5 ms·
To me, it's night and day. Cables stretch, need replacement (yearly or every 2 in my case), and mechanical shifting requires more effort. Di2 is literally 'mo
by cheeze 1y ago
To me, it's night and day.
Cables stretch, need replacement (yearly or every 2 in my case), and mechanical shifting requires more effort.
Di2 is literally 'mouse click' with little electric components that _instantly_ shift. Maintenance is reduced, the shifting is notably smoother, and adjustments are a breeze.
IMO the "but my shifters could die" crowd overblow the concerns. I charge my bike _once a month_ and that's being conservative. I already have to charge my GPS unit, my lights, etc. so remembering to plug my bike in is a non-concern.
Anecdotally, most folks I know who don't like electronic shifting haven't actually used it. The major downside is that it's expensive, as are all road bike components.
- topaz0 1y agoAll this tech, just to recover the speed and smoothness of friction shifters from 30 years ago.
- stonogo 1y agoFriction shifters suck really bad, if you ride your bike more than once a month. Having to feel out the right shift point, adjusting front derailleur trim, remembering where you are in the gearing so you can avoid cross-chaining, having things shift slightly differently as your cable stretches over time, all of it sucked. I know the retrogrouch nostalgia goggles are an entire market sector in cycling, but 100% of the time people who spend a lot of time on bicycles prefer electronic shifting in practice. I'm old enough to have had friction shifters on my downtube, and I'm not going back.
- topaz0 1y agoI'm old enough to ride with downtube shifters too, have for close to 20 years, do so roughly every day including for the past several years in a hilly city where I shift a lot, and I could not stand the brief stint (~year) I did with slow, unwieldy brake-lever shifters. I had to adjust those way more often and more precisely than I adjust my friction shifters, too.
- stonogo 1y agoI was never sold on those shifters either. Mechanically indexed shifting in general never really was fantastic enough to justify all the additional finicky fine-tuning required for it to work well. But electric shifting is a whole separate ballpark; it's self-adjusting, prevents cross-chaining, etc. It's set and forget except charging it every few weeks. It's like the difference between carburetors and modern fuel injection. Some people like to spend all their time playing with jets; I'd rather be driving the car.