That’s why I hope the likes of ppl like @lightheir have the foresight to buy mechanical parts in bulk asap. And not in 2 years or 6 years when your mech part brakes. When that happens you will be paying a PREMIUM price for it. Now not so much. There is too much in the industry right now with the now overlap of full di2 parts going that way. In the future is when those needed parts, you’ll be faced with a big expensive decision.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Some interesting responses. I'm looking at a new bike, and it's not that I don't want an electronic groupset- I checked out a few bikes with them, and it looks great and functions really well, particularly on the front derailleur.

It's just the price premium. I'm old school, and back in the day, DA was a stretch, Ultegra was manageable, and 105 was budget-racer. Despite keeping the naming convention, all of the new electronic groupsets now start at the "stretch" point. :), and that's what throwing off the value proposition in my head.

Considering I keep my stuff for a very long time, I don't particularly want to buy in to expiring tech (mechanical), but the idea that 105di is such a premium over mech ultegra .... it feels like paying more for a level downgrade, even though I know it's new generational tech.

I'll probably get the ultegra mech, and upgrade in the future.

Just an fyi I think the TT version of di2 is slightly more expensive than the quoted price from that chart. I’ll confirm but I’m pretty sure it has an extra shifters to account for added cost,

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Who's spending $242 for a chain?

That column isn’t price but weight. Said chain is $87.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Starting with 9000, yes. IMO R7000/R7100 are better than any DA prior to 9000.

moving 105 to electronic feels like a mistake to me, but what do i know?

i may be unnecessarily cranky but i've not ever found electronic shifting to be something i need, and i've seen it go wrong more times than i've seen mechanical go wrong.

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Yeah, it is curious. I get it - Shimano had no choice but to counter Rival AXS, and it's a logistical hassle to maintain two product lines across one tier.

But I was kind of hoping one or the other would make a nice 12-speed road mech groupset.

Reply to you, but this is for the group:

Has anyone gone to electronic shifting and then reverted back to mech? That’s a true test, IMO. I was a mech Luddite for a long time… until I got di2. I’ll never go back.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Oh, now I get it

Maybe I needed to put that in pink. It's just that you can't upgrade hardware in the field once you release it so the engineers involved in that world understand that. When I ran semiconductor product lines every release back then was a $2M tape out to TSMC for manufacturing. Screw it up and you blew thru $2M . In software programming we can do a release tomorrow for no capital outlay and we can roll back versions in the field. Not possible when manufacturing is involved. So it just changes the philosophy of how things go to production and what is good enough to meet the bar for release.

I had di2, although it was 6770 so 10 speed, and now I've moved to a hybrid of r7000 and r8000 mechanical. Di2 is better for sure but what I have works quite well, no complaints. I'll probably upgrade again someday. This is on a road bike.

I held off for the longest time going electronic. It wasn't until Covid came, and my super-nice 11-speed mechanical bike died, that I bought electronic shifting. I could have stayed with my aluminum, 11-speed mechanical and been fine. But I was finally at that place in my life when I could buy top-of-the-line.

So I bought a bike so nice, so expensive, so aerodynamic, that I simply had to go with DI2. This was finally my price-no-option bike. And I freely admit, it is awesome.

And after 1.5 years of riding it, I have to admit, I don't like it at all.

Seriously this bike bores me to death. And a big part of that is the electronic shifting.. It's perfectly functional. Every shift is perfect. And the bike is far more aero than my round-tube, 11-speed mechanical shimano bike.

But I love riding the mechanical slow one so much more. I can't tell you why.

Analog feels has great value. Same as how stick shift diehards hate boring auto shift cars.

I feel similarly and I’m def not a Luddite or retro fan.

On another thread people are talking about how you don't have to spend money to do this sport, we post on this thread a table which shows if I am reading it correctly:

1887 dollars to change gears.



Cycling and triathlon have an issue, how do you get new people into a sport where you get a groupset for $1887, it all requires more and more specialist and expensive maintenance

In 25 years of riding, I have never had to replace a major part of a mechanical shimano set (rear derailleur etc). Cassettes, chains, chain rings yes just through wear and tear.

My di2 ultegra rear derailleur snapped in first 12 months of riding.

Have a stash of cassettes, chains, brake pads which will keep me going in for ten years.

I'm a diehard stickshift fan. At least in cars where it has that nice analog feel.

Also on the fence about Di2. It shifts super nicely/easily and allows for cleaner internal routing. For the same price, I might still choose Di2. But I miss the mechanical feel, and the Di2 price premium is huge. When R9100 mech is the same price as R7100 Di2, I would choose the former.

12sp Record and Super Record are on my radar more than ever before.

You’re moving the goal posts. What entry level bike was affordabing Mechanical 105 or ult 6 months ago? Cus that was your argument 6 months ago-2 years (seriously go read those threads). This move does nothing to keep the budget person from a mechanical bike.

This move puts a pinch to the middle of road person who maybe can, maybe can’t afford the “upgrade” and now are being forced to or go get an inferior component yoi now are on.

This does nothing really to the true bike fund limited person buying a bike to get into sport. It basically cuts out any option of “buying up”. Buying up now will be much more expensive for said budget person.

But the person that has $2k to spend, they couldn’t afford the parts we are talking about anyways.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Sort of... I've never actually owned a bike with electronic shifting, but I've spent significant time on prototype bikes set up with Di2. Di2 is OK, but I've never been able to get used to the levers. Hand injuries when I was a kid resulted in lost/reduced feeling in several fingers, and I have trouble telling where the different paddles are, and I constantly shift the wrong way. Mechanical Shimano doesn't have that problem for me. Switching back to my own bikes with mechanical shifting feels like coming home.

I haven't used E-tap, that lever configuration wouldn't have the same issues for me, and I might like that better...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"

I did. I had Sram on two race bikes. It was nice in that I didn't have to route cables, but otherwise I found it no material advantage. Sold it off, right before the great 11s blip box shortage. I don't want to dependent on firmware upgrades and short component lifecycles. I get equal to better performance with mechanical, it's durable, and I pretty much can fix any issue that might arise.

I also don't like change for change sake. Do we really need a new chain standard? Look at what we got with the proliferation of BB standards, now most of which are fading into the background.

Is it plausible that electronic groupsets are going to be cheaper to manufacture in the near future than mechanical? There's obviously a huge outlay upfront for R&D and product development, but surely it's nearing a point where the actual shifter button and derailleur actuators are mass produced parts that are exactly the same for DuraAce/Ultegra/105, just packaged in lighter/stiffer hardware. The actual hardware for electronic groupsets doesn't need quite as tight manufacturing tolerance as mechanical (thinking of all the fine parts in the shifter body).

2022 Polygon Strattos S7 Disc - Shimano 105 Carbon Road Bike (bikesonline.com)

Not sure what I said 6 months ago? This thread started in September. If 105 is the basic for any road bike or tri bike, the cost of those is going to be higher.

989$ for 105 mechnical 2600 for electronic.

The industry won't change for me. Once they got decent quality frames that lasted for ever they had to work out some way to keep us spending money, obsolescence is the answer.

I have my specialised Rouxbaix di2, 28mm tires, 11 speed future shock thingy and my 2012 R3. There is no performance benefit for all that tech.

You hit on something here that I have been thinking about too. But I realized that the electronic groupsets are probably hugely profitable for the manufacturers since they are easier to manufacture. I get that development has a cost but it also had a cost for the mechanical groupsets. Someone upthread alluded to the prices are high and are not coming down and I agree, after all the mechanical components did not drop in price after release (I know we have the ignore the grey market stuff that was going on...if you went to a bike shop to buy a derailleur the retail did not go down).

I am one of the lucky people riding mechanical DA and Ultegra on a couple bikes and won't move to Di2 unless forced. I put a used Di2 kit on my MTB last winter for cheap and it's...ok. I still have bad shifts once in a while because I hit the wrong button and it will still shift like crap if the hangar is bent. I call it a successful experiment but only because it was so cheap. If I had my way I would have Shimano maintain mechanical up to Ultegra/XT, forever.