2muchroad

You have now repeatedly finished your posts with either a personal attack or snide comment, instead of simply making a sound argument. I have grown skeptical of your ability to make a salient point.

This isn't about your own or anyone else's subjective capacity to enjoy electronic shifting, but rather the objective improvement it offers in comparison to mechanical shifting with regards to effectiveness and efficiency.

njkayaker

​​​​​​Meaningless without indicating what “a long time ago” is.

njkayaker

????

@Koyote isn’t talking about limited budgets.

He’s talking about someone whose “budget” could cover paying for electronic shifting (+$2000?) and to swap that out for a (likely) expensive mechanical set.

2muchroad

As meaningless as creating a post that could've been substituted with a 0.00435 millisecond google search?

bblair

I was in my LBS yesterday and ran into a friend having her brand new, fancy schmancy electronic shifting bike in for repair. Won't charge or shift or pair.

However, a month before I was in there because my Ultegra rear shifting cable broke and I wasn't able to...well...you know.

Maybe one of those internally geared, belt drive things is the way to go?

njkayaker

The way you phrased the question assumes there might not be a “subjective advantage”. You probably should have phrased it as “what are the subjective advantages”. If you were interested in that, you probably should have done some searching instead of asking that here.

More interesting than asking people to regurgitate what can be easily read elsewhere about the advantages was your question about whether replacing it made any sense.

It doesn’t make much sense to replace it.

njkayaker

??? What post is that?

Anyway, still probably more meaningless. Worse, as it stands, what you said isn’t correct.

2muchroad

Confusing, you ask which post, but seem to understand perfectly given your answer.
Please, elaborate.

Koyote

Aren't there some kids on your lawn that need to be yelled at?

One big advantage is the lack of shift cables which can stretch and break and housing which gets dirty -- both of which need replacement regularly. In fact, my Shimano 11sp mechanical bike has a tendency to shred the RD cable inside the shifter, which is then a real hassle to fix. And when it breaks out on the road, I'm effectively riding home on a single-speed bike. (This has happened a couple times.)

Another advantage comes with the bluetooth connection on most electronic drivetrains. I ride and race on gravel, often in difficult conditions, and it is great to glance at my computer and see my current gear combo and hence know whether I still have a 'bailout' gear on a climb. I also use the auxiliary buttons (on the tops of my Di2 hoods) to scroll through my computer screens, which allows me to check stats or the route map without taking my hands off the handlebar. These things may not be important to most users -- but when I'm ripping along in a group on very rough trails, trying to hold my line and not crash, it's nice to NOT have to take a hand off the bar.

I can also control my Varia tail light (on/off, change the mode) from those auxiliary buttons - not really needed in a race, but great when transitioning from paved to gravel, or from any busy to quiet road.

Quick, consistent, accurate shifting is just the icing on the cake with Di2.

njkayaker

????

2muchroad

Aren't there some lawns for you to trespass on?
They shoot on sight in Texas.
Yes, clearly a decisive advantage.
Comparing the structural integrity and longevity of stainless steel wires with a phone battery.

Jrasero

In theory yes, but at the end of the day we are dealing with bikes and it would be insane to reinvent the wheel. At a certain point we see all of these incremental increase because like in computer tech Moore's Law is dead. Thus carbon can only be so light before becoming unsafe and shifts can only be so quick before new chain tech or before bikes move away from chains. So yes some of this is pure marketing, but a lot of it is iterative stuff because at the end of the day these are bikes and there isn't that much to actually improve on period

big john

He mentioned "sad". He was replying to another poster about people buying the bike they wanted when they were younger, meaning an old bike (C&V, if you wish).

I didn't get the reference and posted that I should have bought more bikes before I retired, and I meant new bikes.

2muchroad

That's a sound argument.
The bottleneck of progress due to the literal, physical limitations of the technology itself. I like that.

What would you imagine could be a revolutionary leap in progress regarding the current state of bicycle engineering?

Jrasero

I personally don't know since so much of the accepted tech is really trickle down from the pros so stuff like ebikes, internal gear hubs, and run flat 3D printed tires all sound cool but will never be adopted by the pros, thus while some consumers will buy them most of this stuff has never got on because it's not UCI legal, it adds weight and complexity, or just costs a lot. This is why I think electronic shifting while not revolutionary is fine. To me it's like going from crank windows to electric ones in your car. Yeah electric ones are more complex and cost more but the convenience is just super nice. A course manufactures will charge premium for any new tech but Shimano years ago said they NEVER introduce a lower tier Di2 groupset, yet in 2022 we got 105 Di2 at lower prices with basically the same tech as past gen Shimano Di2. I think the only disadvantage of Di2 now is weight and price but this is were that iterative revisions come in. Yeah maybe we are still 1-2 more gens/refreshes from electronic shifting mirroring mechanical weights and maybe because inflation we will never see electronic shifting mirror mechanical, but IMO as of today faster and more reliable shifts that don't need to be tuned with the ability to track your data and for SRAM the ability to setup a bike in a fraction of the time while not dealing with wires is pretty awesome.

Koyote

Weights are already about the same between electronic and mechanical groupset of the same tier.

Yes, electronic shifting costs more. Better things usually do cost more.

Jrasero

You are correct for Shimano. I am a SRAM AXS guy and that's not true though. SRAM AXS is about 250g heavier but that's also because SRAM 22 HRD was even lighter than Shimano 8000-9000 series

Koyote

Wait, I thought SRAM AXS is electronic only? So there's not a direct comparison to a mechanical group set.

Tell me if I'm wrong, since I'm not very familiar with SRAM.

Jrasero

Sorry for the confusion, SRAM AXS is electronic only, but I was saying it still weighs about 250 more than SRAM's previous 22 HRD (Mechanical), so unlike Shimano where their Di2 actually slightly weighs less than their mechanical, SRAM has yet to meet this. However it is rumored the new SRAM AXS Red D2 will accomplish this by matching or beating Red 22 HRD (mechanical) weight wise

cb400bill

Thread closed per OP’s request.