Shimano 2015 XTR goes electric. Races it this weekend in Albstadt.

🙂

Oops
Double post.

Left and right shifters £149.99 each

£150 quid for a glorified switch !!! good god!

Just a matter of time before they go completely cable-less at the top end I reckon. As for cost, yes it’s expensive, but it’ll trickle down, as per clutch mechs, 1×11, and everything before.

Do the xc pros need the extra range provided with a 2by setup? surely they are all ruining 1by??

Also, can’t we ditch the silly display box, i don’t have a gear position indicator on my bike currently, and i have never missed having on, and even people with one (who haven’t / are unable to remove it from their shifters) never look at them anyway??

The trickle down, if it happens, will still be expensive.

Oh well I guess it keeps Deore etc affordable for those with other things to spend on.

I will personally stick with cables until it goes wireless, no doubt the next iteration of SRAM XX1 will be wireless.

I will personally stick with cables until it goes wirelesscheap and easily DIYable

is my take on it.

Wireless with an app on your phone controlling shift sequence rather than some bit of software on a pc you have to plug the harness into sounds good.

I know they’re only prototypes but those shifters are fugly, why do they have to be so chunky? Only a couple of microswitches or something aren’t they? Mount the circuit board and whatever gubbins in the battery and keep the shifters minimal with various mount points.
I sincerely hope that daft* lcd screen is optional.

*imho, if you normally run a computer and this does that job too you may appreciate it

love it 20’000kms of testing by super skinny wippet xc racers on groomed trails..

Hows about 20’000kms on Surrey hills and Wales slop and grinding paste.. ridien by STW finest beer swilling storm troopers..

As for the battery tucked in the steerer tube, has no-one noticed how much crud ends up there after rides?

I will personally stick with cables until it goes wireless

what’s the appeal of wireless? Presumably having a battery in every component adds weight (and charging issues) and wireless could potentially introduce a load of problems you don’t get with wires.

I understand that the major benefit of these systems is the auto trimming front mech. I can’t see a big benefit on a 1×10/11 system, the shifter and clutch mech seems pretty good to me.

Stick the lot in a sealed box and they’ll be onto something.

Looks good! If it’s anything like the Dura Ace mech vs Di2 comparison, then XTR Di2 will end up being lighter and shifting better.

My only worry would be taking out a rear mech – not hugely likely on the road, but I’d be very worried about knackering a £400 mech on a rock!

*awaits naysayers* 😈

I understand that the major benefit of these systems is the auto trimming front mech.

Only on STW could nigh on a grand’s worth of gear be justified by saving literally half a click! 😉

Personally I’m looking forward to the flood of cheap ‘old’ XTR gear on to the classifieds when this is released.

Only on STW could nigh on a grand’s worth of gear be justified by saving literally half a click!

road front shifters have half clicks, mtb don’t 🙁
The benefit of leccy for me is no longer worrying about gritty cables, yes xtr di2 is a bloody big sledgehammer to crack a quite small nut, but I won’t be buying xtr di2 will i? I’ll be getting oem deore/slx di2 at merlin/crc discount prices – I can wait 🙂

Di2 has been around for a few years now for road bikes (Dura Ace and Ultegra groupsets) but it’s nowhere near universal takeup amongst club riders. I suspect it will have to drop down to the 105 and Tiagra level for that to happen. Shimano will want to make the most of their R&D and keep the exclusive cachet for as long as possible so it will be a few years yet.

On my current system. to change gear I press a lever, which:

1) pulls on a cable, which
2) pulls the rear derailure to the side, which
3) pulls the chain onto the correct cog

With leccy shifting, to change gear I press a lever, which:

1) Switches on a microswitch, which
2) sends a signal to the controller, which
3) sends a signal to another controller in the mech, which
4) sends a signal to a motor in the mech, which
5) Drives some levers, pulling the mech sideways, which
6) pulls the chain onto the correct cog

Now, it strikes me, that the issue with these systems is the exposed and dirt hungry nature of the actual rear mech hanging in the breeze collecting rocks, sticks, and mud and stuff, rather than the actual connection between the shifter and mech?

So, the advantages of ‘lecy shifting:

1) lighter shift action (do we need this? isn’t MTB a physical sport? If i wanted to “save effort” i’d just sit in front of the telly instead

2) The ability to make sequential shifts? Er, just go 1by and you get exactly the same effect on a conventional mech

3) the ability to trim the front mech? I’ve trimmed the front mech completely off my bike all together and not missed it yet (1by again)

4) The ability to look flashy? OK, maybe some mileage here

5) The ability to not suffer from “dirty” bowden cable. Change you cable occasionally (which takes 30min, and costs about £10 tops)! Also, if your mech systems gets bashed and goes petetong in the back of beyond, a fix is possible, if your ‘lecy system does the same, start walking!

6) Less weight? Not sure how it can be, requiring about 3x more parts (displays, batteries and cabling etc)

7) More robust? Jurys out on this one. I can’t see it being either any worse or any better tbh. Big hits that break a conventional mech will rip this one off too i think

So, where’s the actual gains? You still can’t shift under any significant pedal loading (which would potentially be an advantage to the Pro XCers)

Looks bling though eh?? 😉

Wireless mechs are the way forward. If you have a garmin speed/cadence sensor how much does that weigh / how often does the Cr25 (I think) battery need replacing? Mines been faultless for 2 years / 6k miles so far. Battery weighs bugger all.

Of course they will make it with shimano specific very expensive to replace or need a special expensive chargers, but they don’t have to…

I won’t bother with electronic till it goes wireless, and vaguely affordable so probably 2017…!

Like the mechanical version it still appears to come with a big dollop of gop. The chainset in particular mings. I can’t imagine SRAM are exactly cacking themselves.

Personal bias aside, it’s good to see the big two going separate ways, rather than everything being the same.

Rear Mech: £429.99
Front Mech: £269.99
Left and right shifters £149.99 each
Batteries: Internal £99.99. External £49.99
PCE1 (optional cable/programming interface): £179.99
Junction boxes and cables will be another £100 (approx) a bike.

wow.
you could buy a bike for that!

i couldnt give a monkeys what it looks like, im not doing a beauty parade when cycling, just want it to work – really well. If it does that and I can afford it, happy days!

DT78
Wireless mechs are the way forward. If you have a garmin speed/cadence sensor how much does that weigh / how often does the Cr25 (I think) battery need replacing? Mines been faultless for 2 years / 6k miles so far. Battery weighs bugger all.

But, and it’s a big but, the battery in a garmin or similar is just powering a display, and that’s it. In fact, even though your eyes can’t see it, that display, even when “on” is in fact “Off” for over 80% of the time! (displays are multiplexed these days)

However, an electric mech actually has to do something physical, and that takes energy. Of course, being able to “power both ways” rather than rely on a sprung return like conventional mechs, helps reduce the power consumption, but it cannot eliminate it. On a MTB where i’d suggest you are changing gear more often than on a road bike , it’s taking some fairly serious AmpHrs of battery to drive these things, and you are not easily going to integrate that in the mech itself, hence, you still need a wire for power, and hence a truely “wireless” system is not going to happen (ok you might get a wireless shifter, which will help, but not totally replace the wires)

1) lighter shift action (do we need this? isn’t MTB a physical sport? If i wanted to “save effort” i’d just sit in front of the telly instead

In the same vein: why bother with discs, front suspension, etc? Isn’t that all just making things “easier”?

2) The ability to make sequential shifts? Er, just go 1by and you get exactly the same effect on a conventional mech

3) the ability to trim the front mech? I’ve trimmed the front mech completely off my bike all together and not missed it yet (1by again)

I’ll give you that – 1x is great. If I had to choose an upgrade, it’d be 1×11, not Di2!

4) The ability to look flashy? OK, maybe some mileage here

WOOT!

5) The ability to not suffer from “dirty” bowden cable. Change you cable occasionally (which takes 30min, and costs about £10 tops)! Also, if your mech systems gets bashed and goes petetong in the back of beyond, a fix is possible, if your ‘lecy system does the same, start walking!

Non-stretchy / gritty cables don’t seem like much, but honestly it is really, really nice not to have to worry about them. Whether it’s good value is another thing, but it’s a definite advantage.
I’d argue that a bust mech is a bust mech, regardless of electronic or mechanical – but a Di2 mech IS going to cost more to replace if you kill it. Probably less availability of spares as well (at least for a couple of years).

6) Less weight? Not sure how it can be, requiring about 3x more parts (displays, batteries and cabling etc)

This one’s counter-intuitive, but Di2 *does* weigh less than the mechanical equivalent.

7) More robust? Jurys out on this one. I can’t see it being either any worse or any better tbh. Big hits that break a conventional mech will rip this one off too i think

Agreed. I’d prefer to rip off a cheap mech than an expensive one.

So, where’s the actual gains? You still can’t shift under any significant pedal loading (which would potentially be an advantage to the Pro XCers)

Gains are less maintenance, lighter weight, lots of shifting options if you’re not running a 1x drivetrain, lighter action. There’s probably going to be a decent draw for future alternative shift lever setups too – if your shifter is just a button, you could integrate it into a lock-on collar (for instance).

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, collar-integrated shifting is a brilliant idea. KS Lev lever on your left hand collar, 1x shifter on the right. Two grips, two brake levers, nothing else. If you’re reading, Shimano, I’m only after a 10% cut of sales 😀

Electricity has no place on any of my bikes ever.

Scienceofficer

Electricity has no place on any of my bikes ever.

How’s that science working out for you? 😉

I’m talking about the garmin cadence sensor unit rather than the device headunit – it cadence unit is ‘on’ all the time as it is constantly bluetoothing speed and cadence data to the headunit to display (unless I don’t understand how it works….which is entirely possible!)

So far its still on its first c25 battery and has 250+ hours of use.

Agree though the energy draw would be bigger than a bluetooth data pairing

Maybe we will see some form of energy harvesting to keep them powered in the further future

No night riding for you young man!

On my current system. to change gear I press a lever, which:

1) pulls on a cable, which
2) pulls the rear derailure to the side, which
3) pulls the chain onto the correct cog

Sounds complicated with lot’s of things to go wrong imo.
On my current system, to change gear I peddle faster.
It’s meant to be a physical sport after all. 😀

On a more sensible note, wireless seems a mistake to me. Sure you can stick little batteries in a shifter, but you still need big ones for the front a rear mechs, and multiple batteries sat there not doing nothing most of the time is just redundant weight.
Not too mention that jamming a wireless signal is trivially easy 😀
Shimano do have a patent on a jockey wheel based charger though, which might be more interesting – no more plugging bike in to charge.

Wouldn’t want to have any charging from my jockey wheels last time I replaced then there was hardly anything but muck in thereo. Encase it in the bottom bracket and have a small magnet in the crank axle seems more appropriate.

How does the “Synchro” thing work? Does it go through every single ratio in either direction, or does it use a subset to avoid the front mech going mental all the time?

It looks brilliant. If ever I was going to go rob a bank for a bike upgrade, this would be it.

The problem with old fashioned gears is that it’s easy to replace the cables and whatnot but you can get by without, which inevitably means you get a week of super shifting then four months of adequate-but-progressively-more-niggly shifting before it becomes worth sorting it out. Being able to ignore it and concentrate on something else would be awesome.

Rear mech looks familiar… 🙂

This one really is scrapping the barrel of the problems that barely exist in cycling IMHO [ I was fine with friction levers mind so I am a Luddite]
A lot of money, for next to no functional improvement, with more things to go wrong.

I am sure it is better but a grands worth !

all that programming faff sounds like a lot of faff just for the sake of faffing.

who here really goes through the gears sequentially when out in the hills?

also if it jumps two or three or whatever wont you miss some gears and have lost functionality?
Also my levers do multiples as is – granted it takes masses of thumb power to do this and I cannot set the change timing from fast to slow

On the plus side i save the best part f £200

it’s completely pointless.

a couple of years ago? – yes, electronic shifting would have brought something to the table: reliability.

but now that shimano mtb stuff works with more cable-pull, it’s much, much less sensitive to friction/flex.

i guess those shimano engineers are getting desperate; they’ve run out of problems to solve, they’ve had to start over-complicating things.

I would love it. If I strike it rich in the next 12 months its going on my 40th birthday custom frame.

now that shimano mtb stuff works with more cable-pull[s] has copied SRAM

FTFY 😉

As I sit at work tapping or clicking on micro switches all day, I actually enjoy the mechanical engagement of the bicycle and the ability to sense that everything is running smoothly by feel.

I love the idea of electronic shifting, i see it as a natural progression from mechanical. But the price just compounds the ridiculousness of what the mtb community has condoned.

Actually, thinking about it, collar-integrated shifting is a brilliant idea.

was exactly what I was thinking when I said various mount points, just wish someone did an aftermarket reverb lock on grip lever too.