Just a bit of interest/fun. So how many of our bikes are on mechanical gearing and how many on electronic?
- Mechanical
- Electronic
0 voters
I have a mountain bike and winter road bike on mechanical and my summer road bike electronic.
I love how crisp and reliable the electronic shifting is, don’t think I’d buy another bike with mechanical shifting if electronic was an option, it’s worth every penny.
On my commuter road bike i have mechanical, on my normal road bike and my triathlon bike i have electronic.
But in the future i will definitly buy a commuter bike with electronic shifting, because it’s so much more fun.
Why is that? Don’t trust electronic in the winter?
Etap on the TT bike, Mechanical on the others (and the wife’s!)
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TT bike is Di2, road bikes mechanical.
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eTap on my handbike.
Di2 on my Slice TT bike. It’s awesome and lovely in every way… I have had it fail on me twice in the past though and lock me in the big ring…
I thought I’d have it again in a heart beat. But i didn’t… - Mechanical on my new Cervelo road bike.
The opposite really, I’d prefer electronic on everything, especially winter but finances don’t allow.
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Sram 1x mechanical on everything.
I’d love etap on my tri bike, and I know people have done it with 1x but not spending the money just to experiment.
I had a new race bike built this year and was all set to put Di2 on it, like my TT bike, which is superb. Ironically I was talked out of it by the bike shop (that happens to be owned by our club captain). Reasons being it’s likely at some point I’ll crash and trash shifters/mechs. When I do I can go into pretty much any shop and get up and running again with stuff that’s in stock. May not have that luxury if you’r on Di2. And it’s so much cheaper and easier to replace/repair.
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Same here; when/if SRAM comes out with a Force 1 electronic rear derailleur, I’ll do that for the Tri bike but I don’t feel like cobbling it together and not using a clutch derailleur.
I’ve had a road bike with Di2 for 5 years, i also have a gravel bike with Sram Force 1x, i have to say going back to mechanical has been fantastic, i actually prefer mechanical for some reason, maybe I’m getting old and nostalgic, but i love that more positive click, also much more feel when in gloves or cold hands as well.
Though I don’t disagree about the cost, I can’t imagine anything easier to replace than Etap. I have Di2 on my TT and Etap on my road and while I really like them both it is really hard to justify the cost. On the other hand how often have you broken a component on your bike? I broke a 12 year old 105 rear derailleur once crossing the chain on a weird downhill uphill transition. I would think it would have to be some kind of crash to break a shifter or derailleur and Di2 parts are easy to find online.
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I love the shifting on my sram 1x on my gravel bike, it really is just a very satisfying mechanical operation, that positive click as you said is just right. That satisfying click just isn’t there with the bar end shifters though.
And for my tri bike I really look forward to not having the cables and also being able to have some shifters in two positions is very appealing.
I’m in no rush to swap out my gravel bike to electronic, for the same reasons i’m not in any rush to swap out my cars for automatics.
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Di2 on the fleet. The first gen had issues and I’d struggle for spares now but Canyon have always been fantastic at replacing items no questions asked.
Just got my first bike with Di2 after being on mechanical for a long time. It sounds silly but I really did get tired at the end of long 5-6 hours rides with the shifter so the less force required to push the buttons will be nice.
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Switched to electronic Di2 recently and am now a convert. The price for a new groupset is definitely an issue and hard to justify in terms of value but these days previous gen Dura Ace (9070) is an absolute steal. I’ve picked up unused, parted-out 9070 rear+front derailleurs for less than $300 together on two occasions.
etap on my road bike which is cool but what I really love is di2 on my 1x gravel bike. Shifts awesome under all kinds of conditions.
That’s a LOT of pennies though.
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