Mech vs electronic Gearsets

Di2, oh how i love it. I can't wait for the long summer rides on the best bike and being able to 'mouse click' my way through a thousand gear changes.

Listen, it's a luxury. For me a fast club rider who has no interest in racing, i don't really need it. However i got a deal on a frameset and Di2 gruppo so here i am. Can i ride a bike with mechanical, hell yeah and i do for the winter months.

In my view the Di2 just refines the experience, a bit like having power steering in a car. The main advantages as i see it are;

Tuning the gears once - that's it. No minor adjustments every few weeks or after cleaning.
No cable maintenance - no really, once they are installed that is it.
Shifting under braking - i love this. Pull the brake and mouse click your way down the block. Ever tried doing that with mechanical...
Shifter ergonomics - i got small hands so the shifters being a bit smaller just feel nicer to me.
Tight shifting all of the time - it never misses a shift once it has been tuned, honestly.
Multiple wheelsets - using the laptop (horror!) i have tuned both my rear wheels and have noted the rear mech micro adjustment for each. When swapping rear's i just need to tune the rear mech to the pre defined setting, no barrel adjustment frustrations for me.

As for all this guff regarding it making you faster i'm not sure that is a measurable element. Di2/ EPS is likely to be on a best bike, lighter, better wheel set and used in the dryer season when speeds increase anyway.

At last some common sense from Martin_k. I have di2 and a mechanical groupset. i much prefer the di2 electronic shifting for both reliability and ease of maintenance. Ive not had any issues yet and my giant tcr di2 has done 1700km and ive just charged it for the 3rd time since buying it. as for all that cheating nonesense well thats just silly, anything that is battery powered should not be used on a bike unless it measures something? I ride my bikes for fun and to keep fit, i'm almost 50 years old and care not one jot what anyone else thinks as its my choice and my preference. I enjoy my cycling, i really do but am i going to ride a grand tour? no! will i be racing a crit? i dont think so. do i want to ride a penny farthing? no so i go out on my modern bike with the best tech i can afford and enjoy my rides. The bit i especially like about di2 which beats mechanical shifting hands down is double shifts, dropping from large to small chain ring and dropping a cog or 2 on the rear is seamless which ive rarely experienced on mechanical gear changes and its usually when you need it most under load going uphill.

I'm starting to feel like an early adopter here. Got my Canyon Ultimate AL Di2 in July 2012. Done many thousands of miles without a single glitch, including the off when it was 6 weeks old that scuffed the rear mech and shifter. The 'go free' function saved the mech from anything other than cosmetic damage, but not the frame's mech hanger. So it's reliable and robust.

In terms of performance I don't want to go back to mechanical. I have cables on my TT bike and wish I could afford to swap that to Di2 as well. I think the performance benefits would be even greater there than on my road bike. I love the way you can front upshift even out of the saddle over the top of a rise, and the way you can go for a rear shift in a flat out sprint without destabilising yourself too much with a sticky out elbow shift. Won many races to roadsigns due to being able to take just one more gear at the last minute.

My only complaint is that the battery lasts too long between charges. As in it's almost fit and forget. As in I forget! Only ran low once, when I foolishly set off on a 100+ mile hilly ride without thinking about when I last charged it. User error in my book. And even then, a full charge is less than 2 hours.

I rode the original Dura Ace Di2 10 speed group about 1500 miles...

Electronic shifting is for people that want to spend money on their bike. Electronic offers the slightest of advantages in front shifting but no where near enough to justify the price/add complexity/weight.

The Pros ride electronic because it works (pros don't ride stuff that does not work) and BECASUE THEIR SPONSORS WANT THEM TO RIDE IT. That does not mean it is the best choice for you and me. I notice that as time goes on I am seeing connection problems with different parts of the Di2 system. So while you don't have to replace cables you end up fussing with other stuff. In a couple of more years we will see the servo motors start to fail.

Anyone that buys their bike parts should NOT be on electronic.

I have been considering changing to Di2 for a while and have been wondering if the derailleurs are the same for Di2 as they are for manual - is the Di2 derailleur mounted on a mechanical moving part or is it built into the derailleur so it is £x more than the manual?

I've been riding for 30 years + now and I can't recall having broken a mech or cable in all of that time. Chains yes. Seatposts yes. Wheels yes.

I'm not going to replace a system that works perfectly well with one that is slightly less reliable and more expensive. Even if the pros are using it.

A lot of comments refer to pros riding what there sponsors tell them to. That may be true to an extent but there are two top level teams which currently buy Shimano groupsets and are not sponsored and they opt for Di2. Of course, I could be sceptical and assume Shimano refuse to supply mechanical groupsets. I can't see them going back to mechanical. It could be why Sram only have one team this year.

I am a convert to Di2. It works faultlessly and is really easy for a home mechanic to set up. I reckon I can get to a plug every couple of months, so that's no problem.

Next, I will slightly undermine my argument by writing that Di2 lends itself to a few (non) essential add ons. My Garmin could show me which gear I'm in, which I reckon will save me 0.5 Watts on neck movements over five hours. I can have a remote shifter on the bar tops for climbing, although I haven't. It's now possible to analyse your gear changes after a ride, again I don't, but the new Strava kudos may be for getting up a climb in the highest gear!

On my TT bike, Di2 shifters on both the extensions and bars are a boon.

Mechanical every time. Whatever goes wrong, I can fix it, most problems even on the road. I want to feel connected with my bike, and electronic removes some of that. But hey, chacun a son gout, (as they say, with some other punctuation, in some cycling country or other)

Mechanical every time. Whatever goes wrong, I can fix it, most problems even on the road. I want to feel connected with my bike, and electronic removes some of that. But hey, chacun a son gout, (as they say, with some other punctuation, in some cycling country or other)

Mechanical every time. Whatever goes wrong, I can fix it, most problems even on the road. I want to feel connected with my bike, and electronic removes some of that. But hey, chacun a son gout, (as they say, with some other punctuation, in some cycling country or other)

Hi Scrufftie - are you referring to Tinkoff with the non-sponsored comment? You know they will run the new FSA once it's unveiled right? They run a mix now but will move over in due course. So...

I'm surprised at the comparisons some of you have made, to carbon frames, gearing etc. They don't require external power sources so how can you compare them to an electronic gear.

That's the test - aero, weight reduction, cabling, gearing are just making more efficient use of your own power. Electronic is bringing in power from another source. Even disc brakes are OK.

@Fukawitribe gets the prize though. If a bike is simply a two wheeled vehicle then I could stick anything on like, say a 500cc motor. Yes it's a bike, a motorbike, but I think you'd raise a few eyebrows at the start line for Paris-Nice. Do you think in the UCI rules and regulations there isn't a prohibition against motorised vehicles. If there isn't then I'll enter the Tour this year.

And this is a concern regarding the introduction of electronic gearing. What's to stop it being taken further with some sort of KERS system for bikes. That would even fit my definition of using your own power but I think we would all agree it was wrong.

It's really quite simple - anything that requires a battery or energy storage in order to assist the progress of the bike is going beyond the definition of what a bike has been for the last 100 years. You might as well be riding a Yamaha.

Here's an idea to stop us from having to worry about battery life and power consumption. Charge the system's battery from solar and with a small dynamo on the top jockey wheel, run a cable down the drive side chainstay to power the front derailer.

Quote:

Go ahead, it's your choice, but when I look at someone riding EPS or Di2 I see a cheat.

Sent by carrier pigeon, I hope, you electrical correspondent slacker!

"when I look at someone riding EPS or Di2 I see a cheat."

Bit harsh abudhabiChris! LOL.
Before you say anything I use mechanical :-P

A bike is a human powered vehicle. Once you use external power to assist part of the drive train of the bike it is no longer completely human powered.

It's not the same as having a power meter which is simply measuring your output, or a computer, or aero wheels or anything like that. Saving energy and measuring energy are not the same as contributing energy.

For that simple reason I will not ride electronic gears. I have had the option at very low cost on a team bike and turned it down.

Anyone riding electronic gears is no longer riding a bike. Go ahead, it's your choice, but when I look at someone riding EPS or Di2 I see a cheat.

If you back off the power for the split second as you change under load, you reduce the damage you cause the drivetrain, this is easy to feel on mechanical as it is a direct feedback, but less so with electronic as you are isolated, and I think not feeling the connection may lead many to think it's okay to do with impunity, and judging by the comments above many think that as it does it easily, it is okay to do.
I understand the necessity to change under heavy load at times, but don't think it should be thought of as a normal thing to do, unless you are happy to change chains and cassettes regularly.
I can't imagine ever knowing a road so well that I knew in advance what gear to be in. I tend to change as required, I just do it before I get myself into the situation where it's under heavy load

I've also built quite a few EPS and Di2 bikes for people, and it is a nice system that works well. I have seen some weird problems that have been ride stoppers for the owners, that would have been easy fixes for the equivalent mechanical version.

The argument that it changes easier under load uphill seems to run counter to all the wisdom that I was taught as a novice rider, that you never change gear under heavy load, get your gear selection right at the start of the hill, and always take the load off as you change, should you have to.
The fact that electronic shifting is isolating you from how much effort it is taking to drag the chain across rings and sprockets, does not mean that it is not doing the same damage to your drive-train that it does to a mechanical group. It's bad form in my opinion.

I still ride 7800 despite having access to Di2 at trade prices, and if I were to upgrade it would be to 9000 mechanical, as that really does seem to be the best a mechanical group is liable to get, unlike 7900 which was a backward step.

I really do doubt the extra speed of electronic shifting argument, surely there will be a minute drop in power as the chain passes between sprockets, so saying that more shifting equals more speed seems somewhat specious.

In response to the OP: I don’t want electronic gears, thanks. In fairness, I’ve only tried it at shows; the front derailleur made a wicked whirring noise that felt very 21st century! I can see that it might offer a marginal advantage if you’re say, a road racer and want to get the jump on someone in a sprint. (Although even then, changing your cadence can be quicker than changing gear.) But I don’t really want more batteries on my bike. I like that my bike is fully serviceable and fixable by me. And I like that it’s wholly human powered. If you want to go faster through Strava segments, meanwhile, you need to train harder and reduce you and your bike’s combined air resistance, rolling resistance, and weight; electronic shifters will not do those things.