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I was pretty anti-electronic shifting on my bikes...but once you have it, it's hard to go back. The automatic derailleur tuning to always have snappy, responsiv
by taude 4y ago
I was pretty anti-electronic shifting on my bikes...but once you have it, it's hard to go back. The automatic derailleur tuning to always have snappy, responsive shifts it pretty amazing. And then not having to change cables out is a nice bonus, though not a deal breaker. And even the aesthetics of a cable free bike begins to grow on you. luckily, battery charging is pretty simple, and I've been always having to charge a bike computer for the past 15 years anyway, so not a big deal to plug it in every couple of month. (This is coming from someone who used to single-speed mountain bike a lot, for the "simplicity" and because I was lazy to have to maintain much on my MTB). I'm kind of looking forward to a day when they get the internal hub thing dialed in and lightweight and can handle a lot of torq and not have the drag penalty, etc....
That said, I don't use any integrated shifting->head unit functionality. Not really sure what someone would use it for other than checking battery levels? Which is super simple to see on the hardware itself. And which is easier to just get off my phone.
Also, firmware updates are typically pretty simple these days due to the pretty decent phone app support. I've done firmware updates on both a Wahoo computer and SRAM shifting, and it was really straightforward, and never for a critical item, yet, only to get more features (though I'm not an early adapter in any of this). I guess I'll find out mre about Di2 specific integrations when my next bike arrives...
- AstralStorm 4y agoElectronic shifting, while nice, is inferior to continuously variable transmission. It's that nobody has managed to get that done cheap and reliably - and it'd have to be inside a gear hub too. It's been done reliably, just not cheap. Mitsubishi with its v-belt has probably the cheapest somewhat reliable version, others less reliable based on expanding chain. Enviolo also makes one of these groupsets. Very new tech in bikes though, if used at all. Ancient tech everywhere else, and can be done even better than these attempts.