Electric gear shifting?

[reohn2]

..........So if you buy a 'race bike' for your weekend leisure rides, you are IMHO quote likely just a victim of a business that is built on flogging you, the gullible punter, ever flimsier, ever less practical equipment, all the name of 'performance'. This is 'performance equipment' that gives 'performance' you don't need (or even perhaps get at all) and with the dubious cachet that this equipment is 'just like what the pros (are paid to...) use...'....



One of my chums did a big charity ride at the weekend; it rained, and he passed thousands of people who were soaked because they didn't (and indeed couldn't) have mudguards on their 'performance oriented machines' and hundreds who punctured because they had 'performance tyres' on that were just too flimsy. I am not sure that -past getting people on bikes at all- this obsession that leisure riders (who are really a species of tourist, but just don't know it) seem to have with aping racers does anyone any favours.

cheers

The word 'performance' doesn't have to mean outright speed.
The performance of EGS is developed for fast efficient shifting for speed with everything else being secondary,unfortunately outside of technical on the road back up ie; team car,it's performance is extremely limited,due to it's inherent lack of dependability ie;inability of roadside repair dependnce on battery charging,and very high costs.
It's desire by people with stars in their eyes OTOH is a reality but then so is a lot of other electronic toys these days.
There are a lot of people using satnav to guide them to where they're going,however should it breakdown en-route so many of those people wouldn't have clue where they are or how to continue their journey.

Like the old nursery rhyme about the little girl with the curl:-
....when she was good she was very very good,
but when she was bad she was horrid.

Most people want something cost effective,effecient,reliable and durable.
EGS doesn't offer that,heck it's not even lighter

[Dave W]

Very true, particularly about the Garmin but they have proved reliable and many use nothing else. I never carry maps on the bike for a day ride, my son never carries a map in the car. Most of us would have a phone with Google maps as a back up also.
Electric shifting is very new but seems to have been reliable so far, if your battery were to fail I imagine you still have a gear of some sorts, no worse than a broken rear deralier.
Obviously the price is ridiculous for your average cyclist but I would expect this to drop considerably in time. The bike I had a go on was an ex demo carbon Focus, they wanted about £2000 for it or there abouts.

I wonder, if in the future the price point became very close to that of mechanical shifting whether the choice for many would be different. Maybe if they can't reduce the cost then it will fade away but having seen how most technology progresses maybe it's here to stay? Shimano aren't the only manufacturer on the bandwaggon.

PS disc brakes aren't lighter either but they seem to be the future on lightweight road bikes - most manufacturers have them in their range. Again the cost is higher, the gains small and specific hubs are required but I'd have them if the opportunity arose, not because of fashion but because I consider rim brakes so poor.

[[XAP]Bob]

There is the difference - rim brakes suffer in weather in a way that bowden cables don't...

A failed battery is likely to leave you with a virtual single speed, or is it more likely to fail mid shift (since that's where the power is used) and therefore give you a jumping mess between two sprockets?

But yes, if the price came down to aproximate parity with the bowden cable then it becomes a somewhat different equation, but you still have far more chance of 'bodging' a mechanical than an electronic system.
Hopefully you never need to do either, but if/when you do then it can be critically important...

[horizon]

I wonder, if in the future the price point became very close to that of mechanical shifting whether the choice for many would be different. Maybe if they can't reduce the cost then it will fade away but having seen how most technology progresses maybe it's here to stay? Shimano aren't the only manufacturer on the bandwaggon.

I'm with you on this one Dave W. I think it is the future. Mind you I think non-electric bikes (i.e. no motor) will be about 5% of the market in ten years' time so EGS will be in good company.

I parted with the future about 12 years ago so I'm in steel frame, 24 speed, V brake territory and for all sorts of practical reasons there I will stay. It's interesting that touring bikes occupied a sad niche for a few years and have come back with a vengeance so maybe will do again. In the meantime, we stock up on useful parts and let the market run its course. Don't forget, the marketing men persuaded a generation of young men that they needed to use deodorant. EGS will be a cinch by comparison. We live in a status and competition-driven society. Recycle EGS? - hmmm, that's a good question. Yes, it's the future all right.

[jb]

If the price drops and they become common I expect we'll soon have the option to power them from the dynamo ,thus the ethics of using only human power & the problem of battery failure will be gone for the tourist and commuter .

[horizon]

If the price drops and they become common I expect we'll soon have the option to power them from the dynamo ,thus the ethics of using only human power & the problem of battery failure will be gone for the tourist and commuter .

I'm not sure it's ethics. It's the principle of simplicity and self-reliance. In use there may be no difference between EGS and a mechanical system. But dig deeper and you reach a level of complexity that cannot be fixed except by replacing the part. That's the nature of electronics - it works until it doesn't. But we're now in the realm of personal preference and philosophy. I'm right in eschewing EGS (even when it becomes affordable); Dave W is right (IMV) when he says it's the future. My own quest for a simple, practical, reliable, fixable bike may be a fool's errand or just might be different from someone else's quest for a faster, slicker bike. Even I have to draw the line somewhere - I have LED lights and even to make a simple cable is obviously beyond me. But EGS sails outside my boundaries.

[Brucey]

I think that you only need to look at the kind of bikes that most people use for commuting on to realise that the chances of Di2/EPS being remotely suitable for the rough and tumble of everyday use is zero, batteries or not.

Most everyday bikes lead such hard lives that (in my town, in the hands of normal folk) they run cheap battery lights. In the main this is because dynamo systems just don't survive everyday use very well; the lights get knocked off, a tyre-driven generator will knocked, and most importantly the wiring will get snagged. The makers of dutch bikes now often don't bother with a rear dynamo light; a bike will usually come with a hub generator and a front light only because the rear is so much trouble. The front light and that short piece of wiring running to it break often.

When these systems fail often it isn't that they can't be fixed, it is that they can't be fixed for a reasonable amount, and even if they could, they would get broken again PDQ. Hence battery lights. I don't see much about EGS that is different from dynamo systems really, except that the components are more valuable (so more likely to get nicked) and less interchangeable from one system to another. But what about e-bikes?

In the Netherlands they have had more electric bikes for longer. Already there are patterns emerging. Good new electric bikes command a significant premium over cheaper ones because they don't go wrong so often and the spare parts backup is usually better. Even so when these bikes are outside the warranty period, the slightest fault with them often makes repair (in a bike shop) basically uneconomic. They are then sold (cheaply) for spare parts. Cheap ones with a fault are basically worthless, unrepairable junk. You see very few e-bikes that are obviously more than three years old being ridden around, (and the ones you do see normally look more like someone's hobby than practical transport) so you have to assume that this is about how long they last.

Touring is quite a lot like commuting except that there is more planning, less foul weather, and an implicit degree of enthusiasm to keep the bike working sweetly because after all, you are touring for pleasure. So I can see some tourists making EGS work for them where a commuter would abuse it to destruction in short order. But for this to be a popular option there would have to be an incentive of some kind (beyond that it is new and spangly and fitted to this year's model). A suitable incentive might be that it is
-cheaper
-lighter
-makes you go faster for less effort

but it doesn't seem to be or do any of these things.

A comparable example might be the cycle computer; it ought to be easy to fit one to every bike and they are certainly not expensive to buy. But the track record is that they are not reliable for all kinds of stupid reasons and 99% of everyday-use bikes don't have them fitted; there is just no point to it.

Bicycles are, at heart, wonderfully simple machines. Why make them more complicated than they need to be?

cheers

[MartinC]

13 pages and no-one's commented on the real significance of the technology.

Changing using electricity rather than cable pull isn't the paradigm shift - it's incorporating artificial intelligence into the shifter that is. A front shifter will time its shift to suit the shift gates on the chainring it's got. When the technology develops and gets cheaper to produce it opens up all sorts of marketable possibilities - e.g rear shifters that will sort out how many sprockets are on the cassette and what the spacing is, shifters that can overshift and autotrim just like we did before indexing arrived and we needed pre-worn sprockets and chains.

De-coupling shifting and braking controls is also useful. Use whatever brakes you like with whatever transmission you like.

It's disruptive technology. Intelligent shifting will be an open standard that will end the need for a groupset - if a shifter and a button can change gear on any rings and sprockets why do you need one. Have SRAM brakes, Campag front and Shimano (road or MTB, you choose) rear gears.

So all those early adopters are doing me a favour - they're paying for the manufacturers to develop it until it's useful for me. And if it doesn't happen then it won't have cost me anything. I watch with interest.

[MartinC]

..................Bicycles are, at heart, wonderfully simple machines. Why make them more complicated than they need to be?..........

Because we always do this to everything.

What my last post is saying is that net result of EGS will be to take us back to the situation pre-indexing and STI - mix and match whatever you like. Except the intelligence is in the kit not the rider.

[horizon]

Except the intelligence is in the kit not the rider.

You can say that again.

[MartinC]

Except the intelligence is in the kit not the rider.

You can say that again.

I have to admit that wasn't in my mind when I wrote it but it made me chuckle afterwards. There's something intrinsically ironic about the whole thing.

[Flinders]

....I think people should go for whatever bike or kit feels right for them, and whatever bike or kit gives them joy to ride, rather than what in theory is designed for the job....

sure, why not. I own and use bikes that are not at all practical, and some days I'll ride those if it pleases me; no real harm in that, its just a bit of fun....

But on the other side of the coin you get people that think they [b]need[/I] to have what looks to them to be 'a full-on race bike' just to go out on a sunday afternoon and get a few miles in. If they find that the bike is impractical, uncomfortable, and even unpleasant to ride , the me-too impulse can still be too strong for them...

cheers

They may decide that they get more pleasure on balance out of being able to show off their bike than they get in pain from being uncomfortable, however mad that might seem to the rest of us. Think of the camera gear freaks who in truth know nothing about images but get their kicks from showing off their gear and rubbishing every brand other than their own (which is usually Canon, and I speak as an unfashionable and humble Sony/Minolta user). I also think women who wear high heels whatever the terrain and skirts that barely cover their underwear whatever the weather are a bit mad, but if on balance that floats their boat and gives them confidence, then I guess that's what's best for them.

[Tonyf33]

God there a few moaners on here regarding other people's choices and even that of what manufacturers are designing/making.
If you haven't used it, don't intend to use it and it doesn't effect you and your cycling what the heck is your beef?
Also how much someone spends on their kit/bike is none of your business, full stop.

That X bit of kit might not (yet) be suitable for your type of cycling, or IYO not be 'worth it' or out of your price bracket is just how it is in all aspects of life, get over it and stop bashing it because of that.
There are the usual suspects on here that can't wait to bemaon stuff they don't possess themselves but can't wait to pathetically wade in with unfounded criticism, it's hilarious really, what sad lives they must lead
Why not just ride your bike and stop trying to put labels on everything, cycling is cycling, saying X belongs to or is only useful for X group again is a nonsense, various components/frames have being used and adapted over time to suit every aspect of cycling and long may it continue.

I've not long had Dura Ace 9000 but it's amazing, my next groupset/build possibly for touring/audax will incoporate electronic shifting though I might wait until 12 speed comes out, not sure 11 rear sprockets are enough for touring

[horizon]

I don't know why Dave W even asked but you'll have to ask him that. We were just being polite.

[jb]

I thought my Campag. Ergo 10 speed shifters were an over complication on a touring bike, a potential for unreliability and been stuck in the middle of nowhere.

But they've outlasted the frame