Every shift as easy as a mouse click. No need to ever shift hand position from your ultimate aero position. And it never, ever goes out of adjustment. I wouldn't have a TT/Tri bike without it.

I'd say if you need convincing, they maybe don't bother?
It is easier to shift gears when going through a corner or a 180 turn, cause you will have buttons on your bullhorns.... Other than that, bling?

I prefer di2 over etap. Personal preference. I like not having to worry about multiple batteries that have be charged often and off the bike. etap also shifts ever so slightly slower, but you'd probably never notice if you hadn't used di2 first.

Often??? The etap batteries last (obviously depending on use) for months at a time. I charge mine 2-3 times/year maybe with probably an average of 3-4 rides/week. And I charge before it’s even necessary so you could certainly get away with less.

The ability to shift from the base bar. By far the biggest benefit of electronic shifting.

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Hmmm....wasn't the experience of friends of mine that still have them, not even close. But maybe there's was a bad battery?

• Shifting from any position
• Shifting under load (the motor in the derailleur does all the work to allow a smooth shift while attacking steep climbs)
• Precise shifting (no cable stretch, so as long as you aren't bumping the derailleurs into things they will remain in alignment)
• Ability to connect your Di2 to your bike computer to see which gearing you're in

Many people will attack the groupset by stating technology is subject to error and relying on a battery is just asking for trouble. One could also say the same thing about mechanical. If it's not maintained properly, a bad cable could snap at any point and if you don't know how to index a derailleur yourself you may have to make frequent trips to a shop for maintenance. A di2 battery will last quite some time between charges (generally around 1000+ miles....+/- a few depending on how often you shift). Just add a quick check with regular maintenance and you won't have to worry about it

Totally agree with this for TT bikes, a huge advantage to be able to shift in aerobars and on the base bars. The benefits on a road bike are way less convincing.

  

I just changed shifter batteries for first time in 12 months; they were still “green” but I was changing bar tape so I decided just to put new ones in (sram says they can last 2 years)

I guess the range of Derailleur batteries is quite large but mine seem to last very well. Popping those batteries in/out is super simple. Honestly, with all the gadgets you need to charge in your life, this is hardly a big annoyance, at least to me.


https://sram.zendesk.com/...e-shifter-batteries-

I never need to move my hands out of aero with mechanical shifters either. The only time I ever need to adjust is fine tuning when swapping wheels (the spacing on my race wheels is ever so slightly different from my training set, I'd have to adjust whether using electronic or mechanical) or my annual cable replacement (which isn't a big deal, I'm doing brakes anyway, what's 2 more cables?)

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I have Di2 on my TT bike and eTap on my road bike. IMHO, those are the two perfect applications for those products. I absolutely love Di2 on a TT bike and would do that again every time. It is basically perfect. I shift far more often then with mechanical to maintain my target cadence and power, so I feel I ride more efficiently.

I would not do eTap on a TT bike because it is difficult to hide the Blip box and wires from the wind (and sight). And, I do not like the add-on shift buttons you need to do at the brake levers. Di2 is way cleaner on a TT bike. The opposite is true for road bikes: eTap is perfect there.

I switched my Speed Concept from mechanical to Di2 at the beginning of the year, and this was a subtle but important benefit I noticed as well. I'm able to keep within my target power zone better because I shift a lot more often.

This is a bad analogy, but it's kind of like going from a manual transmission car to an automatic. In a manual car, sometimes I don't shift even though it would be a little better to just because of the additional effort involved. e.g., downshift a gear to accelerate faster. With Di2, it's so easy to shift that I do it a lot more frequently. And I wouldn't have thought that would matter before having electronic shifting because I never found the manual levers to be a problem.

Further to this analogy, one other feature of the newer Di2 is full synchro shifting. This adds another layer of "automatic transmission" to shifting. There are many times where I'm briefly stuck in a suboptimal cadence because I'm in the smallest or largest cog and I'm too lazy to shift the front derailleur because the terrain is about to change. With full synchro shifting I just shift up or down, and let the system figure out whether I should be in the large or small ring and which corresponding rear cog I should be in.

No need to convince you. Just try it once. Should be enough

Not sure if your comment was directed to me or the OP. I'm already convinced ;-)

This thread will end up in an argument.... but the simple reason for me is perfect shifting every. Single. Time.

There is the obvious downside of having to charge it (Which takes like 20 minutes 2-3 times a year). But that's dwarfed by the time you'd spend tuning up a mechanical drive-train.


All that being said, with years using Di2 I've never had the misfortune of having any issue with it. I'm sure it can be frustrating and I understand peoples aversion to it after hearing horror stories. But I've also been around long enough to hear stories of snapped cables and mechanical drive train issues.

haha....I often think of it like that. I watch a lot of high end performance car review videos and the Porsche PDK transmission is often the benchmark. I have etap on my road and tri bike and going through technical sections with the button held down the shifts are perfect up and down and under torque as well and I think about those high performance cars.

^ This guy rides Di2.

You can do read all the comments you want online and the comparison of electronic vs mechanical. Or even Di2 vs eTap, etc.

I rode Di2 once and that's all it takes. I've had it on my last two bikes. Still have a mechanical bike with 105 for road racing/crits, but that's all it gets used for.

Once you replace shifter cables in your internally routed frame a couple times the initial price tag for Di2 doesn't seem as bad.

Brake hydraulically and shift electronically, then you do not have to replace any cables.

Some drawbacks of electronic shifting:
-At wheel replacement, it is possible that you have to adjust the electronic shifting.
-Further, I encounter always anxious moments (having Campagnolo electronic shifting) when replacing my rear wheel that the quick release will not destroy the derailleur cable (cannot happen with mechanical shifting).
-The battery emptied quickly in the beginning and it costed my half a year to understand that the battery was bad (got a new one on guarantee)
-I had once a problem at the airport because they thought it was an e-bike which you're not allowed to fly with.

But there are all of the advantages pointed out by others already such that I would not like to miss it anymore.

hydraulics still need to be flushed and bled periodically. it's not like ANY system is maintenance-free.

I've never broken a cable. I suppose it could happen, in theory, but I also maintain my equipment so the likelihood of that happening is vanishingly small.

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Guess it sounds like a no-brainer based on everyone! I'm just curious about the pricing model on bikes going from 'regular' Ultegra to Di2 - seems like it's often a big jump in price even if it's only the groupset that is changing.

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I was almost going to mention PDK in the analogy, but I didn't think most would follow. And it is a fantastic transmission - I have it in my Boxster S. Works great for daily driving in traffic and on the race track. For better or worse, I can see why so few Porsches have manual transmissions now.

I've heard this but I have one bike with SRAM etap and one with Di2 Ultegra. Although it may be true that etap is slower, I can't tell the damn difference. Re batteries, I consider that an advantage.

The main benefit to using Di2 on a TT/Tri bike is that it facilitates shifting from the base bars. The effect it has on bikes with aerobars is comparable to what brifters did for bikes with drop bars.

The next biggest benefit of Di2 is that you typically only need to route the shift cabling once ever, since the electronic wire harnesses don't wear out and contaminate in the way that steel cabling does. This isn't a big deal in an externally-routed world, but if your frame has internal routing, re-doing the shift cabling can be obnoxious.

Di2 also offers configurability that's not really doable with mechanical, like synchro shift.

And, you do get consistent behavior at the derailleur and light-action shifting. Personally I think this gets blown out of proportion, but I'm someone who shifts pretty frequently even on bikes with rear friction shifting, so whatever.

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eTap being wireless is nice if you want a bike to be easily to disassemble, and the shift interface is better if you'll be riding in mittens or lobster gloves.
But otherwise it's more to deal with, and the shifting feels spongey compared with Di2. I'm also hesitant toward SRAM in general for reliability reasons.

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As far as cons to e-shifting in general, it's more expensive and also seemingly more prone to user error (i.e. forgetting to charge batteries).