Electronic shifting and off-road reliability

[zzyzzx]

My vintage 1990 Shimano Exage components will probably wildly outlast all this electronic garbage.

 

[MRC01]

My vintage 1990 Shimano Exage components will probably wildly outlast all this electronic garbage.

I would say they already have! I doubt any electronic system bought this year will still be working in 2050. Planned obsolescence is part of that system, for example batteries they stop making after 5 or 10 years, logic boards fail and aren't made anymore, etc.

That said, riders who buy an "upgrade" bike every 5-10 years won't care.

 

[97prizm]

As a person who has been in the bike industry since the Ultra 6 freewheel was a big deal I feel qualified to comment. Most of what’s happened in cycling since the 90s isn’t good. Today the expectation is that you’ll spend 10 to 20 thousand dollars on a bicycle that you’ll replace in five years. To my way of thinking this is insane. It’s exactly the opposite of what initially attracted me to cycling.
Having said that, from a purely performance standpoint, e shifting is a real breakthrough, and quite reliable. Most people who have it don’t know how it works or how to install or update it. If they do, and use it properly it’s extremely unlikely they’ll get stranded.
Personally, my larger objection is philosophical. At what point does your GPS equipped ebike with electronic shifting and adaptive lighting become a BMW scooter? I’m not judging anyone. I do think it’s ironic that not long ago you could get a top of the line, handcrafted bicycle that was fully serviceable and would last forever while living in a world in which you were free to burn all the sub one dollar gasoline you wanted. Now we’re living in a society that’s brainwashed everyone that the environment and social justice are the biggest problems we have, and we no longer fix or keep things but throw them away and replace them. If anyone thinks cycling is environmentally friendly in 2024 he’s nuts. And imagine what your grandpa would have thought if you told him that you’d be buying a thousand dollar telephone and throwing it away every few years to buy another.

If I drop 20k on a road bike is sure as all get out be the last one I'll ever need.

 

[Haakon]

Tubeless tyres and disc brakes and dropper posts are all excellent innovations in recent decades. Electric gears and headset routed cables can both eat a duck...

I enjoy the tactility of mechanical gears, as well as the lower cost and improved reliability (and the chance to perform a trackside repair if need be!).

 

[853okg]

If I drop 20k on a road bike is sure as all get out be the last one I'll ever

Tubeless tyres and disc brakes and dropper posts are all excellent innovations in recent decades. Electric gears and headset routed cables can both eat a duck...

I enjoy the tactility of mechanical gears, as well as the lower cost and improved reliability (and the chance to perform a trackside repair if need be!).

In your opinion. You don’t have to agree with me for me to respect your choice. There are a lot of cyclists who can’t live without a gel pad. They’re not “wrong.” I know a lot of septuagenarians who insist on carbon frames and aero wheels and never crack 20 mph. I don’t argue with them. All that matters, to me, is that they’re enjoying cycling.

 

[Haakon]

In your opinion. You don’t have to agree with me for me to respect your choice. There are a lot of cyclists who can’t live without a gel pad. They’re not “wrong.” I know a lot of septuagenarians who insist on carbon frames and aero wheels and never crack 20 mph. I don’t argue with them. All that matters, to me, is that they’re enjoying cycling.

Settle down tiger… Its just my opinion

I mean, obviously I’m right but that’s true of everything anyway

 

[853okg]

It does go without saying. Tyros who would rather rely on fragile, overpriced junk than do the real work of developing skills nearly always suffer from delusions of grandeur. But that’s, just like, you know, my opinion, man.

 

[#18FAN]

Now we're talking I'd like to take a pull on that.

 

[Jack Watts]

Last weekend I rode the Cascade Gravel Grinder in Sisters, OR. I encountered 4 riders whose electronic shifting failed on them during the ride. 2 of them were by the side of the road waiting for the support crew, and 2 of them finished the ride on their newly minted "single-speed" bikes, falling far behind the lead of course. I don't know of any mechanical shifting failures, though they may have happened.

And of course Lachlan Morton famously had the same problem on last year's Tour Divide. When he spoke afterward, someone asked him why he used electronic instead of mechanical shifting on such a long, remote, rugged ride. He replied, "Because I'm an idiot". You don't make it through a ride like that without having a sense of humor.

Levity aside, I wonder if we will see demand for mechanical shifting for rides in remote rugged terrain. My friend is doing the tour divide this year with his new electronic drivetrain and it introduces hassles you don't get with mechanical shifting: bring multiple batteries, how to charge them on the road, etc. And also, it seems, higher risk of failure.

Your thoughts & experiences?

Done a ton of riding and racing out that way, incredible riding! Sounds like a great time.

My experience? The only shifter that's ever left me stranded was mechanical (snapped at the head, let the cable go too long--my fault). I have electronic SRAM on my MTB (zero cables), Shimano on my road bike. I'm never going back. Full disclosure, I was diagnosed in my 40's with severe arthritis in my thumb/hand, so this is a factor (thanks mom! genetic condition and I'm bailing water on it until I have a pretty invasive surgery to fix it). So, my love of Di2 and Etap is related in part to this. It's MUCH easier for me to use.

The other thing though is that with electronic shifting, it shifts the same no matter what (until you break something); with mechanical shifting, the shifting slowly starts degrading (faster, if you ride in bad weather) right after you install a new cable. Living, training, and racing in the PNW for a couple of decades, this meant a lot more maintenance.

I'm looking at doing TransAlp next year, and if I do it, I'm absolutely using my XX1 with batteries... Unsupported 3 month tour through Africa or something like that? Yeah, I'd consider mechanical shifting. But that's a really narrow use case. Tour Divide? Yeah, that's actually a tough one, because of the battery charging thing. For that, I would probably go mechanical, but also, it's not a common thing.

 

[MRC01]

... The other thing though is that with electronic shifting, it shifts the same no matter what (until you break something); with mechanical shifting, the shifting slowly starts degrading (faster, if you ride in bad weather) right after you install a new cable. Living, training, and racing in the PNW for a couple of decades, this meant a lot more maintenance. ...

I appreciate your opinion but I must say that mechanical shifting shouldn't degrade over time, at least it never has for me. Unless you mean initial break-in. With a new bike or cable, mechanical shifting degrades a bit after the first thousand miles or so as the cable stretches a bit. After this initial wear-in period, the stretching is done, make one simple adjustment and it shifts like new again for decades and many thousands of miles.

BTW, sounds like we're in the same area. I too am in the PNW and ride Tiger and other great trails out here. Also ride through Oregon, Colorado and Utah.

 

[Jack Watts]

I appreciate your opinion but I must say that mechanical shifting shouldn't degrade over time, at least it never has for me. Unless you mean initial break-in. With a new bike or cable, mechanical shifting degrades a bit after the first thousand miles or so as the cable stretches a bit. After this initial wear-in period, the stretching is done, make one simple adjustment and it shifts like new again for decades and many thousands of miles.

BTW, sounds like we're in the same area. I too am in the PNW and ride Tiger and other great trails out here. Also ride through Oregon, Colorado and Utah.

I mean, I think context is important, so I'll mention a couple of things:
1) I've spent most of my adult life in the bike industry, and 3 decades training and racing. So, you know what the LAST thing I want to do in my free time? Work on my bike... With Di2, I have absolutely nothing to do after initial set-up. For me, mechanical doesn't work that way. Not exaggerating, on my bike and my wife's bike, we're going on over 40K miles on 11 speed Ultegra Di2 and I've never adjusted the shifting. Not once.
2) we both ride a lot, a lot of it used to be in bad weather; I probably do 10-12K a year, she does about 12-14K a year as she commutes in addition to training/racing. So, we've both worn out STI levers. IME, a Dura Ace brifter will last 25-30K miles before the performance is unacceptable. BUT, it starts deteriorating before that. They get slopping, and you start doing a "half-friction" shift, and it just doesn't feel good. Plus, if you let the cables go too long in lousy weather, they get gunked up and don't shift as well.

A phrase I haven't heard a single time since I switched her to Di2..."hey, can you take a look at my shifting, please!?". This alone makes it worth it to me! Of course, she's super finicky, whereas I'll just deal with a bike that doesn't shift great. But, this has been my experience.

One thing I'll mention, at least on the road side of things, STI mechanical levers are far more complex (and more costly to produce when you subtract the R&D costs) for Shimano. The tooling along for mechanical shifters will make your head explode. This is why Shimano is getting out of the mechanical shift game. So for those who rant about "overly complex $@!@", I have news for you--an integrated mechanical shifter is the height of bicycle complexity. Honestly, in my experience everything about road Di2 is better, except the price---and I expect that will continue to drift down. It works better, it's a lot easier to route the cables in an aerodynamic fashion (pretty much a requirement for a competition-level bike), it shifts faster and better under load, and front shifting is orders of magnitude better.

On the mountain side? The calculus is a bit different, and harder to justify, IMO. I have electronic XX1 and my wife has manual XX1. Shifting is really close between the two. She can dump a bunch of gears faster than I can, but I can more easily make the "oh @##" shift which invariably comes up riding unfamiliar terrain. Here, it's more a concession to the problems with my hands, and for me electronic is easier to use. I also can't really speak to the long-term reliability first-hand, because I ride the MTB far less. Everyone I know that uses AXS loves it. That said, you'll pry my AXS dropper from my cold, dead hands... I do carry an extra battery with me, so I've never had an issue there.

Anyway, not trying to convince anyone of anything--you asked for folks' experience, and this is mine!

We are former neighbors! We cashed out of Seattle and moved to Mallorca. The riding, both road and off-road is next level out here, and I will never use the term "rain bike" again!

EDIT: I should mention that my "road" bike has seen extensive gravel use as well. I have a gravel bike, but I'm able to fit a 35mm Terraspeed on my Caledonia, so I end up doing a lot of inappropriate riding (up to mild singletrack) on it. So, my 40K mile Di2 has seen a pretty hard life, out of spec cassettes (11-36), plenty of crashes and general abuse.