Electronic Shifting - Is it worth it, and do you need it? - Road Cycling

one question on the lips of most riders with a Mechanical group set is is there really any benefit to upgrading to an electronic group set well in this video we're going to answer exactly that welcome back to the channel I'm John the rebel Valley cyclist now YouTube is absolutely a listed with videos where people have got electronic group sets and Mechanical group sets and put them side by side and compare them in my opinion it's a complete waste of time because technically electronic is a better group set but the question I'm here to answer is not whether it's better or not is it worth it and will you see a benefit Shimano surprised us all by only offering ultegra in di2 and then they went and knocked the whole industry sideways by doing exactly the same thing with 105 the group set for the people that's aimed at the entry level Pro furthermore we're now seeing manufacturers from China like eltru and even they're going down the road of electronic shifting and then we're even seeing bike manufacturers like pinarello for example with their top frame that is only compatible with di2 so the manufacturers are pushing electronic shifting in and forcing mechanical shifting out the price difference between the old mechanical 105 and its new di2 counterpart is roughly 750 pounds and it's a similar story for ultegra 750 pounds difference that's a lot of money what could you do with 750 pound on your bike you could put yourself a very nice set of carbon wheels on there and still have change left over for a nice set of flash tires and applied at the pub at the end of the night there's no point in talking about what electronic shifting can do that mechanical shifting can't it's a pointless conversation because electronic shifting has got loads and loads of additional features that mechanical shifting hasn't got and will never have but let's ignore all of that the Bluetooth the the di2 hidden buttons the synchronous shifting let's just look at the two group sets as group sets and discuss what's good and what's bad right so first off let's talk about where electronic shifting has the edge over mechanical and the first point shifting both group sets do it well pawporn does it a lot better this bike here running di2 press button click changed none of that stuck between two sprockets on the cassette and on the front none of that come off the power force the lever over wait for the chain to climb up from the from this morning into the big bang done it straight away press the button it's on the top ring now in shimano's case they achieve this perfect shift in using something that not many people talk about called micro shift where what it does is it over shifts over compensates so that the so that the shift is guaranteed and then just trims itself back once the shift is completed another great feature is the front and rear mix work together as a team and what will happen is the front Mech will automatically trim itself to accommodate where the rear Mech is no need for you to trim it yourself manually so when it comes down to shift quality electronic wins every single time because electronic shifting can do something that the human just cannot do with a mechanical lever one of the biggest difference I've personally noticed is maintenance once a di2 group set is installed there is little to no maintenance on it set it and forget it because after all electronic wires theoretically shouldn't wear out however gear cables do they need regular maintenance you need to keep your item keep them clean and then one day when you least expect it it will Snap On You and then you've got with a modern bike like this one down here you've got that nightmare that is internally rooted cables don't even get me started on that one one point that is rarely discussed when comparing mechanical and electronic is control if you are doing a technical tight steep descent you will need to break steer and change gear simultaneously and if you're running a Mechanical group set that can be really hard to do you're right if you're running a Mechanical group set next time you're out on your bike try changing gear and braking simultaneously it's really hard to do if you're running an electronic group set simple pull the brake little finger press the button change this gear every time so in that regard electronic shifting wins hands down another Point that's rarely discussed with electronic shifting is adaptive shifting you may suffer from limited movement arthritis for example and you which could result in you not being able to ride a bike but with electronic shifting press of a button it's just a light feather touch and this may get you back on your bike again and you get the more extreme scenarios where somebody needs both shifters on one side of the bike and with an electronic group set you can do this I've tried to do this with mechanical grip sets in the past where you have both shifts on one side of the bars and it sort of can be done using various types of levers but it's a mess so in that regard if you've got some kind of restrictive movement then di2 is fantastic so you can find in this content useful do me a huge favor and hit the like button and if bike maintenance and servicing is your thing then make sure you hit subscribe and the bell icon and then you'll get notified every time I upload a video right so now let's go and have a look at what's not so good about electronic shifting as mentioned previously the cost difference between the group sets cannot be ignored however in my opinion the cost difference between the components is a much bigger issue here when you break something which you will you are going to be in a world of pain so let's take a look at this bike running ultegra 8000 di2 that rear derailleur is 239 pounds that is 166 pounds more than its mechanical cousin now in the last few years I've broken a couple of red arrays and I really hope I don't break that one a lever which is easily snapped in a crash or a drop 200 pounds for a lever sat in here is a battery and when it eventually dies because it's a battery so it will eventually die that little battery is about that long 150 pounds well and at the point of making this video those three components that I've just described nobody's got any in stock however mechanical red Ralia plenty of stock levers left and right plenty of stock another big negative of electronic shifting is when that battery goes flat this is the one that amuses all the mechanical Riders now you if if you're a rider of mechanical you'd look at that and think how do you do that it's actually quite easy because the group set uses next to no power so you get on your bike and it says 100 and then you check it three days later it says 98 eventually you give up looking and that's when it catches you out and boom flat battery and if the battery dies in the middle of a ride you are stuck in whatever gear it died in until you get home another tricky part of living with di2 can be the small shifter buttons now hear me out if you are on a winter ride and you're wearing your big thick winter mittens or winter gloves these two buttons that are really close together and hardly move it can be very fiddly to work out which one's which through big winter gloves a Mechanical group set because it's got that long sweep it's reassuring to know that the change you're doing is the change you intended to do now although an electronic group set is a lot more reliable than a Mechanical group set it can be a nightmare if it goes wrong especially if it gets that really annoying intermittent fault for example I had one in the other week where the shifter cable had been fitted very tight and when the rider was up on the hood intermittently it would unplug the cable and it's just lose all shifting other ones you see down here this cable runs very very close to the back wheel on some frames so that cable is vulnerable the cables are very fragile and as I say if you're out and about and you get a thought on the road you're really going to struggle to repair this group set and let's say for example you're out touring and something actually breaks can you imagine limping into a local bike shop in some random town somewhere saying hiya mate have you got a left di2 shifter or a battery or a doralia good luck with that they're not going to have it in stock but if it was a Mechanical group set then the chances are if you did snap off a derailleur and even if you didn't have the the Shimano Dura Ace One he'd have the Shimano ultegra one or you know what he might even botch up a SRAM one for you and he's gonna have brake gear cables and all of that sort of stuff so in that regard although di2 on electronic shifting is more reliable if and when it does go wrong it can be a real headache so before you spend your hard-earned money on an electronic group set how about you ask yourself a few questions for example would it make you a faster cyclist okay so here is a picture of me riding up what some say is the hardest climb in England would electronic shifting got me over that climb any quicker no and here's another photograph of me doing a ride in London last year where I set myself a PB to complete the relatively long circuit in an amount of time and do I think electronic shifting would have got me around that course any quicker if I'm honest I don't think it would have done or if it did it would have been marginal is electronic shifting more reliable than mechanical shifting as mentioned previously yes without a doubt it is more reliable however that comes with a word of warning because if it does fail you're unlikely to be able to repair it roadside and if you do limp into a local bike shop depending on how shall we say modern that bike shop is there is a little chance that they're going to be able to help you with your problem will electronic shifting make my life easier yes it will because as mentioned previously it's more reliable so you don't have to dick around with it so much and it doesn't get on your nerves so much because it just works is electronic shifting good value for money well that depends on your personal circumstance if you're after marginal gains perfect shifting every time you're Racing for example then yes if you're you know really into your gadgets and you want to control your head unit through your hidden buttons on your levers or you want to control your back light then yes it's great and you may get value for money however if all you do is plod around with your mates at 13 mile an hour on a Saturday doing a cafe run then I suspect you're going to struggle to see value out of an electronic group set does electronic shifting do a better job yes as mentioned previously it's a superior shift click shift click shift you get a perfect shift every time and also it doesn't need a great deal of Maintenance as long as you keep it clean it will work perfectly as I'm just going to bend it or break it it will work perfectly every time the manufacturers have got what is basically a perfectly good solution that does a perfectly good job and made it better now if you want to find out a little bit more about electronic shifting in particular shimano's di2 check that video up there and if you want to know what I feel are the 10 things that you should take on every bike ride you go on check that video down there thanks for watching

Channel: Ribble Valley Cyclist

Views: 343,725

Keywords: workshop, cyclist, cycling, roadie, road cycling, bike repair, bike maintenance, bike workshop, cycling workshop, cycle repair, cycling kit, uk cycling, cycling uk, ribble valley, ribble valley cycling, cycling life, bike life, Bikerepair, bikemaintenance, bikeworkshop, cyclingworkshop, cyclerepair, cyclingkit, UKCycling, CyclingUK, ribblevalley, ribblevalleycycling, cyclinglife, bikelife, roadcycling

Id: yZhXc1Cr3ps

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023