Very easy answer - customer preference. I dislike SRAM brake feel and don't have a good opinion of them from design perspectives too. Wireless may be good for shops and factory but I like 1 big battery that I maintain 4x per year. You've got to run hydraulic hoses anyway so the difference isn't as stark as he's suggesting.
Silly comment really when you wouldn’t believe how quickly a production line technician can drop a seat post with a battery and two wires hanging out of the bottom of it into a frame and through the Di2 frame holes. We are talking a couple minutes and once fitted Di2 is a lighter and superior product to anything on the market. The refinement and fit and finish on Shimano is on another level. On group sets with no front mech it makes sense to put the battery in the rear mech so it’s the future for MTB and gravel Shimano products. The SRAM system is an excellent idea and so simple though. They deserve huge respect for what they’ve achieved in the last 5/10 years ✊🏻 Campag doesn’t deserve to be still in business 🤦🏻♂️
How extensive are SRAM patents for the positioning of the battery? Not sure that Shimano are able to go totally wireless in any practical/efficient manner. SRAM’s system for detachable/interchangable batteries is very neat - and Shimano would need to find an alternative solution which didn’t infringe IP.
Yes,I was always under impression Shimano was unable to do fully wireless before because of SRAM Patents. It’s a notorious minefield. Campagnolo mentioned the issues they had navigating all the patents on their latest groupsets.
I still don't understand how they can patent batteries that are interchangeable between stuff. It's as if Milwaukee was the only brand that had batteries interchangeable between all their tools.
@@Willard_guy The problem is that it takes years to get a patent struck and it's expensive. In the meantime you can't really sell your product (at least in the US) because the patent holder will get an injunction (see AppleWatch for a current example). Patents aren't really given based if they work or not, or even if they make sense. Purely on the question: Has anybody else patented this before? And I am sure SRAMs patent lawyers filed the patent in a way that made it appear / sound novel and thus they got the patent. Shimano, Campagnolo et. al. can try and get the patent struck, but it'll take years.
Considering Campy and every major Chinese groupset manufacturer has full wireless, its probably not extensive. I think this is more copium then anything by Shimano fans.
Nothing wrong with Shimano's semi wireless implementation. How many times do you have to touch the battery and 2 wires once it's installed ? If your answer is greater than zero, then you should sell your bike.
I agree on the fact that Shimano is behind. The fact that not that many people are getting SRAM is because of their weird smaller cranks and cassette. It has been proven that bigger gears are more efficient regarding chain "flexing" around the gears. I'd rather have an 11 small one than a 10 one, and since I currently ride mostly alone I run a 12-25 (to get the 18 cog instead of the 11 that I would almost never use). I'd rather have 53-39 (or even 52-36 (current setup) or 54-40) than a 48-whatever SRAM is pushing out. I think Racers feel the same too, that's why SRAM had to come out with bigger chainrings, but they aren't available to the public, or are very rare.
Honestly this is only the case for the road. MTB is fully dominated by SRAM and gravel is mostly SRAM. 5 watt penalty doesn’t matter for anyone that isn’t a top end pro. Aero socks are more of a difference in watt savings.
What's so hard about those two Di2 cables? It's as easy as 1-2-3. Brand new frame it's extra 2 minutes tops. Old frame maybe 5-10 min. The extra battery life is totally worth it.
@@YeahwhatdoesthatmeanJust add cost of 2 minutes of labor to every bike? It's negligible in comparison to the cost of the whole thing. I don't think it's 2 minutes though, more like an hour or two for some frames. I was building my own Aethos with 12 speed di2 with a mechanic friend and routing the FD cable was a bit of a pain and the rear one while easy still required a bit of care.
@@Yeahwhatdoesthatmean Now devide these 300/60 and you get 5h for 150 bikes. Thats less then 100 bucks in labour cost. The sram casettes are roughly 150€ more expensive than anything from shimano
Making mecahincal shifters is more expensive because you have to manufacture/machine a lot of intricate "analog" parts that enable shifting versus making a PCB and simple buttons. It is almost like an analog watch vs a digital watch.
@@superpoopertrooper9884 Yeah shifters but not derailleurs and mechs. And still the msrp on eTap shifters is higher than on mech/di2 shimanos. If a customer buys the whole groupsets and brings them to a bike shop, the 300-500€ cheaper groupset cant get outweight by maybe 1h more of labour time.
I think being able to take the batteries off the bike for charging is a big plus. I wouldn’t want to pull my whole bike up to a power outlet everytime it needs to charge. Therefore I find the SRAM approach way more convinient.
As I come from a technical background (software engineering) and consider upgrading from a mechanical to electric shifting the SRAM Etap solutions "simply makes sense". Too bad as my mechanical Shimano 105 is excellent but in comparison their flawed Di2 design may not be enough to stop me from jumping ship.
I don’t get the why people give a constant shoutout to a wireless system like SRAM, unless you switch group sets every other day. No groupset is truly wireless, since you still have to deal with brake hoses, and adding a couple of wires when you install a Shimano system is not a big deal. Especially when you consider the fantastic battery life of Di2.
I’ll say that dealing with disconnected di2 cables and trying to fish them out of the bb/seattube is a pain whenever it happens. Also (and this may be a thing of the past) but when flying with bikes I’ve had the issue of trying to explain to airport employees that the battery is within allowed specs for the hold. And trying to remove a di2 battery at the airport is not something you ever want to do.
Hope not. Nothing worse than big ugly batteries hanging off the bike. Inside the frame and 2 wires not visible is better. The only people who don't think so are bike mechanics and I don't see them lowering their prices for the reduced work
Mainly because as a consumer, shimano shifts better. And what does installation matter to us as consumers, when all we have to do is THROW money at the bike builder to spec what we want. I will pay for Shimano Di2. I won’t pay for sram AXS. How difficult it is to build, is NOT my damn problem. That’s the bike shop’s problem.
Di2 semi wireless is a half-arsed kludge. You get shifter battery life of wireless with the inconvenience of internal wiring which often requires the BB to be removed if a cable comes loose. Either go 12 speed mechanical 105 or go full wireless SRAM/Campag.
@@PatrikStutz agreed. are optional. But then if fully wired, I have wires running everywhere once again including through headset on many modern bikes. I may as well save $ and go mechanical and have the same problems but cheaper.
There might be pressure from businesses but there is also pressure from customers. A lot of people want Shimano, especially on road bikes. I have e-tap and axs on several bikes and I wouldn't ever want it on a road bike. FD is much worse, cassettes have weird ratios with huge jumps on lower end which makes it not as fun to ride in the mountains, charging batteries all the time is annoying. I honestly think mechanical Ultegra 8000 is miles better than anything SRAM ever put on the market. Di2 is a bit nicer still but not by much. I understand it's all patent mindfield but SRAM made several mistakes for road which make it an inferior option for many road users (especially those who ride in the mountains). No wonder their pros get to ride a nicer setup (bigger chainrings with smaller cassettes which have normal ratios like 10-30 one but that's not rideable for most normal people, even fit ones unless they don't have any climbs around. Is it a pain to setup? Sure but it's like 100$ difference in labor costs, less in most places in the world. It sucks SRAM can't get around FD patents as otherwise we would all have better groupsets available by now (SRAM has much better clutch and power meters, Shimano has much better FD and better gear ratios because of it).
The danish anchovy and Roglich SRAM had one bys with pizza sized rear cassettes to win their respective GTs last year. Personally on a couple of my road bikes both eTap have Durace rear cassettes and wheels. My mechanical travel bike has SRamano- SRAM red cassette Durace rear long cage derailleur and shifters with Quark DZero / SRAM power meter 53/39 chain ring. Werks great
@@ofeykalakar1 Yeah but if you are not a pro you can't change cassette every ride so you have to choose something and SRAM cassettes suck for mountain riding as you spend a lot of time there on 3 biggest cogs and jumps there are uncomfortably big. It seems you agree as you are using Dura Ace cassettes instead of SRAM ones :)
So much focus on the build time, and so little focus on the actual performance of the groupset. It's worth spending time to get a working FD (Shimano). The build time is nothing compared to how many hours you use the bike.
I just bought 2 LTwoo electronic setups ,work perfect & easy setup with incredible simple app & u can use on 10-12 speed unlike shimano who make u buy separate groups for each speed then theres Wheeltop who take it further with complete wireless with 7-13 speed compatibility,shimano too little too late & overpriced
Internal cable routing via the headset is idiotic. stupid. I want to buy an new endurance bike. I don't care about aero impact of 2 cables. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND A NEW ENDURANCE BIKE WITHOUT HEADSET ROUTING?
Very easy answer - customer preference. I dislike SRAM brake feel and don't have a good opinion of them from design perspectives too.
Wireless may be good for shops and factory but I like 1 big battery that I maintain 4x per year. You've got to run hydraulic hoses anyway so the difference isn't as stark as he's suggesting.
Silly comment really when you wouldn’t believe how quickly a production line technician can drop a seat post with a battery and two wires hanging out of the bottom of it into a frame and through the Di2 frame holes. We are talking a couple minutes and once fitted Di2 is a lighter and superior product to anything on the market. The refinement and fit and finish on Shimano is on another level. On group sets with no front mech it makes sense to put the battery in the rear mech so it’s the future for MTB and gravel Shimano products. The SRAM system is an excellent idea and so simple though. They deserve huge respect for what they’ve achieved in the last 5/10 years ✊🏻 Campag doesn’t deserve to be still in business 🤦🏻♂️
They do have a fully wireless system- go figure
Hard to beat Shimano 12 speed Di2. Unmatched shifting precision.
I don't think that is an argument. 2 bikes with axs, they shift smooth as butter too.
How extensive are SRAM patents for the positioning of the battery? Not sure that Shimano are able to go totally wireless in any practical/efficient manner. SRAM’s system for detachable/interchangable batteries is very neat - and Shimano would need to find an alternative solution which didn’t infringe IP.
Yes,I was always under impression Shimano was unable to do fully wireless before because of SRAM Patents. It’s a notorious minefield. Campagnolo mentioned the issues they had navigating all the patents on their latest groupsets.
I still don't understand how they can patent batteries that are interchangeable between stuff. It's as if Milwaukee was the only brand that had batteries interchangeable between all their tools.
@@Willard_guy I agree. I think it’s crazy that patent got allowed.
@@Willard_guy The problem is that it takes years to get a patent struck and it's expensive. In the meantime you can't really sell your product (at least in the US) because the patent holder will get an injunction (see AppleWatch for a current example).
Patents aren't really given based if they work or not, or even if they make sense. Purely on the question: Has anybody else patented this before? And I am sure SRAMs patent lawyers filed the patent in a way that made it appear / sound novel and thus they got the patent.
Shimano, Campagnolo et. al. can try and get the patent struck, but it'll take years.
Considering Campy and every major Chinese groupset manufacturer has full wireless, its probably not extensive. I think this is more copium then anything by Shimano fans.
Nothing wrong with Shimano's semi wireless implementation. How many times do you have to touch the battery and 2 wires once it's installed ? If your answer is greater than zero, then you should sell your bike.
Until you change your seat post 😂
I agree on the fact that Shimano is behind. The fact that not that many people are getting SRAM is because of their weird smaller cranks and cassette. It has been proven that bigger gears are more efficient regarding chain "flexing" around the gears.
I'd rather have an 11 small one than a 10 one, and since I currently ride mostly alone I run a 12-25 (to get the 18 cog instead of the 11 that I would almost never use). I'd rather have 53-39 (or even 52-36 (current setup) or 54-40) than a 48-whatever SRAM is pushing out. I think Racers feel the same too, that's why SRAM had to come out with bigger chainrings, but they aren't available to the public, or are very rare.
Honestly this is only the case for the road. MTB is fully dominated by SRAM and gravel is mostly SRAM. 5 watt penalty doesn’t matter for anyone that isn’t a top end pro. Aero socks are more of a difference in watt savings.
Also the small gears also speak to non pros.
What's so hard about those two Di2 cables? It's as easy as 1-2-3. Brand new frame it's extra 2 minutes tops. Old frame maybe 5-10 min. The extra battery life is totally worth it.
Now imagine building 150 bikes with an extra 2 minutes
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
@@YeahwhatdoesthatmeanJust add cost of 2 minutes of labor to every bike? It's negligible in comparison to the cost of the whole thing. I don't think it's 2 minutes though, more like an hour or two for some frames. I was building my own Aethos with 12 speed di2 with a mechanic friend and routing the FD cable was a bit of a pain and the rear one while easy still required a bit of care.
@@Yeahwhatdoesthatmean Now devide these 300/60 and you get 5h for 150 bikes. Thats less then 100 bucks in labour cost. The sram casettes are roughly 150€ more expensive than anything from shimano
Labour cost versus equipment cost…. You are not considering how cheap the first build Labour cost is
Making mecahincal shifters is more expensive because you have to manufacture/machine a lot of intricate "analog" parts that enable shifting versus making a PCB and simple buttons. It is almost like an analog watch vs a digital watch.
@@superpoopertrooper9884 Yeah shifters but not derailleurs and mechs. And still the msrp on eTap shifters is higher than on mech/di2 shimanos. If a customer buys the whole groupsets and brings them to a bike shop, the 300-500€ cheaper groupset cant get outweight by maybe 1h more of labour time.
@@superpoopertrooper9884 Nope. Once set up and with volume... CNC is cheap as chips. Pulling cables through frames... also pennies.
I think being able to take the batteries off the bike for charging is a big plus. I wouldn’t want to pull my whole bike up to a power outlet everytime it needs to charge. Therefore I find the SRAM approach way more convinient.
As I come from a technical background (software engineering) and consider upgrading from a mechanical to electric shifting the SRAM Etap solutions "simply makes sense". Too bad as my mechanical Shimano 105 is excellent but in comparison their flawed Di2 design may not be enough to stop me from jumping ship.
I don’t get the why people give a constant shoutout to a wireless system like SRAM, unless you switch group sets every other day. No groupset is truly wireless, since you still have to deal with brake hoses, and adding a couple of wires when you install a Shimano system is not a big deal. Especially when you consider the fantastic battery life of Di2.
Placing a battery and more electronics onto the derailleur also makes it more prone to (expensive) damage
I’ll say that dealing with disconnected di2 cables and trying to fish them out of the bb/seattube is a pain whenever it happens. Also (and this may be a thing of the past) but when flying with bikes I’ve had the issue of trying to explain to airport employees that the battery is within allowed specs for the hold. And trying to remove a di2 battery at the airport is not something you ever want to do.
Every electronic mechanicals on group rides is ALWAYS caused by someone with SRAM. Battery contact issues or dead battery.
Wireless disc brakes will be a game changer.
It would be heavy since you need a multiple motors (for redundancy) to actuate the calipers. Though on the plus side, adding ABS would be a trivial.
I still have my Trek 5200 with mechanical 2x10 and it shifts better than I remembered when I rode it last. Still love my 2x11 DI2 Trek Emonda better.
knowing shimano, it will not be compatible with any prior di2 versions
Have you guys had a look at the wheeltop eds tx?
YEP
Hope not. Nothing worse than big ugly batteries hanging off the bike. Inside the frame and 2 wires not visible is better. The only people who don't think so are bike mechanics and I don't see them lowering their prices for the reduced work
How ya gonna have folks talkin bout electronic shifting and some havent event ridden it. 🤣
Mainly because as a consumer, shimano shifts better.
And what does installation matter to us as consumers, when all we have to do is THROW money at the bike builder to spec what we want.
I will pay for Shimano Di2. I won’t pay for sram AXS. How difficult it is to build, is NOT my damn problem. That’s the bike shop’s problem.
Di2 semi wireless is a half-arsed kludge. You get shifter battery life of wireless with the inconvenience of internal wiring which often requires the BB to be removed if a cable comes loose. Either go 12 speed mechanical 105 or go full wireless SRAM/Campag.
I agree. But wireless shifters are optional AFAIK, so if there's the option, just pick the fully wired version.
@@PatrikStutz agreed. are optional. But then if fully wired, I have wires running everywhere once again including through headset on many modern bikes. I may as well save $ and go mechanical and have the same problems but cheaper.
There might be pressure from businesses but there is also pressure from customers. A lot of people want Shimano, especially on road bikes. I have e-tap and axs on several bikes and I wouldn't ever want it on a road bike. FD is much worse, cassettes have weird ratios with huge jumps on lower end which makes it not as fun to ride in the mountains, charging batteries all the time is annoying. I honestly think mechanical Ultegra 8000 is miles better than anything SRAM ever put on the market. Di2 is a bit nicer still but not by much. I understand it's all patent mindfield but SRAM made several mistakes for road which make it an inferior option for many road users (especially those who ride in the mountains). No wonder their pros get to ride a nicer setup (bigger chainrings with smaller cassettes which have normal ratios like 10-30 one but that's not rideable for most normal people, even fit ones unless they don't have any climbs around.
Is it a pain to setup? Sure but it's like 100$ difference in labor costs, less in most places in the world. It sucks SRAM can't get around FD patents as otherwise we would all have better groupsets available by now (SRAM has much better clutch and power meters, Shimano has much better FD and better gear ratios because of it).
The danish anchovy and Roglich SRAM had one bys with pizza sized rear cassettes to win their respective GTs last year. Personally on a couple of my road bikes both eTap have Durace rear cassettes and wheels. My mechanical travel bike has SRamano- SRAM red cassette Durace rear long cage derailleur and shifters with Quark DZero / SRAM power meter 53/39 chain ring. Werks great
@@ofeykalakar1 Yeah but if you are not a pro you can't change cassette every ride so you have to choose something and SRAM cassettes suck for mountain riding as you spend a lot of time there on 3 biggest cogs and jumps there are uncomfortably big. It seems you agree as you are using Dura Ace cassettes instead of SRAM ones :)
it will be great. at some point if you can charge your bike you won't be able to ride.
That's progress.
I will stick to rim brakes and mercancal gearing cheaper and easier to maintain nothing against electric gearing just the price is putting me off
Fully wireless, so cable actuated?
unnecessary complication. traditional setup is perfectly fine
You’re already running brakes. 2hrs more for drivetrain, you need a new mechanic
So much focus on the build time, and so little focus on the actual performance of the groupset. It's worth spending time to get a working FD (Shimano). The build time is nothing compared to how many hours you use the bike.
I just bought 2 LTwoo electronic setups ,work perfect & easy setup with incredible simple app & u can use on 10-12 speed unlike shimano who make u buy separate groups for each speed then theres Wheeltop who take it further with complete wireless with 7-13 speed compatibility,shimano too little too late & overpriced
Internal cable routing via the headset is idiotic. stupid. I want to buy an new endurance bike. I don't care about aero impact of 2 cables. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO FIND A NEW ENDURANCE BIKE WITHOUT HEADSET ROUTING?
the whole point is that people who now they know and they want shimano. Sram is mostly sold to new cyclist.