The Electronic era in cycling

[Paul Ruinaard]

1 hour ago, lechatnoir said:

I put AXS on my mtb and am loving it. The reason being i lopped the end of my right thumb off and mechanical shifting is not happening, so in order to actually ride my bike, I had to drop some loot. The money was worth it, the amputation, not-so-much

so in cycling speak you cut your thumb mostly off to justify an inordinately expensive upgrade. Thats your story and thats what you told your wife 😉

 

[MTBRIDER1234]

For me personally, I love how clean bars look with no dropper or shift cables but... charging the batteries is putting me off. I just want to hop on my bike and go for a lekker ride, I don't want to have to wait to charge things - and being the forgetful person I occasionally am - I would forget to put the batteries back in the dropper and derailleur haha

Also to me the feel of axs is 'dead',  I like the defined click and feel of cable shifting.

Plus cable shifting is easy to work on, cheap and I won't be bummed when I smash a derailleur off 

[lechatnoir]

6 minutes ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

so in cycling speak you cut your thumb mostly off to justify an inordinately expensive upgrade. Thats your story and thats what you told your wife 😉

 

causation <> correlation. Put this way, I'd give you all my bikes if I could have my 12mm back. i hope you take a medium...

[liebenw]

For me it was a relatively easy decision. Was still riding 2x10 and I told myself that once the drivetrain was "moer toe",  I would upgrade to GX AXS. About 8 rides in and absolutely loving it.

I'm on Campy 11 spd on road bike. It's going to take a very long time to ride it "moer toe" and even then I would never afford their electronic groupsets 😞

 

[SwissVan]

Yes i like to hear "only one click" 

[JA-Q001]

16 minutes ago, liebenw said:

For me it was a relatively easy decision. Was still riding 2x10 and I told myself that once the drivetrain was "moer toe",  I would upgrade to GX AXS. About 8 rides in and absolutely loving it.

I'm on Campy 11 spd on road bike. It's going to take a very long time to ride it "moer toe" and even then I would never afford their electronic groupsets 😞

 

Strange enough Campagnolo seems to be the only one going parallel electric only on their top Group atm. Maybe they don't see a cost effective way to truly scale it down.

[madmarc]

3 hours ago, dave303e said:

I was not keen on the idea, but my new bike came with AXS. I can tell you now I will never buy another cable shifting bike ever. When the Mrs bike next needs to be serviced it is also getting the AXS upgrade.

It just works, shifts are exact. You don't faff as much with shifts and setting up cable tension etc. 

The AXS also has the overload clutch which allows the derailleur to move out the way, so there is no longer the need to carry a spare drop out/hanger.

My next dream(and potential ultra tinker project) power meter + AXS + Cadence Meter + gps input + AI algorithm = Auto shifting bicycle

Also would love to see more like Dangerholm's internal handlebar shifter.

 

I'm convinced this will be the next big thing from SRAM - An AI that takes your power and HR profile and auto shifts you into the most efficient / fastest gear while riding. 

Imagine climbing a hill - the AI takes the segment off strava and knows the gradient and distance - takes your current power being produced and knows your ftp - takes your current HR and knows your HR zones - auto shifts to the best gear and tells you what cadence you need to produce to get to the top of the climb in the fastest time without puking up a lung.

With me it will simply put it in the granny gear and tell me to walk faster 

[madmarc]

42 minutes ago, liebenw said:

For me it was a relatively easy decision. Was still riding 2x10 and I told myself that once the drivetrain was "moer toe",  I would upgrade to GX AXS. About 8 rides in and absolutely loving it.

I'm on Campy 11 spd on road bike. It's going to take a very long time to ride it "moer toe" and even then I would never afford their electronic groupsets 😞

 

You will never ride Campy "moer toe" you can only ever run it in

[madmarc]

1 hour ago, MTBRIDER1234 said:

For me personally, I love how clean bars look with no dropper or shift cables but... charging the batteries is putting me off. I just want to hop on my bike and go for a lekker ride, I don't want to have to wait to charge things - and being the forgetful person I occasionally am - I would forget to put the batteries back in the dropper and derailleur haha

Also to me the feel of axs is 'dead',  I like the defined click and feel of cable shifting.

Plus cable shifting is easy to work on, cheap and I won't be bummed when I smash a derailleur off 

A spare battery in your pocket between the smokes and the BIC lighter and you be sorted

[PhilipV]

3 hours ago, Paul Ruinaard said:

 

 It's just what we will need to get used to. Tech moves on and its always better, and more expensive.

 

You try and buy a car today with manual transmission that is better and easier to drive than the new generation car gearboxes. Same argument. You remove complexity and create simpler more integrated systems which operate better together than the older mechanical versions becuas ethey are optimised. Which is why auto boxes are used in F1 and not manual shifts.

 

 

And yet both my wife's VW DSG and my Isuzu Smoother auto boxes have had us in trouble. I lost a lot of work while waiting for that Isuzu to be sorted out. So much so that I bought an old truck to have as back up. 30 years old, manual gearbox. Still starts one time. 320k kms, still in it's first clutch . VWSA is still waiting for parts to fix Wifey's car. Going on two weeks already....

The VW DSG box is a hoot to drive, and the Isuzu box is on its original clutches at 460k kms, so yes, there is merit to auto boxes. But they will never be bomb proof. 

 

I'll be one of the last to be dragged kicking and screaming into electronic drivetrains. Hopefully shimano Deore will take forever to go there. And I'll always  have a singlespeed. 

[Dexter-morgan]

I got spoiled a while ago, I bought a second hand Trek Domane5.9 with 10 speed Di2 it was a treat to ride and the external battery lasted "forever" , until the bike got written by insurance, I now have Ultegra R8000 very nice but can not compare to Di2, saying that when the Ultegra has new cables and adjusted properly it is very nice and can not justify the expense to "upgrade"

[The Ouzo]

33 minutes ago, madmarc said:

I'm convinced this will be the next big thing from SRAM - An AI that takes your power and HR profile and auto shifts you into the most efficient / fastest gear while riding. 

Imagine climbing a hill - the AI takes the segment off strava and knows the gradient and distance - takes your current power being produced and knows your ftp - takes your current HR and knows your HR zones - auto shifts to the best gear and tells you what cadence you need to produce to get to the top of the climb in the fastest time without puking up a lung.

With me it will simply put it in the granny gear and tell me to walk faster 

Hopefully it warns you before changing. Wouldnt want to be putting the power down to grind up a hill and the electronics all of a sudden decide to select a mcuh much easier gear.

Chin meet stem

balls meet toptube

[shaper]

41 minutes ago, madmarc said:

I'm convinced this will be the next big thing from SRAM - An AI that takes your power and HR profile and auto shifts you into the most efficient / fastest gear while riding. 

Imagine climbing a hill - the AI takes the segment off strava and knows the gradient and distance - takes your current power being produced and knows your ftp - takes your current HR and knows your HR zones - auto shifts to the best gear and tells you what cadence you need to produce to get to the top of the climb in the fastest time without puking up a lung.

With me it will simply put it in the granny gear and tell me to walk faster 

idea has been around for a while

 

[Frosty]

I'll go electronic when they make an (affordable) internal gear hub that fits into the bottom bracket of a frame that can be universally used for road, gravel and MTB. It would essentially remain as a fixed part of the frame and everything else could be customised around it.

Imagine being able to have one frame and being able to swap out:

• wheels, between 700c and 29", 2.4s
• bars, from drop (flared and conventional) to flat bars
• a rigid fork for a suspension fork.

It would be belt-driven, so the rear cog and belt would have to be the same/common for all wheelsets. The split belt from Veer negates the needs for a split rear triangle making changing wheels a breeze.

All the while having the same internal gearing (lets assume 11s, like the Alfine rear wheel hub with a >500% gearing range). It would only requiring the labour to change the above components and you have a completely different bike. Configure the electronics using the app, to tell it which puzzle you've put together. Sure, the disk brake hose would have to run externally between bars and fork, and bars and rear mount, but a cleverly designed frame would be able to accommodate it.

[Jehosefat]

23 minutes ago, Frosty said:

I'll go electronic when they make an (affordable) internal gear hub that fits into the bottom bracket of a frame that can be universally used for road, gravel and MTB. It would essentially remain as a fixed part of the frame and everything else could be customised around it.

Imagine being able to have one frame and being able to swap out:

• wheels, between 700c and 29", 2.4s
• bars, from drop (flared and conventional) to flat bars
• a rigid fork for a suspension fork.

It would be belt-driven, so the rear cog and belt would have to be the same/common for all wheelsets. The split belt from Veer negates the needs for a split rear triangle making changing wheels a breeze.

All the while having the same internal gearing (lets assume 11s, like the Alfine rear wheel hub with a >500% gearing range). It would only requiring the labour to change the above components and you have a completely different bike. Configure the electronics using the app, to tell it which puzzle you've put together. Sure, the disk brake hose would have to run externally between bars and fork, and bars and rear mount, but a cleverly designed frame would be able to accommodate it.

But why?

The frame would be completely crap for everything. It would be way too heavy as a road bike and/or way too flimsy as a MTB. You don't need the same gear range for Road vs MTB. You don't have the same geometry across bike types either so 1 frame for everything would be useless.

[Jewbacca]

1 hour ago, Jehosefat said:

But why?

The frame would be completely crap for everything. It would be way too heavy as a road bike and/or way too flimsy as a MTB. You don't need the same gear range for Road vs MTB. You don't have the same geometry across bike types either so 1 frame for everything would be useless.

I was wrong. As you were

Edited June 30, 2022 by Jewbacca
I was wrong