“SRAM has not jumped into the electronic-shifting game because SRAM believes the bicycle is a pure, leg and lung-powered expression of utter simplicity and grace. And using a battery to power an essential part of the experience just isn’t right. Or necessary. Especially because the real performance benefits of electronic shifting really don’t exist. A rider still has to think about shifting and press on something. The only difference with electronic is you press a button instead of a shift-lever. It takes the same energy and thought. Furthermore, electronic shifting is so specialized and boutique that if you break it, you can’t always get service or replacement. Instead of adding benefit, all it really adds is a layer between you and the bicycle. An insulated, muffling, experience-robbing layer of “Rolls-Royce automatic cushiness” – when the essence of cycling has always been about the “Culture of Mechanical” – AKA the raw, tactile connection of the human animal to a beautiful, efficient, analog machine. So in short, SRAM believes its energy can be better spent in refining and moving forward simplicity and purity. Which is mechanical shifting. And SRAM believes the public’s energy – and money – is better spent in mechanical as well. Leaving room in the budget for true performance upgrades such as frame choices, wheels, tires, etc.”
That argument makes sense to me — although I don’t agree that bike riding is only about the ‘purity of the experience’ (if that were so, then all bikes would be FG and we’d all be in ‘zen heaven’). Please wake me up if and when electronic shifting gets as light, as cheap and as reliable as mechanical shifting, and I’ll reconsider.
At the moment it seems that a very large part of the Di2’s attraction is its price & rareness (which = ‘exclusivity’), and the fact its used by pro teams (which = ‘aspirational’) — rather than its suitability for the sort of non-competitive road riding that most potential buyers would use it for.
As i said before the only way that campag are going to get this thing off the ground is if they call in ze germans or japanese. Not just on the design process but also for manufacturing. One of the best ‘Italian’ motor bikes ever produced was that Cagiva Raptor, which was a suzuki wraped in italian styling. Maybe they’ll prove me wrong, but from what i’ve heard of moviestars experiences it’ll be a while off yet. By then Shimano will be on 3rd gen DA Di2… oooh baby i do get excited about one day being a yuppy and being able to aford that stuff.
SRAM’s argument sounds a bit like sour grapes to me.
Pretty soon it will look like they’ve dropped the ball technology-wise and will lose prestige, imho. Even though electronic shifting will remain in the PRO and dentist/investment banker ranks, because Shimano was the first adopter they seem to have an edge and have already trickled tech down while the others are sitting on their hands. Not really sure that SRAM’s position is tenable in the long run, and Kabong makes a valid point in that modern bikes/groups are hardly “pure” anyway: there’s so much tech that their argument about mechanical v electronic is pretty irrelevant when everything else is designed to the nth degree to reduce friction/time/drag.
anyway, meh: I won’t be having an electronic group on my radar for a bloody long time yet anyway. if ever.
^ Yes!
The fact they feel the need to release a public statement is proof they are either shitting themselves, or secretly making their own version.
Companies like SRAM don’t give a shit about ‘the purity of cycling’- if there is market share to be made, they’ll do it. After all their shareholders will insist.
I think Sram is bang on the money. A bike should be entirely human powered, not because it is more pure, but because that’s what makes it a bike!
That statement will probably bite them in the ass in the years to come, but I reckon they have a good point. The more technical and specialised a bike becomes, the harder it becomes to service, to produce, and also to get to the ‘masses’.
I think Sram is bang on the money. A bike should be entirely human powered, not because it is more pure, but because that’s what makes it a bike!
That statement will probably bite them in the ass in the years to come, but I reckon they have a good point. The more technical and specialised a bike becomes, the harder it becomes to service, to produce, and also to get to the ‘masses’.
At the risk of getting slightly off-topic — Skippy said “the only way that campag are going to get this thing off the ground is if they call in ze germans or japanese. Not just on the design process but also for manufacturing”, and he refers to the Cagiva Raptor, “which was a suzuki wraped in italian styling”. The automotive equivalent of that synergy occurred when Audi (German) bought Lamborghini (Italian), and Lambo began to make supercars that actually work and are reliable.
quoting myself because I wrote it before the SRAM statement – imagine if bicycles had something like ABS / TC. or if gears could be locked out by directors to make sure their members don’t make any silly choices, or to force them to conserve / consume energy for later…
Edlang has suggested that Di2 could be used in conjunction with other sensors (e.g. with cadence and power sensors, and with GPS – which could be used in conjunction with electronic topographical maps to plot current and anticipated rates of climb & descent) so that the bike could:
(a) lock out certain gears to prevent over-shifting;
(b) be fitted with shift lights;
(c) be entirely self-shifting; and/or
(d) be shifted remotely from the team cars with laptops.
It is clearly possible to build all sorts of sensors into a bike which would allow for that sort of electronic assistance or intervention — although that would add a fair amount of weight as well as cost. Of course weight is less of an issue if bikes keep getting lighter and if the UCI minimum bike weight doesn’t change. The higher bike cost also wouldn’t be much of an issue for the top pro teams.
Remote shifting would probably require frequency agile and encrypted radio communication to prevent miscommunications and to ensure system security (e.g. to prevent other people from nobbling a team rider by hacking into his bike’s systems and directing it to make bad shifts).
It should also be possible to analyse the data from a bike’s sensors with the data from the rider’s heart rate monitor and any other ‘medical’ sensors (body temperature?), so that boffins in the team car can plot a rider’s real-time performance against his potential performance envelope, and so the team managers can accurately direct the rider’s performance (e.g. “increase your cadence by 10 revs/minute”) as well as directing the bike’s shifting systems.
I think those ‘improvements’ would really diminish the significance of the rider’s performance. The rider would still be producing all the power, and doing all the steering & braking — but he’d be much less in control of his performance than he is now. It would be much harder to admire a rider’s guts, determination and mental toughness when so many of the critical decisions would be made for him (save for the descents). I think the sport would be much poorer for that.
the uci want to ban race radios, the chances of remote shifts from a team car are absolutely zero
= Great relief
Without the involvement of team cars, I think it would be too heavy/complicated/risky to incorporate ‘on board’ computer systems on a bike to prevent over-shifting, to suggest shifts or to self-shift during competition.
If someone produces a simple/light/reliable torque sensor then it should be fairly easily link Di2 with that sensor, with a cadence sensor and with a simple electronic brain, to produce a self-shifting automatic gear change that could also be used manually (rather like the Alfa Romeo ‘Selespeed’ robotised manual gearboxes). There may be a market for such a system if Di2 becomes cheap enough (Shimano 2200 Di2?)