At first glance this is pure ridiculousness making something with a non-replaceable battery. However SRAM makes everything obsolete every two years anyway so why not I suppose? After all, SRAM 11 speed is just a few years old and now it is extinct and impossible to get replacement parts.

You used to be able to leave a bike in your garage and forget about it for a while then take it out and maybe pump up the tires and you’re good to go. With these newer bikes you’d never be able to shift because the battery‘s dead and the tires have become unseated from the rims and the sealant is all dried out. Good thing most people are only in the sport for a few years and drop out.

Looks like a bit weird to mount on standard aero bars but I can see this as a great way to retro fit electronic shifting to an existing bike.

I'm putting AXS on my TT bike because it's just easier to retrofit (and easier to get a hold of parts) and these would be great.

Or if you've got clip on aero bars that you don't want to run full time and deal with those cables when you take them on/off.

I think this is bit harsh on SRAM. This is a PROTOYPE so giving it a two-year life-span is way more than it will ever need to last. By the time any version of this ever goes into production, if it ever does, SRAM will have had the chance to change all the details surrounding the battery. The big picture is that SRAM is seriously looking into developing a truly wireless TT shift system that eliminates blip boxes and wired blips/clics. I for one hope the idea takes off because I think the issue of batteries is super easy to address in a bar end shifter. LR-44 batteries are small enough you can design a bar end shifter that utilises them easily.

I would guess the main challenge is sorting out the details of the wireless transmitter in a small package that is also commercially viable in terms of price. SRAM blip boxes don't come cheap and if each of these shifters is $400+ and you need 4 to get a complete system you have one very expensive groupset.

It’s absolutely ridiculous that a company as large as SRAM (come on Scott, Ray and Sam - what gives here?) comes up with a resource intensive product that is actually designed to be thrown away after 2 years. It makes me sad.

This year we have seen unprecedented levels of flooding, fires and changes in global weather patterns that signify the arrival of global warming. Its here to stay. But we still have this throw away attitude towards products that use the earths most valuable resources (Oil, Zinc, Alkaline, Manganese to name some) then throw them in a land fill site forever.

These products should be banned. Come on SRAM produce something with longevity and make your money from servicing these items, not producing, and selling them.

I would love to see a sport where we support recycled products (running shoes seem to be leading the way in this regard). Don't do it SRAM - be a leader not a follower. Sort your product out please.

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He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.

i see a lot of brands moving in the direction you want them to go, SRAM included. to me, this is a prototype, a proof of concept, and a product for a few dozen riders. at the moment. i think it's fine for you to exhort SRAM toward a better product than the one currently on the market. but this is not currently on the market. i don't think it's fair to spank them for making a consumer product they haven't yet made.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

They are huge and ugly as sin. Who would want that on their aero bars?

It is OK to pre-emptively spank them for proposing to continue their malign practice of creating products that are only good for 2 years.

That's about how long I had my original eTap gear before they obsoleted it. $5K worth of equipment worthless because SRAM won't sell me a @#$#@$ replacement blipbox that works with it.

SRAM is a shit company. We should all boycott it.

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My latest book: "Out of the Melting Pot, Into the Fire" is on sale on Amazon and at other online and local booksellers

I agree with Jens, past actions of SRAM has made us very wary of their principles. There are lots of people now with 2-3 year old obsolete 11 speed etap unsupported group sets. This is a colossal rip off. You cannot get replacement blip boxes and eventually they go bad.

SRAM has created there own dilemma here. The weakness of the etap system is the number of unique electronic components which all require their own batteries and transmitters/receivers and which you all want to minimize to save weight and space. Ultimately its a compromise relative to Di2 whereby the loss cables requires the introduction of more very sensitive points of failure into the system. The way around this is to really really hammer down on the tolerances which in turn is incredibly difficult to due with replicable batteries. You only have to look at the massive issues Stages and Garmin when through with battery doors and sealing issues to get an idea of the problem. Solutions are possible but unfortunately for SRAM they need a bunch of these solutions to cover every batter location.

This leads the consumer to a choice. Stay wired with Shimano for the extra reliability but the also the hassles wires entail. Or go SRAM for the convivence but added risk of going wireless.

Great post.

I love my TT bike and the only real weakness is the bar end shifters. Been weighing etap and di2 back and forth for the last week and your post is exactly where I am. SRAM was winning as I think I could install it myself, but the planned obsolescence is disturbing and probably a deal breaker.

Now that there is a front page article seemingly confirming that these things get tossed in the trash after “about” two years can we commence ripping SRAM? I rarely post on this site but I think we as a consumers need to voice our strong displeasure with decisions like this if there’s any hope of getting manufacturers to change.

you may feel free to voice your displeasure however you want about SRAM. but let's be clear how little that means. the measure is how it checks as the cash register.

as to your point about getting manufacturers to change, this is the first time i've ever come across a product in this class with a battery that is neither rechargeable nor replaceable. i'm not sure how SRAM is supposed to change. every other shifter, power meter, controller it makes has renewable power.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

FWIW, i got a note from SRAM this morning. this is what they said:

"SRAM eTap AXS Wireless Blips have a battery life well beyond 2 years. Our testing shows that depending on level of use, batteries can last from 4 to more than 7 years. Wireless Blips are built with new batteries that are able to be dormant for several years between uses. Use the SRAM AXS Mobile App to see battery levels for all SRAM AXS components, including Wireless Blips."

so, still "planned obsolescence." however, double or triple the life i originally reported (according to SRAM). i found the 2yr battery life a bit tight for my taste. i'm a lot more likely to sit still for a 5yr life. i look at this this way: only a year ago the best (the only) wireless shifting option was with an extension that is now (what i consider) out of date. this is the zipp vuka shift AXS 90. now, with these full-length forearm extensions, which are both more ergonomic and more aero, that shifter is no longer on my bike.

in 5 years, i'll probably be riding the same bike, but i'll also probably be looking for another shifter option, and perhaps new aerobar extensions. in only a year the market has progressed so that i don't need to ride extension shapes not my choice; nor to i need to rely on a wired slave for my pursuit shifter. if i can get 5 years out of the bar-end shifter, and if the replacement cost in 5 years isn't prohibitive, that probably works for me.

but as to this product, i think i listed 5 things in the article that need to be enhanced between now (in the thought experiment stage) and the eventual for-sale-product stage. my intention to purchase this product would be based on how many of those issues are solved, and the eventual price point. just know that the capacity to replace the battery would add: 1) a bunch of size to the product; and 2) a way for water to get in.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I pulled the trigger on the Di2 last week, taking it in for installation tomorrow. It's not true wireless which I would prefer aesthethetically, but as an old fart who remembers the first grip shift I just like Shimano better. I feel like they are better about making comparison work forward and backwards and ultimately I invested $1,400 into a $1,800 bike, but if it had these parts on it new it would have been $3,200 at least. I searched bikes with Di2 for a week and the days of manufacturers getting a super sweetheart deal on these components seems to be over.

just because you're an old fart: who was the first to put a twist shifter on the ends of aerobar extensions? i like to think we helped keep SRAM alive on the early days. we ordered 500 sets of gripshifts, as an OE purchase, and SRAM had no real idea what we (a tri bike maker) intended to do with them.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Haha. I'm guessing kestrel?

I had heard mention that you had been in the industry a long time, Dan.

I was in college working for a small startup shop when the first grip shift came out. But, I was only mountain biking. I have thought about that shop a lot in the last couple of years because there was a triathlon in our community and I really wanted to do it but I was scared of the swimming.. I think that was really when I got bitten by the bug. Hopefully this year I complete my first 140.6, that would be quite the benchmark. Registered for Ironman california, wish me luck.

kestrel?! the only thing kestrel ever did (in tri) was to look at what we did, and make it in carbon.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Kestral you say? :)

Too funny. QR was my first guess, to be honest you guys were the only triathlon bike I had heard of in 1995, but I always guessed they were actually out of Mexico. I figured Kestrel with the carbon tech was probably a spinoff of So Cal aerospace and more likely to employ a guy named Dan.

I am admittedly very ignorant to the history of triathlon. I was intrigued by the great Dave Scott / Scott Allen battles and have been lucky to meet some of the early players here in my first year of racing, but I would lose at Triathlon Jeopardy.

your first mistake was assuming i was employable. here's a little history for you.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Wow, thanks for posting.

That's a fun walk down memory lane.

I was a convert to road cycling from mountain biking. Started riding road just for fitness to improve mountain biking and achieve my goal of competing in some XC racing. Got enamored with the speed and heritage of road racing and joined the college cycling team. Lance had just won the U.S. Pro. Seeing that photo reminded me of the attention he brought to triathlon when he started winning.

I'm sure you had some wild experiences being a startup in a startup sport. I really thought the technology of the bikes was "space age" and so cool at that time. Neat history.

I would be interested to know what % of blip boxes will survive 7 years? I think etap is only about 7 years old and from what I have seen online blip box malfunctions are not that uncommon. On this basis the new blips (or whatever they will call them) are really no worse than the current tech in terms of lifespan/sustainability. More generally I think a 4-7 year lifespan, assuming 4 years is heavy usage, is fine for this sort of product. I would love to see an increase in sustainability across the industry but I am not going to hold SRAM accountable for this over a single high end product.

On a tangential note I would hope a move towards wireless group sets will increases the user lifespan of higher end carbon carbon frames. It should make it easier to do overhaul a groupset which I have found is a mental blockage when it comes to new bikes vs rebuilds. People are always lured by shinny new bikes and the hassle of replacing a groupset is the additional factor to buying new. I appreciate some people will always call BS on this saying that 'it only takes 15 min to replace a groupset' but I am not sure how many of those people own bikes with complex internal wiring/cabling patterns and have the limited experience of the average bike owner.

I will laugh when everything comes full circle back to mechanical shifting.....

:-)

I’m happy with what I use