eTap : worth it or it's just a poser thing ?

noodleman

neil h wrote:

Going back to the OPs question, I can't help feel it's a little bit posey. The only advantage I can see to using electronic shifters is that it significantly reduces the time to replace a derailleur/shifter, if that times not an issue then you may as well save yourself a small fortune.

It's not much more expensive than the dura ace di2 equivalent though.

neil h

2-300 quid in it by my reckoning. So a small fortune was probably a slight exaggeration but it's still no small amount.

fenix

I've had cables forever now. Di2 doesn't appeal as you still have cables and introduce batteries into the mix. I've never snapped a gear cable.

Etap does appeal. No cables. Batteries that you can swap over.

That's what my next new summer bike will have. When I treat myself.

mamba80

meanredspider wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

i didnt think di2 used Profibus but a generic shimano interface? just as sram uses its own standard and not 802.11n

Our ride yesterday am, was slightly messed up by 2 riders with di2 issues, we left them with their phones and ride partners, what could we do in any case?

i ve been on too many rides with people who ve had di2 problems to ever consider but e-tap, for some reason appeals, my thinking is wiring/bicycles and uk road/weather conditions are not ideal for this application.

Of course i total get that 1000s of riders have no issues also.

Yup - it's their own system but works on identical principles.

I've got to say that I love the blind faith in wireless - despite everything we know. This WILL be different...

I've used (and mostly abused) Di2 from the beginning. My Volagi has a totally externally mounted Di2 system (the only person that's ever noticed was The Bike Whisperer). That bike has been on some adventures. The Foil is racking up the miles now too.

The latest versions of Di2 connect to a mobile phone app so you can customise (and maybe diagnose - I don't know the details) on the fly. Smash a shifter in an off? Customise the other to continue.

The funny thing is I'm pro electronic shifting. I'd much rather have eTap than mechanical

802.11n is used in industry for control purposes without issue.

and ethernet, used in the elements is a minefield, dont get me wrong but di2 will soon be overtaken by wifi and i d bet that Shimano is heavily investing in it.
Of course i know full well you ve had great service from your Di2 set-ups but i also suspect your switched on mtce/instal wise.

meanredspider

Fenix wrote:

I've had cables forever now. Di2 doesn't appeal as you still have cables and introduce batteries into the mix. I've never snapped a gear cable.

Etap does appeal. No cables. Batteries that you can swap over.

That's what my next new summer bike will have. When I treat myself.

I've got to say that I'm bemused by some of these comments. With Di2 you have a short bit of cable at the stem (I think there are even stems that hide this now) next to your brake cables, a short bit at F&R D. Really?

And you can swap batteries. With this comes a huge amount of customisation flexibility including various customisable satellite shifters and auto shifting and trimming. Even eTaps satellite shifters have cables.

And, if I'm reading the numbers correctly, the price of entry is twice that of Di2 (Ultegra).

I do wonder if there isn't a bit of face-saving in some of these choices (picking on no-one in particular): "I bad-mouthed Di2 but this e-shifting thing isn't going away so here's my opportunity to hold my opinion (and save face) whilst going electronic."

Anyhow, I'm generally just good with people moving to e-shifting however they do it.

meanredspider

mamba80 wrote:

802.11n is used in industry for control purposes without issue.

and ethernet, used in the elements is a minefield, dont get me wrong but di2 will soon be overtaken by wifi and i d bet that Shimano is heavily investing in it.
Of course i know full well you ve had great service from your Di2 set-ups but i also suspect your switched on mtce/instal wise.

Well, that's not quite true about no issues with 802.11n in industry.

And we aren't talking about Ethernet either.

Yup - TRIZ tells us that it will go radio in time - I just don't think we're ready yet. And I just don't get why you'd want to do it when all the bits are "permanently" attached to the same frame (except where wires are impractical). I want eTap to succeed. It will be much better when you can start to take proper advantage of radio - shifting buttons in the tips of your gloves or somehow remote from the bike. Then it will really make sense. Especially if they could agree on a standard.

Yup - I installed all of my Di2 myself - it's mindblowingly easy provided you realise how hard you need to push on the connectors - people don't. As for maintenance, I'm living proof of how tough Di2 is - I do absolutely nothing save charge the battery once in a blue moon. And mine's literally been submerged.

noodleman

So tell me meanredspider, why are we not ready for radio gear shifting? You want it to succeed and you have no evidence to believe it won't but you still defend di2 to the hilt. Di2 may be easy to install but compared to etap it's barely easier than cables. Etap already has succeeded, it's a no brainer when choosing a new groupset. Please explain the downsides!

meanredspider

noodleman wrote:

So tell me meanredspider, why are we not ready for radio gear shifting? You want it to succeed and you have no evidence to believe it won't but you still defend di2 to the hilt. Di2 may be easy to install but compared to etap it's barely easier than cables. Etap already has succeeded, it's a no brainer when choosing a new groupset. Please explain the downsides!

Only because I work with radio in consumer electronics every day (my teams have three 3m EMC chambers) and I see it warts and all. I've worked in high integrity consumer electronics for 15 years now and I have seen tech that works and doesn't. I also used to have a team that did electronics reliability - intuitively eTap doesn't make sense: it's more complex for no tangible benefit - only aesthetics.

If eTap was really "ready" you'd be able to do a lot more with it - much much more customisation. The fact that SRAM (a large company with loads of resources) has taken so long to get the product out there and (reading between the lines of those reports of issues that people have had) are desperate for it to succeed, also suggests it has not been easy.

I'm sure it will be OK but, as with Di2 originally, I'd be waiting for the second gen when they've figured out what works and what doesn't. And added the features it needs.

To say it's a no-brainer when it's at least twice the price of Ultegra Di2 is a little odd. Just so you don't see a couple of inches of wire..That's before we talk about hydraulic disc brakes.
I'm up to 10 bike years (5+3+1) of Ultegra Di2 without a single issue - absolutely nothing. I've not so much as needed to upgrade the firmware - every item is exactly as purchased and installed (by me). Di2 is accelerating away from eTap as far as functionality is concerned - customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Personally if people want to get eTap, that's totally cool with me. Just don't try to tell me that it's so much better than Di2 because it is not.

sloppyschleckonds

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

meanredspider

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

Dunno - never needed it.

Still - good luck with your eTap dongle in the USB-C port

dennisn

Devastazione2 wrote:

Been to Dura Ace 9000,Ultegra 6700 ( horrible),tested extensively a Ui2 and I'm now perfectly happy with a 105 on my Diverge. My next bike purchase comes either with the next to retirement Ultegra or the mighty SRAM eTap. I don't race at all but my rides are short and punchy. Is the eTap really worth the money or the coolness factor ? I like the geeky idea but since I'm not a millennial I don't think I can stand another device to plug in..

Just exactly what do you do with all the "junk" you seem to be buying? If you've already bought all this other stuff and dismissed it as trash, why are you worried about the price of anything else? To be honest I'm thinking that you, most likely, are the cause of all this component failure. You're talking about good, solid, well built, proven components. To be honest you don't sound like you know what you're talking about.

cougie

meanredspider wrote:

Fenix wrote:

I've had cables forever now. Di2 doesn't appeal as you still have cables and introduce batteries into the mix. I've never snapped a gear cable.

Etap does appeal. No cables. Batteries that you can swap over.

That's what my next new summer bike will have. When I treat myself.

I've got to say that I'm bemused by some of these comments. With Di2 you have a short bit of cable at the stem (I think there are even stems that hide this now) next to your brake cables, a short bit at F&R D. Really?

And you can swap batteries. With this comes a huge amount of customisation flexibility including various customisable satellite shifters and auto shifting and trimming. Even eTaps satellite shifters have cables.

Surely you have cables all the way to the mechs? Internal or external - the cables still exist.

With etap you have two batteries so you can swap in a pinch. To do this on di2 youd have to have the battery external and to buy a spare and Carry it around with you.

meanredspider

cougie wrote:

Surely you have cables all the way to the mechs? Internal or external - the cables still exist.

With etap you have two batteries so you can swap in a pinch. To do this on di2 youd have to have the battery external and to buy a spare and Carry it around with you.

Of course the cables exist - are we now saying the cables you can't even see are a problem?

It's an interesting point you make about batteries. Firstly, there's a Reliability Engineering technique called "part count" - it basically says the more parts you have the more chance of a failure (assuming no built-in redundancy). If the reliability of a battery is F then, with two batteries in the system, the reliability becomes FxF - i.e. Lower. That there are 4 batteries in the system (say button cells have a reliability of f) you end up with the reliability being FxFxfxf i.e. somewhat lower than F.

Now, of course it's more complex than that and there is some mitigation coming from swapping batteries (assuming that works) but this is what I'm saying about the complexity of the system. There's probably 4 radio modules and definitely 3 batteries more plus lots of extra buttons and LEDs. You aren't going to be swapping button cells out on the road (judging by the fiddly covers) - not that it would help you much as you need both brifters to be working to operate the system.

neil h

meanredspider wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

Dunno - never needed it.

Still - good luck with your eTap dongle in the USB-C port

Currently available for Windows and iOS. Looks quite interesting to be fair..

http://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/application/

bernithebiker

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

No, unbelievably, after 6 years, still nothing. I have to go round my mate's house and borrow his PC to update firmware (after borrowing the diagnostics tool from my friendly LBS).

An Ipad app has just arrived, but you will need the new internal battery and the new Dfly sender for it to work.

Seems the DA Di2 'hidden buttons' will be able to be assigned to other tasks than moving the Garmin screen too....

meanredspider

bernithebiker wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

No, unbelievably, after 6 years, still nothing. I have to go round my mate's house and borrow his PC to update firmware (after borrowing the diagnostics tool from my friendly LBS).

An Ipad app has just arrived, but you will need the new internal battery and the new Dfly sender for it to work.

Seems the DA Di2 'hidden buttons' will be able to be assigned to other tasks than moving the Garmin screen too....

Do you not run some form of virtual PC anyway? I've loads of stuff that only runs on PC including my old Tacx software and DVDs and my AIM race car GPS recorder so I run W7 on something - or did until my son gave me his old PC laptop. Still, I've never connected any of my Di2 systems.

meanredspider

neil h wrote:

Currently available for Windows and iOS. Looks quite interesting to be fair..

http://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/application/

This is what I meant about eTap - it's way behind when you look at what Shimano are doing with e-Tube across a wide range of products from DA through MTB to eBikes. And, whilst Shimano might be moving to wireless at some point, they're heavily invested in e-Tube and, seemingly, continuing to invest.

imposter2.0

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

bernithebiker

meanredspider wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

customise eTap from your iPhone? In your dreams.

Any Di2 software for OSX yet?

No, unbelievably, after 6 years, still nothing. I have to go round my mate's house and borrow his PC to update firmware (after borrowing the diagnostics tool from my friendly LBS).

An Ipad app has just arrived, but you will need the new internal battery and the new Dfly sender for it to work.

Seems the DA Di2 'hidden buttons' will be able to be assigned to other tasks than moving the Garmin screen too....

Do you not run some form of virtual PC anyway? I've loads of stuff that only runs on PC including my old Tacx software and DVDs and my AIM race car GPS recorder so I run W7 on something - or did until my son gave me his old PC laptop. Still, I've never connected any of my Di2 systems.

Apparently, there is only 1 half decent Windows emulator for Mac, but it's like 100 Euros or something, and I'm not paying that.

I like to run my shifter buttons inversed so I have to connect up to change them. And if you don't upgrade firmware you're going to have an issue at some point.

bernithebiker

Imposter wrote:

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

I moved to Di2 9070 2 years ago after my DA9000 broke 2 rear shifter cables in quick succession (a known issue).

And of course there is the indisputable fringe benefit of having a Di2 ring tone on your phone.....

(And being able to change Garmin screen without moving your hands from the shifters... )

meanredspider

bernithebiker wrote:

Apparently, there is only 1 half decent Windows emulator for Mac, but it's like 100 Euros or something, and I'm not paying that.

I like to run my shifter buttons inversed so I have to connect up to change them. And if you don't upgrade firmware you're going to have an issue at some point.

You can simply run Windows from Bootcamp if you don't want a VM - though I've used Parallels in the past.

Yes - I might need to upgrade firmware at some point though it has not been necessary yet. My Di2 just works.

meanredspider

Imposter wrote:

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

If you always ride your bike without a single electronic device (GPS, HRM, PM, speed, cadence etc) then you have my total respect.

Otherwise, you're just behind the curve...

imposter2.0

meanredspider wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

If you always ride your bike without a single electronic device (GPS, HRM, PM, speed, cadence etc) then you have my total respect.

Otherwise, you're just behind the curve...

I don't live in a mud hut, off-grid, if that's what you mean. Either way, I think we all need to calm down a bit...

meanredspider

Imposter wrote:

Either way, I think we all need to calm down a bit...

Fortunately what you think doesn't matter...

imposter2.0

meanredspider wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Either way, I think we all need to calm down a bit...

Fortunately what you think doesn't matter...

No need to be rude. If I ever need to be patronised again by an arrogant tw@t, I'll keep you in mind..

meanredspider

Imposter wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Either way, I think we all need to calm down a bit...

Fortunately what you think doesn't matter...

Thanks. If I ever need to be patronised by an arrogant tw@t, I'll keep you in mind..

I'm saved from need to keep you in mind because you feel obliged to comment on every thread often just to say that you don't think the thread is necessary/useful/generally to your liking. That's a pretty good impression an arrogant tw@t you've got going there...

mamba80

bernithebiker wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

I moved to Di2 9070 2 years ago after my DA9000 broke 2 rear shifter cables in quick succession (a known issue).

And of course there is the indisputable fringe benefit of having a Di2 ring tone on your phone.....

(And being able to change Garmin screen without moving your hands from the shifters... )

i do also remember you ve had a heap of issues with Di2, that had you at one point or another questioning if you d roll back and that you d not use di2 on your client rides?

hardly comparable to a broken cable, which was a extremely rare occurnace effecting the early 9000 shifters.

sungod

meanredspider wrote:

Of course the cables exist - are we now saying the cables you can't even see are a problem?

It's an interesting point you make about batteries. Firstly, there's a Reliability Engineering technique called "part count" - it basically says the more parts you have the more chance of a failure (assuming no built-in redundancy). If the reliability of a battery is F then, with two batteries in the system, the reliability becomes FxF - i.e. Lower. That there are 4 batteries in the system (say button cells have a reliability of f) you end up with the reliability being FxFxfxf i.e. somewhat lower than F.

Now, of course it's more complex than that and there is some mitigation coming from swapping batteries (assuming that works) but this is what I'm saying about the complexity of the system. There's probably 4 radio modules and definitely 3 batteries more plus lots of extra buttons and LEDs. You aren't going to be swapping button cells out on the road (judging by the fiddly covers) - not that it would help you much as you need both brifters to be working to operate the system.

parts-count is merely one factor in reliability engineering, which you should know, so why are you being so extremely selective?

for instance, with a non-wireless system there are all the extra cables and connectors, exposed to harsh conditions, vibration, impact, abrasion, contaminated water, dust, oil etc.

in the old days i once designed data communications equipment for the military (for frigates and submarines), in addition to harsh environment it had to survive the shock forces expected when under attack, microelectronic modules secured in sealed enclosures are dramatically more reliable than exposed cables and connectors, which is why the latter were designed out to the extent possible

unless you can produce objective evidence that etap has a real, rather than contrived, reliability issue it looks like you are simply attempting to rubbish etap for some reason, if that's the case you'll need to do a lot better than you have so far

bernithebiker

mamba80 wrote:

bernithebiker wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Are we still talking about gear shifting? ie, moving the chain from one sprocket to another? I seem to have been transferred to some parallel universe, where the only thing that matters is whether you can interact with your rear mech via a phone app. Currently, I interact with my rear mech by clicking a lever on the shifter - is this not sufficient?

I moved to Di2 9070 2 years ago after my DA9000 broke 2 rear shifter cables in quick succession (a known issue).

And of course there is the indisputable fringe benefit of having a Di2 ring tone on your phone.....

(And being able to change Garmin screen without moving your hands from the shifters... )

i do also remember you ve had a heap of issues with Di2, that had you at one point or another questioning if you d roll back and that you d not use di2 on your client rides?

hardly comparable to a broken cable, which was a extremely rare occurnace effecting the early 9000 shifters.

I had 3 issues;

1. was a full freeze up when I installed the Dfly unit - I had to borrow a diagnostic unit and interrogate / update each component. Live and learn.

2. was a battery issue, not holding charge - this was solved by not charging it from a wall socket.

3. was (i am 99% sure) a front mech cable installed too tight to the shifter. A harsh bump would partially disconnect it.

All of the above was over a year ago now, and I've been OK ever since. (And yes, has been used on tours no problems as both my bikes have Di2).

The 9000 shifter breaking cable problem was bad enough for Shimano to produce the 9001's to solve it.

napoleond

Invaluable input from the OP. Who wants etap to ride his bike at leisure for an hour.