Re: Suspension losses

Am Sun, 12 Jan 2025 07:22:01 -0500 schrieb zen cycle
<funkmasterxx@hotmail.com>:

On 1/11/2025 4:22 PM, Wolfgang Strobl wrote:

Am Sat, 11 Jan 2025 00:06:46 -0500 schrieb zen cycle
<funkmasterxx@hotmail.com>:
 
 

I'm no fan of electronic shifting - it would be just my luck to be on
planed 4-6 hour ride, and have something crap out at the furthest point
from the car/house. That said, I'm never going back to discrete shifters.

 
It isn't that difficult to carry a CR2032 and a tiny 25 g rechargeable
battery somewhere. The coin cell lasts about two years, the battery is
good for about 800-1000 km. Both warn early via LED on the device or via
a Garmin Edge computer, for not having to care during a 4-6 hour ride.
 

>
I can't tell you how many times I leave the house and forget my wallet.
Adding trying to remember to carry a spare battery is only part of the
problem though.

This is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, though.  After having
left my house key behind once, I learned my lesson, I just check having
the correct key, before closing the door, every time.

I don't check batteries, when doing a day trip, simply because

- the Edge 1030 does that for me
- I would recharge the rechargeable batteries, before doing a multi
  day trip
- I can't forget the batteries, because I carry spares in a bag that
  stays on the bike.
- I carry a phone and enough money on my local trips in order to be
  able to call a taxi to take me and the bike home.

See <https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/20230609/P1068954.jpg>,
the bag on the top tube is screwed to the top tube.

So there isn't really anything special to remember. I carry some
minature tools, too, a TPU tube, just in case. It is a sortiment that
gets adjusted depending on circumstances, but rarely. YMMV.

Checking and carrying one one of my cameras is more of a hassle. The
SD-Card has to be emptied, sometimes. The batterie has to be checked and
charged. But I carry a spare one for the camera, too.

>
The other issue is the failure rates associated with a complex
electro-mechanical systems VS a simple cable derailleur system. (Since I
conduct FMEDAs as part of my role, I'm well-aware of the exponential
failure rates associated with increased complexity).

Problem is, you don't have reliable and useable statistics, neither for
cables nor for wireless shifters. So this is still just guesswork.
Admiring the simple construction of a Bowden cable won't help you if
you're stranded far out with a broken cable and don't have a
replacement. Or if the highly complex inner workings of a mechanical
gearshift handle that is no longer sold have become defective.  I
experienced both, in the past.

>
Since I've been seriously riding in the early 1980's, I've never had a
problem associated with a shifting mechanism that I couldn't handle with
a simple road/trail side repair, except for the few times when I've
sheared the derailleur off in the woods.

Actually, my wife would have stranded last year somewhere in the middle
of nowhere, if we wouldn't have done the tour together. So I cycled the
ten or twenty kilometers back to our accommodation, got into the car,
drove back and loaded the bike into the trunk. 

What happened? Well, the saddle clamp broke. As it turned out, the clamp
included by the frame supplier for her bike was a cheap lemmon. It is
almost impossible to ride up a steep hill without a saddle. The clamp on
my bike was fine. But of course, I replaced both clamps, before riding
again. I was quite annoyed that I didn't inspect the seat clamps more
closely when I built the bikes. Lesson learned ...

THe saddle clamp is almost the simplest mechanical part of a bike that I
can think of.

If your E-shifting mechanism
fails for any reason other than the battery going dead, you're pretty
much stick in whenever gear it left you in.

Not true. It is possible to shift in both directions by pushing a tiny
button on the derailleur. Good enough to get home.  Doing something
similar with a broken Bowden cable is possible, but difficult. I doubt
that your average cyclist can do it.

It happended with the purely mechanical shifter on my former bicycle,
that part broke beyond repair, without warning, during the last ride
before our yearly vacation. Just by luck, I found a dealer who still had
a replacement in stock, so that I got the bike back one day before
departure.

I wouldn't use consider wireless shifting on a bike intended for a trip
around the world or through a developing country. But I wouldn't use
most of what has been sold during the past three decades as a purely
mechanical system, either.

I don't begrudge anyone for wanting E-shifting. I think it's a great
technological advancement. The few times I've ridden E-shifting systems,
I've been impressed with the accuracy, repeatability, and quickness of
the shifts. But I don't see those advantages of being worth the extra
cost and risk of failure.

Extra cost is a thing, indeed. But that will change.  Small actuators,
tiny CPUs and ANT+/BLE variants aren't rocket science or really new,
anymore. IMO, a reliable E-shifting system like those currently sold by
Shimano and SRAM could be built to be both more reliable and cheaper
than their older mechanical counterparts (say Shimano R8000). Fewer
mechanical parts, even fewer electronic parts with a known MTBF would
allow that. Given that we a surrounded by long lived electronic devices
that are far more complex than these very simple E-Shifting systems, it
needs really bad luck or bad intentions to make them short-lived.
Actually, it is a wonder that modern cars don't break shortly after
leaving the factory. :-) And of course, I don't know how reliable those
electronic parts from SRAM and Shimano really are. But I know that some
mechanical shifters from Shimano are less reliable than I like.

That's just my opinion, YMMV.

Sure. :-) So far, most of this is just guesswork. Wait and see ...


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