Sram 11-26 is the best 11 speed cassette there is for that reason IMO and on all my wheels until I go too big on the climbs... Now if the spacings are the same as Sram then you could always keep your old wheels regardless of what happens with the freehub and use a ZTTO cassette at a fraction of the cost and have your beloved 16.

https://www.aliexpress.com/...02_,searchweb201603_

I’m with you, I can care less about wireless. Have no issues with wires, route and forget.

Unless they have changed the chainline (like with GRX), hopefully upgrading to 12sp won't require a new FD. If it was just a case of replacing the RD (and cassette and chain obviously) and plugging it into the existing wiring with an adaptor(keeping the existing internal battery and shifters - with a firmware update to those), that would be awesome.

I've explored the alternatives. 11-26 doesn't cut it. I need 27 or 28. I've purchased 3rd party brands. They get the job done, but what I want is true Dura-Ace.

Could you imagine a 12-32 with a 16t cog in there?! Sounds like the perfect all around cassette to me but then again I just put on a 58/44 chainring combo for a few crits at ToAD so what do I know?

I had the SRAM 11-26 and the jumps were great but needed more range for where I live. Now I use the Rotor Uno cassette. All of them have the 16t: 11-28, 11-30, and 11-32. The 11-28 even has a 17t after the 16t.

The big cogs are for bailout. The bigger the jumps at that end, the better. I would rather have 1t jumps up to 17t or 18t. That's why I like Uno gearing. The 17t is what I miss the most but can't give up 30t+.

I've also considered building a DA 12-30:
12,13,14,15 16,17,19,21,24,27,30

I built exactly that cassette with once. Miche Shimano or some such company that let you customize the rings. It worked great. Weighed a ton.

I've done the install for both etap and Di2 on road bikes.

For di2, its one wire from each brake lever to a junction box, and a wire from that box down through the frame. Connects to a box at the BB, and three wires from that to the derailleurs and battery. Its pretty f'ing simple, and any mechanic, home or professional, that considers that a 'fluster cluck' is honestly pretty inept. Its easy as it gets, its once and done, and no worries about wireless signals or short battery life/charge.

I'm with you in hating the 15->17 gap. And while you can't get an 11-28 Dura Ace cassette with the proper 15-16-17 sequencing, you don't have to go "3rd Party." SRAM's 11-28 11-speeds have the 16T cog.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Oh Brilliant. How did I not know that? Thank you for pointing this out.

I tried a side-by-side comparison of the two setups using Sheldon Brown's gear calculator. Looks like I'm basically moving the big jump from the 15-to-17 gap to the 19-to-22 gap, two gaps down the line. I have a feeling that would be a much better place to have the big jump. Towards that end of the cassette, I find I want bigger jumps. Has this been your experience?

I personally would rather see the last 4 cogs be 19-21-24-28. But the 19->22 is a lot easier to live with than the 17->19, IMHO.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I would also like to see a 12-23 cassette all with 1 cog increases for the flat time trials.
No chance of searching for the right gear. The TT though is probably unlikely to get such a cassette and who the hell knows when we will even see the group set available on a triathlon bike.
The stock for any covid rig is near impossible to find.

Wiring is not that hard, but the look is kind of "fluster cluck", unless you are using the bar-end junction which also has its own requirements and limitations. If you are using the normal 3/5-port junction A, for normal road bike, there just isn't a good place for it (underneath the stem is where most people have it), and the wires coming out of it (assuming 3) are just not pretty and hard to have a clean look.

Personally, making the shifters wireless shifting is a no brainer upgrade I would love to have in the new Di2.

The Tour has now come and gone without a launch event. I previously bet on a launch at the Olympics so the event would be in Japan but I would have expected more leaks if they were ready for that. What is the general feeling about a release? Is this is product ready to be sold on bikes in Spring 2022 and Shimano is just delaying the launch? or is Shimano entering an additional testing phase and we will see leaks over the next 12 months but nothing for consumers until Spring 2023?

Some 2022 bikes are listed for orders with 12sp Di2 already. Should start fall/winter 2021 delivery. But lord knows how long we'll have to wait until we can buy groupsets separately

So, now that we're digressing: I was reading the dealer manual for Shimano cassettes, and based on the shift ramps, it looked like you could take a 12-25 Ultegra and 11-28 or -30 Ultegra cassette and mash them up together. That is, the resulting 12-28 or 12-30 cassette should have the shift ramps line up correctly, e.g. the 17t cog has the proper ramp number to have a good shift to the 19t cog. I'm talking about the letter codes at the end of each of the cogs in the manual.

I tried this with a 12-25 Ultegra and 11-28 105 cassette. Now, here's where things fell apart. I kept having a poor shift from 17-19 (I think it was that one, and if not it was 19-21). I checked the cassettes again. It turns out that the 105 cassette has different ramp codes than what the dealer manual for DA and Ultegra cassettes said. I'd assumed they'd be the same, bad assumption. I think I checked the manuals for the 105 cogs' ramp codes after that incident, but I can't exactly remember what I found. I remember noting to myself that it seemed like Shimano might have made an undocumented change, but I'm not 100% sure about this.

I can tell you that the 17-19 shift was kind of not great. It would fail to shift sometimes. You can correct it by overshifting. It's definitely not the stock Shimano shift quality. I'm fussy, so I just put the full 11-28 cassette on. And yes, I hate the 15-17 gap in relatively flat terrain. And secondarily, where I ride, the last 3 cogs on the 11-30 cassettes are a bit big for me. If I were in hillier territory, I'd be much more willing to accept big gaps. As it is, I'm thinking that if I upgrade my bike to 12s, I'm ditching the 52-36 crank and going with the 50-34. It seems like they're pushing us mortals that way. It is what it is.

I do have to note, people could go Campy (in my case, back to Campy). The 12s Chorus 11-29 and 11-32 cassettes have 16t cogs. The 11s Centaur group has a 12-32 cassette. In my case, the bike has rim brakes and mechanical shifting, and I bet that Campy will be the last manufacturer to have a mechanical rim brake group, so... the thing is that it's a steel bike and I think their carbon cranks look not as good on it as Shimano's cranks, but maybe I just live with it at that point.

I bought a 11-30 DA cassette and the necesary separate cogs from the 12-28 to build a 12-30 because I made the same assumptions as you. With the 17C cog which I assumed would match the 16t and 19t, the 17-19 shifting was consistantly poor. Switched back to the 17B, which fixes the 17-19 shift but isn't as good at 16-17. However, the poor shifts are far less frequent that way. Still somewhat regular, but not nearly as often as the 17-19 shifts with the 17C.

Only ridden with it twice, but I'm torn whether I should keep it (some missed shifts but better gearing), just make it 11-30 (lose the 16t), or even go back to Rotor (bit noisier than the DA).

I would honestly love the Campy 11-34 with 50-34 chain ring. Small jumps where I spend most of my time and 1:1 gearing for all the 10-15% climbs in between. But switching groupsets is a big investment

New DA will come out before September 22nd and that is conservative as the digital version of Tour Magazin gets published several days earlier…

https://road.shimano.com/us/the-next-episode/

August 31 12pm EDT

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No pictures here, but cassette ratios series number and some configurations
https://www.serviziocorsa.com/Flyer_ROAD_2022.pdf

Rear derailleur manual
https://bettershifting.com/...ur-manual-published/

I'm happy to see they went with a proprietary charging cable rather than USB-C or something.

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Out of all the ways to title this, Shimano called it "The Next Episode".

As someone who grew up in the late 90's and early aughts, all I can think of when I see "The Next Episode" is the slogan "Smoke Weed Everyday"

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Jest aside, it seems like the semi-wireless functionality will be specific to the 12-speed rear derailleur. Looks like my current frame will need a retrofit after all (there's no way I'm going up to 12-speed).

Thought the same thing

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A bit pricey...

https://www.msn.com/...TU#image=AANW3ZO%7C5

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Link doesn’t work for me. Cranks look better than the previous generation. Interesting that the shifters have a larger ‘hood’ portion that doesn’t move - kind of like the grx in a way.

I think I’d be more excited if they announced they could increase production of bike group sets to meet demand so there would actually be bikes in stock…

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Matt