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Road Cycling “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.” -- Ernest Hemingway

Thinking about eTap? Think again

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Old 11-08-18, 03:05 PM
  #76  
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Originally Posted by popeye
I will gladly take the wires over two extra batteries or is it four?
It's two small batteries; one for front and one for rear derailleur. I always carry a spare with my repair kit as they are small. If it was a reliable system then I think it would be the absolute best out there. I like the shifting pattern and I really like no wires. When it works, which is most of the time (not good enough, mind you), the shifting is flawless. I travel a lot with my bike and it's so nice to remove the rear derailleur (and quick link chain) and package them up separately. No wires or cables to have to deal with. Unfortunately, reliability is a problem.
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Old 11-08-18, 03:20 PM
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Electronic Shifting

Hello, I'm new to all this electronic stuff so bear with me. I'm planning on getting a Campy Chorus V2 EPS gruppo. As yet I've not purchased since the set although new is being sold privately and the BB has English threads where I'll need Italian for a Gios Compact Pro set-up. I'm curious if anyone has experience with this set-up (I believe that the Record/Super is essentially the same with some titanium/lighter weight components being used. Any input would be appreciated; I've never ridden any electronic systems before (very few "brifter" rides either), and I tend to be very old school (friction shift on the downtube and lugged steel) so let me have it! Thanks, Neal
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Old 11-08-18, 05:44 PM
  #78  
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Originally Posted by BNB
It's two small batteries; one for front and one for rear derailleur. I always carry a spare with my repair kit as they are small. If it was a reliable system then I think it would be the absolute best out there. I like the shifting pattern and I really like no wires. When it works, which is most of the time (not good enough, mind you), the shifting is flawless. I travel a lot with my bike and it's so nice to remove the rear derailleur (and quick link chain) and package them up separately. No wires or cables to have to deal with. Unfortunately, reliability is a problem.
They will get it fixed if you are patient. The DI2 cables do pop right off with the tool.
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Old 11-09-18, 07:16 AM
  #79  
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Originally Posted by BNB
Unfortunately, reliability is a problem.
English really needs two different versions of "to be" like the latin languages. Estar vs ser. La confianza ESTA un problema AHORA. Or did we lose this nuance because it served no purpose for English speakers as we are so fragile that any transient problem ruins our whole life?

Honestly, you like the benefits of etap over di2. (There are some benefits to each and a preference for one or the other is personal... there really aren't really any wrong answers here). Get yours fixed and get on with enjoying your bike.

Serious Question: When mine froze, I was always able to reboot the thing. Stop, pull the battery for 30 seconds, put it back on, and it would start working again. Are you saying that yours freezes such that a battery off reboot won't fix it?

I don't even carry a spare battery, as every time the battery dies, it's the back which I use 20:1 vs the front. I just swap them front to back and finish the ride big ring only.
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Old 11-09-18, 07:24 AM
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Originally Posted by oldschoolloser
Hello, I'm new to all this electronic stuff so bear with me. I'm planning on getting a Campy Chorus V2 EPS gruppo. As yet I've not purchased since the set although new is being sold privately and the BB has English threads where I'll need Italian for a Gios Compact Pro set-up. I'm curious if anyone has experience with this set-up (I believe that the Record/Super is essentially the same with some titanium/lighter weight components being used. Any input would be appreciated; I've never ridden any electronic systems before (very few "brifter" rides either), and I tend to be very old school (friction shift on the downtube and lugged steel) so let me have it! Thanks, Neal
This is just an anecdote, so take it for what it is. I was doing a training camp in Sicily ITALY last year, and one of the riders had a beautiful Zero 7 w/ wireless Campy. It was malfuntioning somehow, now sure how or why, but the mechanics at two Italian bike shops couldn't get it to work and the guy ended on a loaner bike for the first 3-4 days while they went back and forth with Campy and finally figured it out. And I don;t think it was a failed part they were waiting for, I think it was just knowledge and tooling. In Italy.

Just an anecdote. I'm don't know what the problem was or what it may mean in any larger context.
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Old 11-12-18, 01:11 PM
  #81  
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Well, after 1000s of miles my eTap has had no issues at all, and it works super well. And it's so clean on the bike. I always had Shimano before, but this stuff is a new level of wonderful. Sorry you're having issues.
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Old 11-13-18, 03:10 AM
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Originally Posted by cccorlew
Well, after 1000s of miles my eTap has had no issues at all, and it works super well. And it's so clean on the bike. I always had Shimano before, but this stuff is a new level of wonderful. Sorry you're having issues.
This. Have eTap on one of my bikes for about 3,000 miles and no problems at all, aside from a front derailer that took some tweaking.
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Old 11-13-18, 09:03 AM
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I ride with a large group where three of the riders have e-tap equipped bikes. Every single one has had multiple issues with the rear derailleur. Having said that, I will consider the new upcoming 12-speed e-tap expected to be introduced in early 2019. I assume, and hope, they have addressed the issue.
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Old 11-13-18, 09:23 AM
  #84  
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Originally Posted by BNB
Etap is a dream when it works. Hard to describe that sinking feeling you get when you press that lever and nothing happens. I hope you don't ever experience it. Good luck.
I experienced it once in 11 months; I'd simply neglected to charge the batteries recently. Was on a group ride. I signaled to stop, pulled over to the side of the road, swapped the front and rear derailleur batteries, and we were back on the road. Elapsed time, ~15 seconds. No sinking feeling involved. Half the folks in teh group didn't even know there was a problem, they thought I was just investigating a "false mechanical"


Originally Posted by BNB
It's two small batteries; one for front and one for rear derailleur.
In fairness, it's four: There's a small CR3025 (?) coin-type battery in each of the levers.
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Old 11-13-18, 11:12 AM
  #85  
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Originally Posted by eja_ bottecchia
Campy waited to get into the electronic shifting field in order to get it right.
That could be seen as Campy taking extra time to further test and ensure it works perfectly, or it could be seen as Campy needed extra time to work out all their bugs due to the smaller R&D team compared to Shimano and SRAM.
I kid, i kid.

Its great that after almost 20 years of working on e shifting, Campy was able to release something. I look forward to the first time I see it on someone's bike.
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Old 11-13-18, 12:47 PM
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Originally Posted by mstateglfr
That could be seen as Campy taking extra time to further test and ensure it works perfectly, or it could be seen as Campy needed extra time to work out all their bugs due to the smaller R&D team compared to Shimano and SRAM.
I kid, i kid.

Its great that after almost 20 years of working on e shifting, Campy was able to release something. I look forward to the first time I see it on someone's bike.
I was at the Trek Shop and they we’re putting it on a Madone. The build turned out very nice looking.
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Old 11-18-18, 11:08 PM
  #87  
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Just back from my 600 mile CA adventure down the coast, wildfire smoke and all, with my ORIGINAL etap derailleur. No problems at all. Stopped by my frame manufacturer to ask if they could drill for Di2 (answer: yes, but not simple and the safest option would require repainting my bike because the right way to do the drilling would mean weld reinforcement of the new holes ...)

This week I'll install the replacement derailleur again ...
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Old 11-19-18, 07:14 AM
  #88  
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Originally Posted by mstateglfr
Its great that after almost 20 years of working on e shifting, Campy was able to release something. I look forward to the first time I see it on someone's bike.
In sixteen months at the last shop I worked at, I must have worked on a couple of dozen EPS bikes.

My favorite aspect was the gotcha about Athena being incompatible with the Chorus/Record gear.
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