I have a bike with Campy Record and a bike with Shimano Durace. I gotta say that the Campy components are way way smoother, provide such a sweet shift and appear to operate with such little friction.

On the topic of an electric drivetrain, I say yes. I would go for it as long as there was minimal battery drain. Nowadays lithium batteries last forever and I don't see it as a big deal to replace the batteries every year. There should be an easy way of testing the remainng battery charge.

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Adrian in Vancouver

Campagnolo Electric Drivetrain? Sounds like the name of an indy rock band.

As a wrench at Higher Gear once said: "Campagnolo is Italian for money in the bank".

I am not real thrilled with the idea but only because I kind of like the mechanical aspects of bikes, their simplicity, and how incredibly efficient they are.

Really nothing wrong with the Campy idea except they are talking about being able to program it via laptop which means if it uses a standard IR or other wireless interface other team directors could hack into your shifting. "Wow, why was he trying to sprint in the small ring????"

I'm with you.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

No way. I have a natural distrust for man made mechanical stuff. For me, simpler is better. Besides, my bike shifts pertty good. I click, it shifts. I don't see a need for it. I can see how some folks might like it though. Just not for me.

It may be clever engineering. I hope it leads to something useful, because it seems quite foolish on a bicycle. If anything, this sure seems like a great example of a 'solution in desperate search of a problem'.

I.e., lets add unnecessary weight and a battery and wires and servos and other crap (where there was none before) to do a miniscule amount of work that was previously done quite effortlessly and effectively by a huge and already installed powerplant--the rider!

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Where would you want to swim ?

I know you're kidding but as for your inventory...

Are a bunch of triathletes with:

Dimpled disc wheels - nope
Carbon bottle cages - nope
Aero hemets - nope
10 speed clusters instead of 6 or 7 or 8 - nope
Molded, carbon aero tubes - nope
carbon-only saddles with no padding - nope
Heart rate monitors that download to websites - nope
40 GB MP3 players - nope
$200 sunglasses - OK, you got me there
$400 wetsuits - Not quite, but cha-ching
GPS devices - nope

"Saying that THIS is finally a piece of technology you don't really need?" Yes, that's what I'm saying.

not all of us have all that crap...

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Where would you want to swim ?

Would this be legal for racing or is the battery assisted shifting technically power assistance of the bike?

Electric says Timex to me. I'd prefer a 100% mechanical Rolex.

-Marc

I'm a little surprised to see so many people so vehemently opposed to this idea. First, I tend to think of triathletes as more open to new and unusual technologies, as do a lot tof people. Second, Campgnolo has made it clear that this is a very experimental project right now, and what little we have seen so far will almost certainly be very different if any system were to make it onto store shelves. As for my opinion, I'll punt. I wouldn't go for a system as it exists currently in prototype form, but its possibilities seem intriguing. The idea of programming a shifting system to respond to your most efficient or powerful gear sounds beyond my imagination, and I'm hardly creative. If something really cool comes out of this project a few years from now, kudos to Campy.

IT'S THE ANSWER!!!







to the question nobody asked.

At the moment the system may be bulky (and despite being riden to a pro win already this year) I guess you could reasonably prefer a top level traditional groupo but imagine the future -

Instead of altering your wrist angle and losing power to push a lever 3-4 inches to change to your big cog you can do it with one touch;

timetrialling round a corner you could have multiple shifting points so you could come up a gear before you leave the bullhorns and up a couple more as you from your aerobars on exit;

weight savings will presumably be close to cancelled out as the weight of the battery comes down to the level of the weight of the cable/the workings in the shifters you no longer need;

more aero (a minor point but given how much coverage Lance's 'clean' TT set up at the Tour got not an irrelevant one).

Worth noting that Chris Boardman, one of the best TdF prologue riders of recent years used to insist on using the slated Mavic system long after it had been given up on as a general mass market idea.

As far as I'm concerned the future has to mean progress and whether or not Campy are there now (I'll let you know when they give me a set), electric shifting is just that - the most exciting bit of progress made in bike tech since oooh carbon fibre?

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"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek

Not that I'm against innovation but I'm not sure if this solves enough of the problems that exist but it sure does create a few more.

However, if they can get it reliable but still allow it to be 'tuned' by the user then it's viable. Battery technology is accelerating rapidly which gets round the previous system issues of battery type and weight. campag is the right company to pursue it - they're patient and thorough. I personally would be looking at alternative systems as well. I had a student make a good fist at a hydraulic based system a couple of years ago.

one thing that would be nice is derailleurs that adjust themselves. with an electric drivetrain, you should be able to have some kind of sensors that fine-tune the shifts. i'd never have to adjust or worry about deraillery adjustment.
and i want a drivetrain that cleans itself too.

The sentiment that "it fixes a problem that doesn't exist" was EXACTLY what roadies were saying about STI when it first came out. LA was one of the biggest criticizers of STI, and frequently commented that all it did was add weight. True, the first versions were not perfect, but find a bike now with downtube shifters.

As they make this thing go wireless, we'll be laughing about the days of "internal cable routing". You're looking at the future folks.