Onegun

Good idea, but I suspect the limitation is hardware.

EDIT: Oops, didn't read the whole thread. The hardware problem I would suspect is the servo arm not being able to either extend or retract far enough for a triple, not cage length or normal issues like that.

rmac

Not to say that Bill would exaggerate anything but Probikekit has the Di2 conversion group for $1800. Although it might not work perfectly with other cranksets it might be interesting to see how bad it is.

Onegun

McCready exaggerate just to sell a product? Say it's not so!!!

Since he has hijacked this thread by proxy already, (via TG re-posting his soliloquies from the Hobbes tandem list), I may as well re-post my response to him here as well.

Bill, you've restored my faith in unrestricted, unregulated, blood-thirsty
capitalism! I thought perhaps it was going to die its rightful death after
the Wall Street snafus, but you've salvaged its very soul from the boneyards
of sanity!

I just KNEW you'd figure out a way to take Di2, probably the biggest single
innovation in cycling in the last 25 years, and make it proprietary so that
you could jealously hoard it like Gollum and his Precious! You didn't
dissappoint. Congratulations.

But enjoy the limited run. As you stated, (and was my guess here in earlier
posts), there will probably be a triple available in a couple of years.
That will negate any imagined need to buy a Santana just to get the
"proprietary lower gears that are completely incompatible with anything
unless we build it" that you guys have cobbled together, (while warning that
anything cobbled together can not possibly work, incidently).

Which is another myth that will dissappear in short order. People are
already "cobbling together" Di2 systems with alternate components. I've
seen a Di2 setup work on an FSA crankset and SRAM chain. Granted, this is a
single, I didn't ride it, nor have I had the opportunity to ride the full
gruppo, but the guy who does ride it has ridden both and says it works fine.

dvs cycles

Just got back from Santana HQ with a friend.
Got to see and touch a Beyond with Di2 on the workstand just before it was to go to a customer.
Customer? Wayne Stetina.

Onegun

I don't know that the VP of the bicycle division of Shimano America would qualify as a bona-fide customer, but I still think that's cool on so many levels!

I used to watch Wayne & Dale race back in the 70's, and they were always on the bleeding edge of tech. If memory serves, at one time or another I think they rode both the Teledyne Titan, (early titanium frame), and the Exon Graftec, (early carbon fiber). So it's no surprise that Wayne's been on the Di2 stuff for a while now on singles, and is now getting a tandem with it.

While we're on the subject, I don't want anyone to misunderstand my posts about Bill McCready. It's not THAT Santana is selling Di2, it's HOW Santana goes about selling anything that annoys me.

I'm actually a fan of Di2 and think it will be the standard on high end tandems within 5 years. But in order for that to happen, it needs to be selling right now. So I think it's cool that someone in the tandem manufacturing biz, (in this case, McCready), has become an early adopter of the tech. He will probably be able to rightfully claim that he was a "driving force" behind this revolution in tandem drivetrains.

Had he just left it at that, he would probably have sold many Di2 tandems just on goodwill alone. I might have actually recommended a Santana to someone myself! But, as usual, he has to try and make it proprietary in some fashion or other, to "force" the market to come to him if they want this new widget.

Consequently, (and particularly for those of us who were riding tandems before anyone ever heard of Bill McCready), if someone came to me LOOKING for a Di2 tandem, I'd tell `em to wait until somebody else had one available.

dvs cycles

The only thing I could see that made it propriatary is whatever mods he does to the RD to work with a 12/34 cassette. Front was a 53/39. Now if you were to put a compact 50/34 on and a 11/28 on the rear then a stock Di2 would give you a little more than 33inch gear compared to the 31 that Santana offers. If you can get by with that then Di2 is yours for the making.
Wayne Stetina is guest speaker at our club meeting next week. Nice have locals like that.
Hope he brings the bike so I can get a closer look. We will definitely be asking questions.

jnbrown

I have always wanted to meet that Wayne Stetina. I sometimes go on rides with Pete Penseyeres and on occasion Wayne shows up but never when I do.

dvs cycles

Never met him either but used to see him in the mornings riding through my city on his way up to work at Shimano. Only rode with Pete once, sort of. Road race in San Diego 15 years ago and his age group passed me then dropped me on the climb.