There’s not actually that much in the way of sparks on even the most pricey bikes just yet, and even those are still fundamentally mechanical kit…
A wee bit of mechatronics creeps into the pricey end of the drivetrain market and all of a sudden the “Bicycle’s Digital Age” is imminent…
Has anyone actually got any sort of electromagnetic adaptive suspension system fitted to an MTB currently?
DH teams have been logging data for years, its simply a passive data gathering system, borrowed from motor sport to help them refine the setup of their mechanical suspension systems, its not looking like that will translate to electronic control of suspension systems any time soon…
Other than gear shifting, electronics are still only really employed on bikes for “Performance monitoring” purposes… what other currently mechanical functions of a bicycle do you actually envisage electronics taking over?
Its not just a cost thing, leccy shifting is bound to come down in price and improve in durability and reliability over the next couple of decades, its just it won’t be appropriate for all applications, I actually can’t see it being readily adopted on touring bikes for example, the ease of setup and lightness of shifting will count for nothing with people who could well find themselves many miles from a bike shop, let alone a laptop, I’m not certain the benefits will be entirely appreciated by all subsets of MTBer either…
Some people will always prefer purely mechanical, and Relatively “Simple” bicycles, just look at the enduring popularity of Rigid, Single speed, Fixed, BMX, etc, etc…
I suppose there’s always this shower of shite which entirely misses the point of a fixie IMO but there you go…