10 things you didn't know your electronic groupset could do! How to get the most out of Shimano Di2 and SRAM AXS

Electronic groupsets have slowly but surely taken over the road cycling world, and they can now do a lot more than 'just' change gear. Whether you’ve got a Shimano Di2 or a Sram AXS groupset, there are all manner of hidden functions that most people just don’t know about. Here are some tips and tricks that we think you really should know.

> Your complete guide to electronic gears

The first few tricks are for those of you using a Shimano Di2 groupset, so if you’re a Sram AXS user then feel free to skip ahead to tips four and five.

How fast can you shift?

> Review: Shimano Ultegra R8170 Di2 Disc Groupset

First up, did you know that Shimano allows you to speed up how quickly your bike can change gear on its Di2 groupsets? Well, now you know!

All you need to do is go into the e-tube phone app and change whether you want the multishift gear changes to be very fast, fast, normal, slow or very slow.

Especially on this latest generation of Shimano 12-speed groupsets, the shifting is already pretty darn quick, but we’ve had no reliability issues using it on the fast setting for even more snappy changes. This is particularly useful when grabbing a handful of gears at the bottom of a climb.

Automatic shifting!?

Do you find yourself cross-chaining or staying in either the big or little ring longer than perhaps you should? Well, this next trick might be for you!

Shimano’s sequential and semi-sequential shifting is kind of like giving your bike an automatic gearbox. Maybe that’s exaggerating a bit, but here’s how it works:

With sequential shifting selected, you can almost completely forget about changing between the big and little rings. As you get towards the top of the cassette it automatically drops you down into the little ring, and then vice versa as you begin to go through the gears again as you pick up speed. You can even program on which rear sprocket you want to change to the front ring.

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My personal favourite, though, is Shimano’s semi-synchronised shift. This still gives you control over when you change from little ring to big ring or the other way around, but when you do, it also changes a gear or two (whatever you select) at the back.

We’ve found this can eliminate the big changes in cadence that you can sometimes get as you drop down to the little ring.

The secret buttons

While you’re messing about in the E-Tube app, we’d also recommend setting up the auxiliary buttons. They're the hidden ones on the tops of the hoods on the shifters.

There’s one on either side and they can be programmed to do all manner of things, from changing gear to changing screen on your cycle computer.

My personal favourite is to have one set up as a lap button, so that during intervals I don’t have to take my hands off the bars. It’s the little things!

Battery status on your cycle computer

> 7 reasons why you should get electronic shifting

One of the main negatives of electronic gears is that at some point you will inevitably forget to charge them. Both Shimano and SRAM have little lights on the mechs to indicate their charge; but let's be honest, who looks at them?

I’ve found that since I’ve set up a data field on my head unit displaying the charge, I’ve had far fewer tears out on the road due to flat batteries. You can do this on both Garmin and Wahoo head units, and although it’s probably not a metric you’ll want on the first page, it is a good one to have tucked away to check on a regular basis.

Current gear selection on head unit

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Another cool data field for your head unit is the current gear selection. Once again, this is possible with both Shimano and SRAM groupsets.

The 'gears' field gives you a visual aid as to which gear you’re currently in. We spotted quite a few pros choosing to have this on their data screens at last year's Dauphine.

While this probably won’t make you any faster, it might save you that nasty surprise when you go to grab another gear on a steep gradient, only to find that there’s none left. This graphic will automatically change to the amounts of speeds your bike has when it connects to the groupset.

The easier way to index

> Get your gears shifting sweetly: How to tune a rear derailleur

Indexing gears is quite a bit different if you’ve migrated from a mechanical groupset. You now do this using the shifters rather than down at the mech on both Shimano Di2 and SRAM AXS groupsets.

On Sram AXS you can also move the mech in tiny 0.2mm increments using the AXS phone application, allowing for some super accurate fettling.

My favourite way to index my gears is now using the AXS phone app. This way I don’t have to find the tiny buttons behind the shifters, and it even tells me what gear I’m meant to be in so there’s no chance I can index my gears incorrectly. 

Because there are no cables to 'stretch' (we know it's usually the outer seating rather than the inner cable stretching) you probably won’t need to make use of this feature very often. It can save you a lot of time if you have multiple wheelsets that you switch between bikes, or if you use your bike on the turbo and get that annoying rasping sound when you gears are a little bit out.

For the data nerds

Now, this one is for the data nerds out there (I think that probably includes me!)

You’ve probably already seen that when you get back from a ride you can see your number of gear shifts in the Wahoo or Garmin apps; but did you know that you can log in to axs.sram.com for even more stats?

Not only can you see the number of front and rear derailleur shifts, but you can also see shifts per kilometre, what gears you use the most by both time and distance, and if you also use a power meter you can see in which gears you’ve averaged the most watts.

Let's be honest, a lot of this information is of limited use, but it could highlight that alternative gearing might be better suited to your riding.

Multishift: three gears at once or the whole block?

Mulitshifting is kind of what it sounds like. In the AXS app you can choose how you want the rear mech to respond when you hold down a shifter paddle. For example, I’ve got mine to shift through the entire block if I hold down the button, but you might prefer to set it to just change one, two or three gears depending on your personal preference.

Gone are the days when we all had to make do with a one groupset for all approach, because electronic groupsets now allow for a whole heap of customisation. 

Checking charge levels in the app

Even though on SRAM you can swap the batteries between the mechs if one runs out, it’s still probably best to stay on top of your charging. Each mech battery is said to last for 60 riding hours, and the CR2032 coin cell batteries in the shifters usually last a year. Even so, before a big event or trip away I like to check their charge.

You can do this by looking at the tiny lights on the inner face of the shifter lever but it’s even easier in the app. Here you can see the charge levels of each individual component giving you peace of mind before that trip away.

Blips

> SRAM releases wireless eTap AXS Blips for shifting anywhere on your bars

If you’re someone who likes climbing on the tops then it might annoy you that you have to go back to the shifters to change gear. It might seem like a bit of a faff to set up climbing shifters, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

SRAM’s latest blips are completely wireless, and you can stick them just about anywhere using the provided double-sided 3M tape.

That means you could stick them to the drops under your bar tape and use them as sprint shifters, you could put them on the underside of your bars and use them when climbing, or you could attach them to a set of clip-on aero bars so you can change gear without coming off them.

Will you be trying any of these or are there any that you think we’ve missed? Let us know in the comments section below.