I Sing The Shifter Electrical – Bike Snob NYC


A few months in the past, I put in a brand new Shimano 105 R7000 drivetrain on my Milwaukee:

In so doing, I preserved in amber (although technically the bike’s coloration is copper) the final “reliable*” mechanical rim brake street bike drivetrain providing from Shimano.

*[The first thing all novices learn is that you need to have at least 105, if not Ultegra or Dura-Ace, even though it’s completely untrue.]

Fortunately, skilled girls cyclists now not need to undergo this similar indignity:

As a substitute, they now have entry to the identical crap their male counterparts are utilizing:

I’m sorry, rim brakes and mechanical groupsets arre not “designed for the pains of knowledgeable racing season?” Actually???

However this is?

Wonderful, I had precisely the identical downside with the Clem final weekend:

[Photo: Dan Leto]

Simply kidding!

Right here’s Dan, by the way in which:

[Photo: Tanley Tenovo]

He’s sitting as a result of the battery on his e-Silver digital friction shifter died:

[Rivendell e-Silver Shifter: no indexing, all electric]

Oh yeah, you didn’t know I used to be on the market to check the most recent Rivendell digital stuff?**

You’ll learn all about it on Escape Collective quickly.

**[I shouldn’t even have to say it, but obviously this is not true…though I do expect something similar from Growtac at any moment. It’s perfect for their growing line of needlessly complicated shifters.]

Come to think about it, I had a motorbike with digital shifting for a short time…

…and whereas I admit I by no means had any actual issues with it, each time I eliminated the rear wheel the skewer nut would catch the rear derailleur’s energy cable and unplug it, which I’d by no means discover till I began using once more and tried to shift.

Luckily, the bicycle business has since addressed this by putting off the totally dependable and wildly handy fast launch skewer and changing it with a big bolt:

Downside solved.

And sure, wi-fi additionally solves this, similar to it should clear up the internally-routed cable downside when wi-fi brakes lastly hit the market:

Granted, this text is nearly a yr now, however the query isn’t if wi-fi brakes are coming, the query is what sort of footwear will roadies and mountain bike bros select to put on when it lastly does to allow them to most successfully run over their very own moms as they run out to purchase it?

And in the event you’re fearful about wi-fi brakes, you shouldn’t be, as a result of they’re already in use on vehicles and planes, duh:

Planes??? Wright Brothers apart, what the hell do planes need to do with bikes? what else is in use on planes? Vacuum bogs and passive-aggressive flight attendants.

Clearly we must always use these on our bikes too.

Lastly, I’m reluctant to share this story as a result of it’s so terrible, however a girl was brutally attacked for her e-bike on Randall’s Island:

Curmudgeonly kvetching about rider habits is one factor, however violent theft is the actual ugly aspect of the e-bike explosion.

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