of a niche market to support it.

Rotor claims it will be the lightest hydraulic disc brake equipped group on the market. And there are a certain percentage of people that do want electronic as a matter of principal.

So if you want hydraulic discs, categorically rule out electronic, this could be a good option. It may well appeal to people coming from MTB's already comfortable with hydraulic braking.

All that I'd bet its not around 5 years from now.

That was my thought as well. If someone wants hydraulic discs, then it would be reasonable to go full hydraulics.

One freaking cable weighs like 10 grams, I mean, COME ON MAN :lol:

It may be premature to consider this factor, but it is coming. Automatic shifting. Only electronic will fully enable it. A new mechnical system just isn't forward looking.

US bike biz being dominated by Asian based contract factories , the Premium European stuff is uncommon..



Magura had been making their hydraulic rim brakes a decade + in Germany, before I Bought a bike that came with them ..
hardly an early adopter.. :innocent:


Rotor's stuff is not cheap . their Q rings have race users

I wear out rear shift cables in 2500 miles (got worse when Campagnolo moved the 90 degree bend from the cable housing to inside the shifter) and housing 4000 (got much worse with lined housing), which means service every 10 weeks.

Hydraulic would avoid problems like that, although it's late to the party with electronic shifting allowing an arbitrary number of optimally located shift controls, automatic front derailleur trimming, and potentially useful software options like hitting buttons on both shifters to arrive at the next gear on a ring change.

Running out of battery power would be bad, but with a decent gauge and known life it's not a problem for cellular users (at least those of us not using GPS aps which can drain a battery in hours).

With four small batteries to deal with not one big one.

Once industry knows they got a group of suckers, they'll market ice to an eskimo.

Hydraulics make sense for brakes because of its power multiplicative effect, something not applicable to shifting.

Another answer to a question nobody asked... :rolleyes:

But it's not a problem. The two derailleur batteries aren't "dealt" with. They are just recharged like on DI2. I imagine there will be a charging manifold that will plug into both battery ports at the same time. So that's a wash. And the lever batteries will last for a very long time. Much less activity than on an old time bike computer, and they last for years. It just isn't a big deal.

Maybe you could hook up an old Schwinn headlight generator and forget the batteries... ;)

I agree that electronic shifting is the future, and we're just scraping the surface of the potential for fully integrated electronic groupsets.

However, there is some percentage of people who will never buy electronic shifting based upon the aesthetic that a bicycle should not require any power other than the rider to operate.

Rotor must be betting that percentage is high enough to give them a market niche.

I agree! When integrated with the powermeter and speedometer, I believe that there is enough information for an algorithm to predict the cyclist's next shift. Which is the same thing as deciding when to shift.

In fact, I see it as a logical progression from having ever-more gears in back. At some point, with smaller gaps between shifts, it becomes functionally the same as a variable speed transmission but without the efficiency loss. You won't really feel a discreet difference between adjacent gears, and hence won't care precisely which gear you're in, and it's a small step from there to the computer-controlled gear selection.

Or based upon not wanting a drivetrain powered by small batteries.

Like cameras?

If I had disk brakes (which I don't foresee) I think I'd prefer hydraulic brakes, but for shifting, I don't see the point. I do like the idea of the eTap -- and not just because I already use SRAM. In spite of the multiple batteries, eliminating the wiring just seems a lot simpler and easier to install. The shift method would take about one ride to get used to -- no more than the SRAM double tap did.

I'm sure they did their homework/market research -- then again, they may be laying the groundwork for something totally new in shifting -- although I couldn't imagine what it might be.

Why do so many folks assume market research is done? Giving credit where it is not always due.

If so, I think they've miscalculated. I think a lot of the "bike shouldn't require anything not human powered" complaints are just rationalizations for "new stuff scares me because I don't already understand it".