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rode 100 km on my manual dura ace 9000 last night, flawless. but i still missed the sram red etap on my 1x gravel bike. Electronic shifting can be fabulous. my 100 mile TT on sunday, never missed an electronic shift despite being exhausted - just pushing a button means you shift more often. i was skeptical until i tried it. now i’m not. But has to be properly wireless not the Di2 fudge. Still like Da9000 for the bling and weight, but my next road bike will be sram electronic. my mob is a single speed so ignore me.
Who's still running 8 or 9 speed drivetrains from twenty odd years ago?
2x9 speed on both my Orange primary Mountain bike, and also on my Hardtail (currently singlespeed, just for fun, but the 9speed i in box for another day.
3x9 speed on my Disk trucker too.
3x8 Speed on the Yuba Cargo
no 10, 11 or 12. obviously no electronics..
Last ride i went on, someone ide not before went "aww, hes got one of those old oranges like you used to have"
its only 10 yrs old, i think
Who's still running 8 or 9 speed drivetrains from twenty odd years ago? Who expects their AXS or Di2 to still be working in twenty years time, even assuming you can still buy twelve speed chains and cassettes?
Hi! 3x9 drivetrain here on my hardtail. Love the bike, it's 26" wheels, see no reason to replace it; drivetrain has been going strong for donkey's years.
It's not that unusual, frankly; and the idea that we should buy a bike, and components, knowing that we'll replace them in 5 years' time (or break them in 2) is utter bawls
Likewise, after much deliberation, looking at bikes, asking clubmates, I decided to stick with mechanical shifting for my new 'year round' bike.
1) It just works, I dab the lever and it shifts.
2) When asked, most admitted that Shimano Di2 was at best something you leant to live with when using winter gloves. I wanted a bike for all year round so spending 6 months of the year searching for a small button with big gloves was a deal breaker. And I didn't want SRAM because of the pogo pin issue.
3) Batteries. Yes they last a long time, but not forever. Everyone seemed to eventually either forget to charge it, ride more than they usually do and drain it quicker than expected, lean it up against a wall (or in a car) and rapidly flatten it.
I'm hoping that all these announcements are leading up to new DA at the tour which might mean an early overhaul of Ultegra and 105 Di2 although as they've now released 4 new grouplets in one year already that's possibly optimistic. But that might mean some bargain wired-ish 105 Di2 bikes.
They spent a lot of the time discussing lube for their gear cables, complaining that the wet and gritty dirt was affecting their gear changes. My bike was 13 months old at this point. And the shifting was as good as the day I got it, with hardly a finger having touched the thing since I bought it. By contrast, on any of my other bikes, the shifting is always changing/degrading slightly as cables stretch and conditions change.
This is a totally valid point. Trad cables do deteriorate but good set up and periodic, cheap maintenance (and good routing which isn't a cert) resolves that. With wireless you get all or nothing - it's perfect until it isn't and when it isn't there is a good chance there's not much you can do about it. Though you can kill any mech system mid-ride, the likelihood is that wireless is more binary and that's something I'm wary of because the gains just don't have enough value to me. Plus, the cost. (Likewise not trying tro convince anyone of anything - apart from Sram and Shimano to keep the choices open or lose some customers, good luck to me with that one..)
Does it mean bigger profits for the manufacturers? Oh yes. Micro switches are much cheaper to make than mechanical shifters and you can sell them for more money. Replacement batteries can be sold for more than gear cables. Kerching!
Also much faster to build bikes on a production line, like BB30 made production faster.
It seems like every 2 weeks I have yet another issue with my mechanical shifting. It never shifts perfectly for more than a couple of weeks then another issue pops up.
Honestly to me wireless shifting sounds like a dream. I know a few people who have it and they've had no issues whatsoever.
I just couldn't see myself going through the hassle of trying to get cables routed from the headtube, through all the wiring gubbins (ebike, sorry), to the underside of the chainstay. So AXS is awesome, but only because you don't have to go through that crap!
The £100 fix of wireless gears to sort the £1 level idea of internal routing for aesthetics. Proof it's a fashion industry?
I don’t get the weird anger people seem to have towards charging batteries, when so many other things need charging, so that side of things doesn’t bother me as a user (old AXS & T-Type)
What does bother me is how noisy my bike was with old AXS, resorting to home brew bodges with washers & PTFE tape.
T-Type has genuinely been the most unreliable groupset I’ve ever used. We have it on a few bikes, currently on replacement mech number 5 (mostly pogo pin failure), I’ve lost count of the number of bent lower arms I’ve had to replace & a couple sheared cassettes.
I’m removing it from my full powered ebike, as it’s utterly pointless on there - ironically I can probably see a benefit to it on a road or gravel bike, but MTB’s? Not for me, the only benefit I can really see is dealing with bike manufacturers idiotic cable routing isn’t an issue.
IMO wireless gearing is another needless solution for a problem that doesn't exist... Just like electric mini pumps! 🤣
I've had one rear mech cable shear inside the brs505 brifter on my Cube Attain GTC that has internal routing, something that brifter was reknowned for along with the little white cable guide wearing and then allowing the cable to damage the brifter. Replacement guides are ~£2 each
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-spares/shimano-strs505-sl-cable-guide-b-right-hand-y03n74000/
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/gear-spares/shimano-strs505-sl-cable-guide-a-left-hand-y03m75000/
I bought a length of cable guide from Amazon, threaded it through frame and sent the new cable through it, job done.
I don’t get the weird anger people seem to have towards charging batteries, when so many other things need charging, so that side of things doesn’t bother me as a user (old AXS & T-Type)
This has been a regular comment on forums since the dawn of electronic shifting.
What if your battery dies? What if you run out of battery?
Quite honestly, on a modern system, it means you're an idiot because the system will warn you repeatedly. And since we all live with multiple electronic devices from mobile phones to cars that we seem to be able to charge up with no issues, a tiny SRAM battery shouldn't really be the massive showstopper it's made out to be. Di2 is even better in that respect, 3-4 charges a year is all it needs.
Of course the counter point is that nothing on a mechanical bike ever needs charging so yes, you win that argument but the whole "what if your battery dies?" is pretty much a non-issue. "It's a pain having more batteries to charge" is a valid argument but not "what if it dies?"
Quite honestly, on a modern system, it means you're an idiot because the system will warn you repeatedly.
Apart from the last time mine ran out after I'd checked the app before I went out, it reported full charge. Nope, rear mech ran out 1 hr in. Fortunately 2x so I could swap.
I've had a couple more that were probably my fault, but ultimately I do want to be able to just jump on my bike for a ride, and having to check/charge batteries breaks that. I can still go on a bike ride with a flat Garmin. Got my AXS as the bike came with it, but given the choice I'll be avoiding it in future, cables have been better for me. (Not perfect of course, I have had the Shimano cable break inside the shifter, but not for a few years now).
Also much faster to build bikes on a production line, like BB30 made production faster.
that does seem to be the benefit of the T type with its fixed location. there's no more faffing around with indexing and limit screws and barrel adjusters.
1 bolt screws the mech on (a task you can teach to anyone with opposable thumbs in about 5 minutes), and crucially this can be done before the rear wheel or bars/shifters get anywhere near the bike.
Also much faster to build bikes on a production line, like BB30 made production faster.
that does seem to be the benefit of the T type with its fixed location. there's no more faffing around with indexing and limit screws and barrel adjusters.
1 bolt screws the mech on (a task you can teach to anyone with opposable thumbs in about 5 minutes), and crucially this can be done before the rear wheel or bars/shifters get anywhere near the bike.
2) When asked, most admitted that Shimano Di2 was at best something you leant to live with when using winter gloves. I wanted a bike for all year round so spending 6 months of the year searching for a small button with big gloves was a deal breaker. And I didn't want SRAM because of the pogo pin issue.
3) Batteries. Yes they last a long time, but not forever. Everyone seemed to eventually either forget to charge it, ride more than they usually do and drain it quicker than expected, lean it up against a wall (or in a car) and rapidly flatten it.
For me one of the major advantages of Di2 is that when I have frozen hands in winter gloves I can still shift easily. I've never heard anybody say anything like what you report here.
My Garmin tells me what level my Di2 battery is at. Once every few months I need to charge it. It really isn't hard. I expect the new wireless will not last anywhere near as long, but I already get home and automatically put the Garmin and the lights on charge - I think adding a derailleur battery to that routine is unlikely to be too challenging.
Two of my bikes, road and gravel, currently have Di2. On a recent trip to Mallorca I had to slum it on a bike with mechanical Ultegra, and while it wasn't a disaster it reminded me how much I appreciate Di2. I have two mountain bikes with 12-speed XT - I'll be seriously considering the upgrade kit.
When asked, most admitted that Shimano Di2 was at best something you leant to live with when using winter gloves
I fitted Di2 to my roadt bike in early Jan (21 or 22) so I spent the first few months riding it with winter gloves on and yes it was a bit wierd because I had no real tactile feedback of what my fingers were doing on unfamiliar shifters. But as soon as I got the muscle memory sorted it's been a total non issue, in fact the small movement needed probably makes it easier than the longer throw of a mechanical shifter.
For me the problem is not that electronic shifting exists but that by going electronic only you are being denied a choice. Or you have to fit crap low end component.
Shifting SRAM with winter gloves is trivial, never an issue as only one LARGE paddle on each shifter. Left is up the cassette and right is down. I have 1x10 Di2 on the TT Trike set the same. I don't have brifter Di2.
Or you have to fit crap low end component.
Or older components. Apparently my best bike (Defy Advanced SL with rim brakes) has little retail value, but the full DA9000 groupset I fitted to it at upgrade is still extremely desirable (and black and shiny mix matches everything). It's also lighter than Di2.
A cleaner looking cockpit and indexing via the app are both very appealing, but the price is way too high for me to justify upgrading.
I'd certainly have no complaints if it came on a new bike.
I borrowed a bike-shop-owning mates all singing, all dancing gravel bike 18 months of so back, which had AXS on. I was genuinely surprised quite how good it was. It just worked. Perfect, effortless, identical shifts every time. I got it, completely.
But I'm not having electronic gears on a bike. Bikes should be, must be, simple purely mechanical objects. I'm no retro grouch - LLS geo is ace; droppers are brilliant, I've been tubeless for about 20 years (although I'm plenty happy with 11speed - feel no need to change to 12). I just Do. Not. Want. electric stuff on a bike.
The cost is an issue, but not the end of the world in road/gravel terms, where breaking stuff is rare. MTB - I've bust 2 derailleurs already this year, fortunately both repairable with bits out the spares box, but worst case its £60 for an XT 11spd mech. Annoying, but not crippling - certainly not like £450 would be! But the road bike shifting is plenty good enough with mechanical...
The only bike I'd even begin to consider swapping to e-gears is my carbon gravel bike, which has internal routing. There seems to be quite a tight bend in the outer around the BB which wears faster and generates friction and therefore shitty shifting much quicker than my other bikes - I'm changing cables twice a year on it, not every couple of years (at worst) on all my other externally routed bikes. So that's like a tenner. Not like the £600 a swap to Di2 would cost!
A cleaner looking cockpit and indexing via the app are both very appealing,
Tidily routed cables of the correct length are fine and very far from objectionable - its a simple obvious functional thing; the last thing I want is a ****in' app to make my bike work - bikes are all about getting away from that shite! And why is it so hard to twiddle a barrel adjuster 1/4 turn once a blue moon?
I don’t get the weird anger people seem to have towards charging batteries, when so many other things need charging,
And since we all live with multiple electronic devices from mobile phones to cars that we seem to be able to charge up with no issues,
I like bikes bc they're one of the things in life that aren't bleeping or flashing lights for attention or power, needing the right charge cables, needing me to remember to do this or that, etc. I turn the notifications off for practically everything but I still have 4 or 5 different ways people send messages - emails, messengers, apps, text.. personally I'm just bored or fed up of Tamagochi style attention-needy tech. Bikes are an antidote to a lot of things and for me that includes electronic tech.
Yeah but that nice tactile click on my SRAM Red shifter never gets old 😉 Sure, I'm a convert, but if I was breaking two off-road rear derailleurs a year, I'd be mechanical too. And my absolute favourite bike is my track bike. Forget electric, think no brakes or gear shifting or freewheel. Just the purest pedalling. My second favourite bike is my fixed wheel road bike with Campagnolo Record. But Oh my, those paddle shifts can corrupt one's soul - it's a hard call for No. 3 and two less cables doesn't help 😀
Cost - specifically rear mechs. That's the main reason against wireless shifting for me. Yes, the idea of better/more reliable shifting appeals but it's all too easy (for me at least) to destroy a rear mech, especially on a MTB.
- Deore £30 vs £375
- XT £75 vs £430
I'm not flush enough to have a £375+ mech hanging off the back or my bike.
I agree there should be a choice in whether electronic or cabled components are available throughout the range, not just the Deore/NX level stuff.
And I say this as having GX AXS on both bikes. One set bought full price not long after it came out, the second was a £100 mech on FB marketplace.
Only issues I have had are
-Worn bushes on one of them which was easily sorted with a £28 kit from Leap Components - dunno if XX1 or X01 mechanical have the same issues, and even if they do if they can be fixed.
-Mech battery died so I needed a new one - this is the equivalent of snapping a cable, if a bit more expensive.
Not had any issues with forgetting to charge them - I get 3-4 weeks between charges on the normal bike, and I have made a set up to connect the other mech to the KSL battery, and that had a 320Wh battery so I think that'll be fine.
I'd probably be a bit more hesitant with road/gravel AXS due to the integration of the shifter with the levers, but then even mechanical is integrated there.
..."It's a pain having more batteries to charge" is a valid argument but not "what if it dies?"
I suppose, but as Garmin keep managing to demonstrate to me, small Lithium Ion Batteries are not infinately durable, they have a finite life, limited by charge cycles and extremes of temperature and it´s probably more limited than the life of a typical groupset.
Personally I find myself a bit on the fence with leccy shifting, The friends I have with Di2 seem very happy, but when there´s an issue, it´s normally battery related or maybe crash mode and the "in the field" fix is really to have remembered either a spare battery, or a proprietary cable (and find an understnding cafe)...
Ultimately I think they´re probably about on par reliability wise, but then if I´m paying more I want more reliability.
Every time I come to throw another bike together I find myself looking at the cost of a leccy group, then I look at the price of a mechanical group, and the answer is self evident, the difference in price means more money for other parts and abou the same level of reliability.
As for 1x vs 2x, Both work, both have their benefits and drawbacks, I´m not sure I´d want to try being a prick about either choice these days. Perhaps it´s better to just think about what you want to use a given bike for, and select 1x or 2x based more on the use case than what everyone else is doing and your desire to be part of the in/out-group dejour...
Every time I come to throw another bike together I find myself looking at the cost of a leccy group, then I look at the price of a mechanical group, and the answer is self evident, the difference in price means more money for other parts and abou the same level of reliability.
I bought a new road bike in 2022 and was seriously considering Di2 (having used it in the past quite a bit on a loan bike).
But then I bought a lower tier bike with mechanical and used the money I'd saved to have a week's riding holiday in Spain. 🙂
But then I bought a lower tier bike with mechanical and used the money I'd saved to have a week's riding holiday in Spain. 🙂
Did you have enough spare money to pay for the carbon offset as well? 😉
I'm just wondering whether there's anyone who falls into the weird "rides e-bikes" "hates electronic shifting" section of the Venn diagram....
I'm just wondering whether there's anyone who falls into the weird "rides e-bikes" "hates electronic shifting" section of the Venn diagram....
Guilty!
Ebike gives a huge enabling benefit of giving me and other ebike users a needed power boost.
I may be struggling with energy, but I can use manual brifters to change cable tension, resulting in sprocket and chainring changes... Without needing a battery operated mechanism to do it, requiring regular charging. 😉
I'm just wondering whether there's anyone who falls into the weird "rides e-bikes" "hates electronic shifting" section of the Venn diagram....
Me
I still don't really understand what problem it fixes either, seems like a huge amount of money and extra potential for failure for what exactly, an absence of cables?
I don't have electronic gears on any bike, but...
* Remote shift buttons (e.g. if you run tri bars)
* Reduced fatigue (I've had shifting RSI on some multi-day rides)
* No dirt ingress into cables affecting shifting performance
* Should be more tolerant of mis-aligned hangers
I don’t get the weird anger people seem to have towards charging batteries
I dont think anyones got any anger towards it, but when manafacturers dont seem to be making traditional format bikes anymore, its a bit annoying.
I like bikes because i can look after it myself. I guess im a minority market, that wants their gear cables on the outside of the frame.
I want to be able to fix (or bodge) mechanicals or crash damage trail side without junking a £400 mech (which is too much money for a weekend warrior, no matter how you cut it)
I dont want to be restricted to Halford specials because the proper brands have all gone electronic.
My shopping bike has a deore rear mech, xt front mech and shifters. It has enough gear range to use it for touring.
I am now faced with Clues or some crap like that to build a similar bike. They seem to have eliminated choice, as I won't want a bike with a £300 rear mech locked up outside the shops especially as you can nick it with one hex key.
Introducing SRAM Premium. For only £5.99 a month* you get access to shifts twice as fast as SRAM Regular as well as a comprehensive download of which gears you use the most.
*For the first 6 months, £12.99 a month thereafter.
Amateur stuff. No 52t until you unlock it via the Premium subscription.
I want a gravel bike to be something you can jump on and just ride, and ride, and ride... preferably for as long and far as possible. I'm curious to try the new wireless but my observations are 1. the battery life seems quite short for multi-day exploring in the boonies and 2. its heavy. I've just ordered a new gravel frame and as its fairly customisable have gone for mechanical but future-proofed to ensure a fully wireless setup will be clean too. Would hazard a guess that mechanical options will be around for long enough for availability not to be a concern, take Shimano's non-adoption of UDH as a good sign for us non tech-fetishist types.
When it works (99% of the time) it's magnificent. But when it breaks or you forget to charge it electric shifting is a pain in the rear.
Currently my di2 battery keeps running flat after a week or so. No idea what component is causing this, and it's an intermittent fault the lbs can't identify. Don't even know what part to replace first...
If I only had one bike, it would definitely be mechanical as I value reliability. And in truth, the shifting on my gravel bike's tiagra, even when covered in gunk and never washed, is 99% as good as the sram red on my best road bike which cost x8 as much and is kept spotless.
I am now faced with Clues or some crap like that to build a similar bike
Cues, crap for a shopping bike? I'd happily use it for my touring/bikepacking bikes and I don't put any junk on those. Cues is the one component area that's keeping me happy these days - drops or MTB shifters, matches up with old 9/10s kit, plenty of mix/match options, I like it.
When it works (99% of the time) it's magnificent.
99% is much better than what feels like 50% of the time for me and mechanical shifting. There's always something that's not quite right.
take Shimano's non-adoption of UDH as a good sign for us non tech-fetishist types.
SRAM seem to be trying to standardise frame design to fit their kit, like the new brake mount they're talking about. Yet SRAM and Shimano will both prefer to create competing standards.
Should be more tolerant of mis-aligned hangersWhy? Mech moves a predetermined distance per shift whichever mechanism it uses.
I am now faced with Clues or some crap like that to build a similar bike.
CUES is brilliant.
Crap name, great set of parts. Cross compatibility within itself, even across speeds, super durable. It's basically a fit and forget groupset.
There's always something that's not quite right.I think this is a you/installation problem... Most of my bikes will go a minimum of 6 months between even being touched. And then it's usually only an 1/8th of a turn. (Excepting CX/winter bikes that usually need new inners at the half way through the season point.)
TBH, the only real use case for me to have Di2 would be on an all weather/winter/gravel bike. As that's generally the only bike that needs more frequent service or adjustment than once in a blue moon.
And i've tried most of the electronic options out there, but only got one bike with it on.
Yeah but that nice tactile click on my SRAM Red Dura Ace shifter never gets old
I am with Tired and Jameso.
A bike ride (for me) is a beautiful mechanical thing, I have no need (or desire) for anything electronic other than a Garmin and lights.
Having said that, I don't race any more, but can imagine in an 'every second matters' moment on a TT bike,a clean perfect shift with a button must be lovely.
But now I'm looking at gravel bikes and it looks like I'm stuffed. For the model I want, I've found a 2024 version and a 2025 version. The 2025 takes 50mm tyres, which is 5 mm more than the 2024 one. And that is pretty much a key priority.
I haven't read the entire thread, actually I haven't read any of it bar the original post, but just wanted to say that ime 45mm tyres are plenty big enough for pretty much anything round here, I tried fast-rolling 50mm ones and they felt sluggish by comparison, 45mm still pretty good cush, but faster rolling, 40mm faster again, but you lose a bit of cushion. Before I rode them, I thought 50mm would be the bomb, but for me they weren't. I'd probably buy a super light hardtail if I felt I really 'needed' 50mm tyres. Obviously YMMV, but that was my experience. You can also fit 650b wheels with proper bigger tyres in most gravel frames.
I'll maybe skim through the rest of the thread now...
I don't want electronic shifting on anything thanks. There's enough tech shite in the world without it turning bikes into a load of overly complex, battery-dependent rubbish.
1. the battery life seems quite short for multi-day exploring in the boonies
I've got it on my mountain bike which I'm riding 4 times a week currently in summer.
Those aren't all day rides, but still think I'm getting 3 weeks to a month of use out of a charge - which I do when my garmin tells me its "low" battery which I think means 30% left.
Maybe I'd take a spare battery for multiday wilderness trips - or take one in the car for a multi day riding holiday - but the "but you need to charge it every ride" people are definitely, as they say on the internet, creating a strawman.