Further to last Friday’s post, a reader has some charred bicycles:
And so I am dispatching one that is in marginally better condition:
Thank you very much to all who contributed towards the shipping costs. I have now put in the order with Bikeflights and am just waiting for the shipping label. So far, proceeds have come in a bit under the total shipping costs, but making up the difference won’t ruin me:
I mean you’re still free to throw in a few yen if you want, but it’s actually worth it to me either way since I need the space–and yes, I have officially reached such an obscene level of decadence that I have so many fine bicycles I’m willing to pay to get rid of one. (Oh, and I guess to help somebody whose house burned down, but the best kind of helping is when it helps you too.)
Hey, what can I say? Life could be worse. I’ve got myself a sumptuous clowder, spanning everything from beautiful lugged bicycles with ample tire clearance and mechanical drivetrains:
To beautiful lugged bicycles with ample tire clearance and mechanical drivetrains:
And while I may deride the cycling media from time to time, I’d like to thank them sincerely for publishing stories like this, since they do more to undermine the primacy of electronic shifting than my incessant and tedious anti-battery screeds ever could:
Consider:
When they’re working, the performance these systems enable you to achieve is unmatched by mechanical alternatives, but their Achilles heel is once they’ve run out of battery power, they are useless. They can even become a hindrance.
Okay, before we go any further, let’s make one thing abundantly clear:
You suck.
You may like electronic drivetrains better than mechanical ones, and that’s perfectly fine. We all like what we like. For all my religious fervor on the subject, if someone enjoys riding a replica of Tadej Pogačar’s bike more than the sorts of fop chariots I espouse then I certainly respect that. I had a Tan Tenovo with Di2 and I liked it too! But it’s important to understand that you are not “achieving” any “performance,” unmatched or otherwise, because batteries. Whether a bike is metal or plastic, or mechanical or digital, here’s the simple truth: the people buying the bikes suck, the people reviewing the bikes suck, and most of the people designing the bikes suck. You suck, I suck, we all suck. Whether the buttons are electronic or mechanical doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at the numbers:
Right, so there are around 1,500 professional riders out there versus half a million riders with UCI race licenses. So only .3% of those license holders are good enough to receive some sort of sponsorship or compensation. Not three percent. POINT THREE PERCENT.
And of that POINT THREE PERCENT, only the very best riders compete at such a high level that an electronic drivetrain might actually net them some tiny performance advantage in certain very specific situations. (That’s accounting for the fact they also have a full-time support structure behind them including a team of people whose only job it is to keep their bicycles running absolutely perfectly at all times.) Really, of that POINT THREE PERCENT, maybe like 15% are “achieving” better “performance” from their electronic equipment.
Similarly, there are way more riders out there than those half a million UCI license holders, from local Club Freds with their USA Cycling licenses to the incalculable number people out there with no licenses at all who think they need Dura-Ace to Cat 6 you on the bike path.
So you could probably move that decimal point at least a few more places to the left, but what the hell, I’m feeling generous.
Once you accept this objective truth, you can really enjoy the irony of passages like this one:
Once the charge level drops, it’s prudent to be mindful of gear selection because your battery may give out without further warning. This means not shifting into the lowest or highest gears unless absolutely necessary.
If you stay around the middle of the cassette, when your battery dies you’ll at least be stuck in a fairly ubiquitous gear suitable for the widest range of terrain.
So almost no riders are realizing any performance gains from electric drivetrains, but even the lousiest and suckiest among us are certainly netting massive ones from our mechanical drivetrains that allow us to shift as much as we want without ever having to worry about battery life. (Being able to, you know, shift on a climb is a pretty big performance gain.)
Then there’s this, which absolutely boggles the mind:
If you’ve run out of juice in a key component such as your dropper post or gears while on a ride, make life easy for yourself by taking a breather and working out if you can optimise your return route.
Finding a flatter, more direct route back will minimise the need for gear shifting, or dropping your seatpost. This is especially applicable to eMTB riding, because mountain bike trails are typically rough and undulating.
Some bike parks and trail centres have access routes for service vehicles, which are not rough or challenging like the trails themselves. These are often signposted, so it can be worth searching around for one of these to travel on if you’re in any difficulty.
LOL. He used “Key component” and “dropper post” in the same sentence! Imagine having to rethink your ride because your electronic telescoping seatpost isn’t working. Also, if there’s one component even the weeniest of weenies could agree doesn’t need to be electronic, you’d think it would be that one. A modern drivetrain has, what, 12 or 13 gears now? I get wanting to “pew, pew” your way up and down a cassette like that, and how it might at least make you feel faster. But a dropper post is either up or it’s down. What is the point of one that can also run out of batteries?
Oh, I guess so you can take the battery out of it when one of your many other batteries runs out:
SRAM AXS systems all use the same battery. This includes RockShox Reverb electronic dropper posts, suspension equipped with Flight Attendant and AXS derailleurs.
If your Reverb dropper post battery dies while riding, you can swap in the battery from your derailleur each time you want to put it up or down. It’s a hassle, but at least you can still raise your saddle before climbs and drop it before descending.
If your AXS derailleur battery runs out, you can swap in the battery from your Reverb dropper and continue using the gears, leaving your dropper post in position.
Except for the little watch batteries in your shifter pods, in which case you’ll have to reach down and press a button on the derailleur itself:
AXS Pod Controllers use coin-style non-rechargeable batteries that last ages. To check them, you can hold the AXS button on the controller and it will show green (6-24 months’ life left), red (1-6 months left), or flash red for a critically low battery (less than 1 month life left).
If you’re unlucky enough to run out of battery power from your AXS controller during a ride, SRAM has built in a clever hack to help you out.
If you lose functionality from the remote, AXS products have a button on the body of the product itself so you can activate its functions. This includes derailleurs (front and rear), dropper posts and Flight Attendant suspension.
Congratulations! You now have something less convenient than a rod shifter:
[From here]
Maybe SRAM should start equipping bikes with ultra-light crabon auxiliary rod shifters just in case your batteries die.
I’m sure Campagnolo’s patent must have expired by now…