Di2..2 months along….

vinnymarsden

Bought a Scott Foil with the latest 11 speed Di2 set up from Westbrook (great service from them).
I was initially a non believer of the whole Di2 thing, thinking it was a passing fad….but now after time with it, and time on the roads I have to say CHAPEAU to Shimano, a complete total game changer in my opinion.
After 15mins was so sold on it, if anyone had suggested taking it back I think a fight may have developed!!!

For anyone considering Di2, stop procrastinating and drop the cash…it is SO worth the change.
I just hope the chancellor understands it has to be a basic element of every bike in future!!!

sloppyschleckonds

Does it revolutionise cycling or just change gears?

MountainMonster

I always find it funny when people assume it is a passing fad, then swear by it a few minutes later. Your gears still change, it can't be that much of a revolution to your cycling.

BrandonA

Out of curiosity what groupset did you have prior to getting Di2?

Also, when you refer to Di2 are you referring to Ultegra or DuraAce?

Why is it better? If you could give some specific details it would be good. I'm considering upgrading my DuraAce 9000 to Di2 over the winter but I'm not 100% sold on the idea yet as there are other upgrades that would improve performance and my 9000 shifts slowly as I service it regularly.

thegreatdivide

Rode from Edinburgh to Sheffield with Sky on a Tour promotional 'thing' at the start of the month. Every single bike with Di2 failed on the way - not an exaggeration - and the owners had to complete the rest of the ride on Sora equipped Boardmans carried by the support car.

I'm not knocking electronic drive trains as I run Record EPS on a bike and love it, but half a dozen various versions of Di2 failing on a 300 mile ride was a bit of an eye opener!

borisface

Like OP I availed myself of an ultegra di2 foil a couple of months ago, since then I've done about 2,000 miles. So a decent road test. In the recent past, I've used standard sram apex, force, tiagra, 105 and ultegra therefore plenty of comparison. I find the di2 to be better than all of them, but then its twice the price so it should be.

The front shifting is very good indeed, there was always a bit of a strain when shifting from little ring to big ring especially at lower cadences such as cresting a summit and shifting rings for the descent. I find that this is pretty much alleviated, in fact it is even possible to make a smooth shift between rings out of the saddle. Though I'm not sure when I'd ever do it TBH.

The rear shifting is also better - smoother, quicker and more precise. The thing that I like although I admit its a bit gimmicky is that it automatically trims the front derailleur when you move up and down the sprockets at the back so you never get any front mech rub. Its easy to set up and adjust.

Its also weatherproof I was on a very very wet ride a couple of weeks ago and it worked flawlessly. Battery life is great - only charged up twice in that period.

However, having said all that, its not like any of the shifting these days is poor and certainly is far better than when I started cycling about 34 years ago, (censored is it? I'm still hoping for a pro-contract). If I was buying again, I would certainly consider di2 but unless I got a deal like I did to get it in the first place I'm not sure that I would go for it.

Yes its better for sure, it feels nicer, but when the alternative is pretty good anyway and if you're looking for performance enhancement the £500 difference would probably be best spent on a week away riding your bike everyday somewhere warm and hilly.

sloppyschleckonds

borisface wrote:

The front shifting is very good indeed, there was always a bit of a strain when shifting from little ring to big ring especially at lower cadences such as cresting a summit and shifting rings for the descent. I find that this is pretty much alleviated, in fact it is even possible to make a smooth shift between rings out of the saddle. Though I'm not sure when I'd ever do it TBH.

Thats more about ability than Di2 doing anything special.

borisface

Yeah right.

Pedro77

No doubt that electronic shifting will become the norm for higher end bikes in the coming years. For me I still enjoy mechanical shifting, I don't mind it is slower, I am not a professional and even if I was I doubt it would make that much of a difference.

Sure, it is probably easier to setup and keep it shifting perfectly but a well setup mechanical will perform really well too.

The main reason I am still hanging to the mechanical is not that I won't embrace electronic shifting but with so many things that need electricity and charging... I don't need another battery to worry about... And let's face it a properly setup Record, Durace, etc will shift very very well. Mechanical just works and no need to have another battery to charge IMO. For now at least...

In fact Nibali's bike run mechanical groupset. Personal choice in the end I think!

Pedro

chris_bass

the main thing putting me off getting Di2 is that if something fails on my bike out on a ride I could have a good stab at putting it right, with Di2 I wouldn't have a clue, I prefer to carry a multi tool than a soldering iron!!

Iamnot Wiggins

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

borisface wrote:

The front shifting is very good indeed, there was always a bit of a strain when shifting from little ring to big ring especially at lower cadences such as cresting a summit and shifting rings for the descent. I find that this is pretty much alleviated, in fact it is even possible to make a smooth shift between rings out of the saddle. Though I'm not sure when I'd ever do it TBH.

Thats more about ability than Di2 doing anything special.

The man has a point - no problems doing this on a mechanical Campag Chorus group.

durhamwasp

Hired a bike with Di2 in Mallorca for a week earlier in the year, very impressed and now looking to pick up a new bike with it in the winter bargains

StillGoing

Iamnot Wiggins wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

borisface wrote:

The front shifting is very good indeed, there was always a bit of a strain when shifting from little ring to big ring especially at lower cadences such as cresting a summit and shifting rings for the descent. I find that this is pretty much alleviated, in fact it is even possible to make a smooth shift between rings out of the saddle. Though I'm not sure when I'd ever do it TBH.

Thats more about ability than Di2 doing anything special.

The man has a point - no problems doing this on a mechanical Campag Chorus group.

He does indeed. Any mechanical groupset if set up properly, is capable of smooth changes. For me, if I was riding in the hills. i'd want a mechanical groupset rather than electronic. If a mechanical fails, you have options; Di2 failing means tough day ahead. Was it Rohan Dennis on the tour that lost the yellow jersey when the front derailleur of his Di2 set up failed during a climb leaving him stuck in the big ring?

philbar72

on both bikes i have 6800 product but one has Di2.
the differences for me are the abilitly to go down the cassette (and up) far more rapidly, the shifting buttons are easier to utilise than the mechanical ones and slightly quicker to react. the grips are very smart compared to the mechanical equivalents and are a lot slimmer as well.

Negatives - if you are a weight weenie, the Di2 stuff weighs a bit more. I've had to replace 2 right shifter cables because of stupidity on my behalf, in relation to taking the bike out of a bike bag... (snagged and part damaged cables!!!). carry a spare cable if you can as tht is where there is a potential weakness... or get cables that are actually long enough and have some give so that they aren't overstretched.

It is reliable if set up right and shifts are very good, is it worth the extra over mechanical... i'd say yes. would i run it over the winter months - no.

markhewitt1978

durhamwasp wrote:

Hired a bike with Di2 in Mallorca for a week earlier in the year, very impressed and now looking to pick up a new bike with it in the winter bargains

I hired a bike in Mallorca last year, which was a better bike than the one I was riding, so I ended up spending a fortune on upgrades, so I now have carbon + full ultegra etc. Going back in October this year and I had the option of a Di2 Ultegra bike, however I'm not going to make the same mistake again and feel the need to buy Di2 when I get home so I've open for mechanical on my hire bike!

DHA987S

Have ran Di2 for over 2 years and over 3000 miles. Original Ultegra 10 speed version and now Dura Ace 11 speed version.

Run it in all weathers, ride it on cobbles in Belgium, it gets wet and dirty and isn't cleaned after every ride. It's faultless, no problems or failures with it. The worry of running out of battery power is not really something to consider. The battery life gives me around 1000 miles of riding, the indicator light gives you warnings at less than 50% charge and less than 25% charge. It takes less than 2 hours to fully charge IIRC. If you do get very low power out and about the front mech stops first and the rear keeps working.

Yesterday on a club run we hit a steep ramp after a blind bend, mechanical gears struggled to change without sounding horrible whereas I just clicked away and had no issues.

One downside is that chain wear is faster with the system as it allows you to cross chain and this will obviously stretch the chain.

Tjgoodhew

I have 10 speed Tiagra on one of my bikes and it shifts faultlessly and has done for a few thousand miles.

I tried Ui2 in majorca and it changed perfectly everytime - the same as my mechanical Tiagra.

When buying my new bike i decided on mechanical SRAM simply because i preferred the look and to me mechanical gearing is like driving an automatic car. I simply prefer the mechanical change instead of a machine doing it for me at the press of a button.

Im sure that at some point in the future most of us will make the change like people have from downtube to STI's however i certainly wont be looking to change till at least the 5th/6th generation when it looks a lot better and issues have been ironed out

NewTTer

Tjgoodhew wrote:

I have 10 speed Tiagra on one of my bikes and it shifts faultlessly and has done for a few thousand miles.

I tried Ui2 in majorca and it changed perfectly everytime - the same as my mechanical Tiagra.

When buying my new bike i decided on mechanical SRAM simply because i preferred the look and to me mechanical gearing is like driving an automatic car. I simply prefer the mechanical change instead of a machine doing it for me at the press of a button.

Im sure that at some point in the future most of us will make the change like people have from downtube to STI's however i certainly wont be looking to change till at least the 5th/6th generation when it looks a lot better and issues have been ironed out

Which ISSUES ? apart from the perceived ones driven by internet forum group think. Are there any more than a mechanical groupset? Not in my experience of using Di2.

Tjgoodhew

NewTTer wrote:

Tjgoodhew wrote:

I have 10 speed Tiagra on one of my bikes and it shifts faultlessly and has done for a few thousand miles.

I tried Ui2 in majorca and it changed perfectly everytime - the same as my mechanical Tiagra.

When buying my new bike i decided on mechanical SRAM simply because i preferred the look and to me mechanical gearing is like driving an automatic car. I simply prefer the mechanical change instead of a machine doing it for me at the press of a button.

Im sure that at some point in the future most of us will make the change like people have from downtube to STI's however i certainly wont be looking to change till at least the 5th/6th generation when it looks a lot better and issues have been ironed out

Which ISSUES ? apart from the perceived ones driven by internet forum group think. Are there any more than a mechanical groupset? Not in my experience of using Di2.

May be a slight generalisation but with pretty much all electronic products the first few generations are problematic when compared with later generations.

Grill

Tjgoodhew wrote:

NewTTer wrote:

Tjgoodhew wrote:

I have 10 speed Tiagra on one of my bikes and it shifts faultlessly and has done for a few thousand miles.

I tried Ui2 in majorca and it changed perfectly everytime - the same as my mechanical Tiagra.

When buying my new bike i decided on mechanical SRAM simply because i preferred the look and to me mechanical gearing is like driving an automatic car. I simply prefer the mechanical change instead of a machine doing it for me at the press of a button.

Im sure that at some point in the future most of us will make the change like people have from downtube to STI's however i certainly wont be looking to change till at least the 5th/6th generation when it looks a lot better and issues have been ironed out

Which ISSUES ? apart from the perceived ones driven by internet forum group think. Are there any more than a mechanical groupset? Not in my experience of using Di2.

May be a slight generalisation but with pretty much all electronic products the first few generations are problematic when compared with later generations.

There are no 'issues' with Di2 (which is already on its 4th iteration). Actually there was nothing wrong with 7970, but the change to etubes made interchangeability and upgrading infinitely better. In regards to reliability, you don't see more instances of Di2 or EPS bikes failing when compared to their mechanical counterparts.

I will never go back to mechanical groupsets on my TT bike. Still not bothered on the road though.

ugo.santalucia

madasahattersley wrote:

The biggest game changer for me was stopping caring about nice bikes and just riding one that works reliably and smoothly. Oh the joy it brings

If you are getting that wise at your age, there is a good chance you might become a Jedi Knight one day...

ugo.santalucia

I have never tried Di2 or EPS, so I don't have a clue whether they are life-changingly better as far as shifting gears goes. What annoys me is that Shimano and Campagnolo have invested 20 years worth of R&D budget to come out with this technology. Over the past 20 years nothing else significant has come out, which means a lot of money went in this effort. IMO it would have been more beneficial to the consumer if they invested the same effort on road hydraulic brake technology, or something equivalent to an ABS for bicycles, or both. At the end of the day, if I can avoid going down on an unseasonal patch of ice once and spend a couple of months with crutches, it is certainly worth more than any electronic shifting.

So, well done, but it goes to solve a problem that never existed.

speshsteve

if electronic means auto/perfect indexing of gears front and back then I'm in however does it?

I hate indexing my gears, my old 105 was perfect....newer dura ace and ultra with the cables under the bar tape I find a real censored !

DHA987S

Once indexed it never needs doing again*


*unless you crash or bend the rear mech hanger

lawrences

With Di2 I could throw clip on bars on my bike and ride it like a proper tt bike, apart from that I don't see the benefit above a normal groupset of the same spec.

ricey155

Another convert my sram red was good but the Di2 ultegra is super smooth and fast / reliable no more gear cable issues EVER AGAIN

CiB

A few thoughts, having run Di2 for the last 2 & half years as an upgrade from Ultegra mechanical which after a gap of 18 months ended up on bike #2.

Reading posts from people who say they'll wait for issues to be ironed out, you're in for a long wait for it to get much closer to a 0% failure rate. Stuff breaks, but mostly it works. Di2 fits that norm so it's a flimsy reason not to.

Search on here for an old thread about battery life and you'll find me as the lone voice who suffered repeated sudden battery discharge, not the steady change over a few hundred miles but from solid green to flashing green to flashing red to red to dead in minutes. Touch wood that's resolved now, but it didn't stop them being great as long as I kept it out of the cold & wet.

So what's the benefit? In no order...

Gear changes are instant
Changes are always the same, bang on. No half completed changes as your cold wet fingers slip off the lever halfway through, they either happen or they don't.
Changes are almost done by thought transference - the lack of physical movement is wonderful, esp near the end of a hilly 100-miler when energy is running low. Compared to the mechanical version that gets an occasional outing and which in comparison needs a long shove of the lever to complete a slick change, it's not night & day, but enough to be a real boon.
Easy gear changes stomping up a climb, without lifting off. Sure other systems can do it too, but this just works, every time.
Self trimming. Brilliant. It doesn't make you run cross-chain, that's your own personal choice of gear selection just like a mechanical system.
Indexing on the move. Maybe you've swapped wheels or something. Indexing on the move is trivial. I do it sometimes just for the fun of it.
Strangers are always commenting on them, positively. The number of people I met over two days in Yorkshire on the TdF who asked about them whether it was riding along, waiting around, or the bloke outside a supermarket who just stopped and said 'nice bike...Di2 yeah?' was noticeable. Knock it if you like but it's enjoyable being on the receiving end.
They're fun. Cycling's meant to be enjoyable; these add to the enjoyment.

There's probably more but that'll do. The only thing I'll do different next time is to buy a bike with internal cabling rather than the aftermarket / afterthought that it runs now.

bobbydazzla

I rode Dura Ace electronic and Campag EPS on hire bikes in Majorca, had them for 10 days each.

I thought both were very good but I didn't have the euruka moment that would persuade me to convert my own bike to electronic, even though I hate tinkering around trying to get my gears indexed correctly...

I'm currently contemplating the idea of buying a new high end bike for next summer, if I go ahead then I think I'll probably stick with mechanical and get DA or Record.

jonny_trousers

I'm quite excited that Chorus EPS is on it's way, but I have a horrible feeling it'll be scarily expensive.

StillGoing

I'll just wait for the automatic groupset to be developed that lets you set your power threshold and changes gear front and back to maintain your power. Until then it's mechanical for me.

DavidJB

I am a programmer for a living, I love new gadgets and spend all my life around/creating new technology...I tried electronic shift and then mechanical campag record...I'll forever* ride campagnolo mechanical, I much prefer the positive feedback when changing gears...that said there's nothing wrong with DI2 and it's really good at what it was designed for but I prefer mechanical.

*Nothings forever